90 C. S. BHAGYA
decide karne waali [Who’s the state to decide?]” (‘This is what Censor Board did not
want you to see in Angry Indian Goddesses’ 2015). This essay will examine the
complexities of the depiction of solidarity as a feminist project as suggested through
the portrayal of friendships between the lead characters. Aside from ruminating upon
the problematic nature of retributive justice – prescribed in the film in response to
atrocities committed against women in a patriarchal society – it will also seek to
examine how the titular theme of the ‘deification’ of female characters intersects with
this project and the nuances of treatment therein.
The indicated scenes, offering a preliminary glimpse into the censored material in
Angry Indian Goddesses, suggest that the film, to its credit, holds up important issues
to public scrutiny. Bollywood, despite its glib veneer, is one of the most pervasive
vehicles of opinion-generation within India and Pan Nalin’s objective in producing
this film appears to have been the well-meant desire to illuminate if not to educate.
Central to the film’s plot – and carefully concealed until more than halfway through
the film – is a wedding, later revealed to be the wedding of two women. Frieda
(Sarah-Jane Dias) is a promising young photographer living in a desolate mansion in
the midst of the plush beachside locales of Goa. She invites her girlfriends over for a
seemingly arbitrary holiday, but then surprises them by announcing that they have
been invited to celebrate her wedding, which is just around the corner. After keeping
them guessing about the whereabouts of the ‘groom’, she finally reveals that it is
Nargis (Tannishtha Chatterjee) – a female political activist most recently involved in
a dispute with a corporation adamant on building a factory on forcibly acquired land.
The couple has had to arrange for a clandestine wedding,4 since the notorious Section
3775 of the Indian Penal Code (1860) criminalising homosexuality is still writ large
It appears strange that a wedding – clandestine or otherwise – has been organized given the legal
status of same-sex unions in India. It is one of the many plot inconsistencies that speckle the film.
There is no explanation in the film as to whether this is a valid possibility. The culmination of the film
brings no clarity as the wedding does not actually happen.
5
This section has been hauled up for re-examination by the Supreme Court of India as this article is
being written (February 2016), after an appeal was submitted to it by the Naz Foundation in the
aftermath of the re-criminalisation of ‘unnatural’ sexual acts in December 2013 – even though the law
4