Book review: Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh by Shrayana Bhattacharya
Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh by Shrayana Bhattacharya. HarperCollins Books.
Whoever would have thought SRK would make an excellent — and effective — research vehicle to track the freedoms of women in middle class India? Shrayana Bhattacharya has pulled that experiment off wonderfully in this book. Putting the lives of six women with their stifling emotional and financial constraints under observation, the author shows us how they all used the film star as a crutch in tough times. Inadvertently, he has been teaching these women new ways of relating to men, money and marriage.
The book is a data-cruncher`s delight, even though the light it throws on the unchanged dismal reality of the Indian woman`s quest for a job/ salary/ the freedom to do what she wants/ the love of her life or failing that last, some amount of love and care in her life, is neither a fresh nor a heartening one.
The book is also an SRK fan`s delight. Bhattacharya is an ardent fan, one who feels no qualms in owning her fandom. She starts off by telling us about her infatuation, one that has lasted over the years, and the impact that fangirling has had on her personal life. Then she selects six women, all SRK fans, and traces their life and career paths for us.
One of the women says he seems considerate and thoughtful when he talks about women, a rare thing in our country where every man can come to seem like an asshole or a predator, or someone fundamentally unable to talk to women. A second woman uses SRK as a map through which she navigates and makes sense of the world. A third woman drowns her sorrow at being rejected by prospective grooms in watching the newest SRK release. A fourth introduces her French boyfriend to the actor `of great talent and unmatched popularity,` as the French government described him when awarding SRK the Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2007. A fifth spontaneously breaks out into the SRK song `Tujhe dekha to yeh jana sanam…` in a giddy moment of exuberance and liberation while talking with the author. A sixth adopts a `Shah Rukh Shiksha Abhiyan` of her own for four years, improving her reading, writing and basic math skills.
Each of these women buck the conformity trend and pay the price, of course. But they carry on undaunted by their circumstances, and we eventually see that what look like capitulations are actually bargains and trade-offs.
Oh, but the inequality. Most of these women find it difficult to watch an SRK film in a theatre given their social constraints, or even on their smartphone, given family disapproval. Their physical movements are constantly policed; they have to fight with tradition and accept losing the fight; they have learned not to `care so much about work outside the home because a man can take it all away from you any time he pleases.` But, and this is telling, love remains fundamental to Indian female life.
These are ordinary women financially and romantically impoverished, in ordinary surroundings, all inspired by SRK to aim for a better quality of life and love. They know the star has feet of clay, they don’t relish watching films where he has played the original incel or a stalker, his darker roles. But they allow him to rise above the roles he essays. He isn’t any kind of feminist icon but he certainly is a female icon. And interestingly, he is not a religious icon for these women. What he is, is a proxy for economic and romantic freedom.
What do (these) women want? To be loved, paid well and left alone to do as they please. I say `these` women because the author is constantly reminding us about and checking her privilege, and willy-nilly, readers who belong to Bhattacharya`s milieu end up doing just that.
And in the end, while it is rather sweet the way these women and many others invest so much in SRK, it`s also rather sad that they need to invent him at all. But there is the fact that his diehard women fans use selected sections of his cinema and imagery as an entry point into traversing trickier terrain and challenging the predetermined trajectories of their lives. As Bhattacharya says, in telling her (and us) why/when/how they turn to SRK, they are telling us why/when/how the world breaks their hearts.
A look at some stats in the book:
- 80% of women need approval from a family member to step outside her house and visit a health centre.
- India ranks in the bottom five of countries when it comes to men helping with domestic chores.
- A 2013 Oxfam report found that 80% of farm work in India is done by women, all the images of sturdy male farmers notwithstanding.
- 64% of women in manufacturing work from home.
- Only 5% of women exercise exclusive control over who they marry.
- India has one of the lowest rates of social mobility in the world.
- India ranks in the bottom five of countries wrt gender gaps in economic participation and opportunity.
- Love is a far more frequent reason for the murder of women than terrorism.
- A 2014 survey across 314 schools in Haryana had 80% of the boys saying the woman`s most important role was that of a homemaker. 67% of the girls concurred.
This ran in The News Minute of 9 March 2022.
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Sheila Kumar • March 10, 2022