UNDERSTOOD MEANING OF PATRIARCHY AFTER I BEGAN WORKING: TAAPSEE

Growing up in an environment where she could question anything and everything, the true meaning of patriarchy came home to her only when she started working in Bollywood, says actor Taapsee Pannu, whose latest Thappad closely examines the issue of domestic violence.

The actor, who has pushed the envelope with films like Pink, Mulk and Saand ki Aankh and now plays a woman who refuses to accept even one slap from her husband, said she is happy she is in a place where audiences can view change through her work.

“I have understood the meaning of the word patriarchy in recent years... like if the father says you cannot go out, you don’t question that. Your mother may agree with you but she is just running the house, so it does not matter. You have to be in the house by 8 pm because guys can’t control themselves,” Taapsee said.

The realisation that this is not okay comes after a lot of questioning, she said, adding that she understood how to make changes in her own life. “Small things about gender parity and pay parity... But you cannot change that by just shouting that ‘this is not right’. You have to ensure people start to recognise that change through your work. Maybe the new generation will not see the difference but the generation next to us will,” she said. Thappad happened after she told director Anubhav Sinha during the making of Mulk that she would now like to work on a film dealing with the everyday problem of domestic violence. The film is set in an affluent Delhi family with Taapsee playing a housewife whose world comes crashing around her after her husband slaps her in a party. Film stars, Taapsee said, are worshipped in a cinema-obsessed country like India and can sometimes use the power in the right direction. “People listen to you. They may agree or disagree with you, but they will listen to you. In this day and age, who has the time to even do that? If you have been given that kind of power, then you can use that power in the right direction sometimes,” she said.

But with great power comes greater responsibility, the actor said. “When, in the beginning, I managed one or two issued-based films and saw that people were listening and the movies had started a discussion, I realised ‘this is power, and one should use it in the right manner’.”

I understood the meaning of patriarchy after I started working, says Taapsee Pannu