Assi questions us - Are we okay with Rape?

•  A man bonds with his son over a plate of chhole bhature from a street-side stall. He jokes his wife/son's mother can cook mostly all dishes except this particular favourite. of theirs So it is a given that father and son will have it outside. For that matter, some things taste better from roadside stalls, like momos, chowmein, chaat etc. That man is the father of a boy who has been an accomplice in a gang-rape. Son has learnt from childhood - for change of taste in food or sex, you sample it outside. When you don't get it readily, you snatch it. No qualms, no guilt. Women outside are ready meat for satisfying your cravings.
• The survivor is questioned about discrepancies in her statement. She says brokenly - yes there have been discrepancies. She doesn't recognize herself anymore, though outwardly she's the same. She used to love flowers, now she associates them with that terrible night. Her students who were like her children are now asking to be invited to the "event" of raping her.
• "Don't you feel angry?" The police inspector in charge of investigating the case asks the lawyer representing the survivor. "Angry? If you knew how angry women felt, you would know they would have burnt the world twice by now! It's a different matter that they don't want to..." 
• Children come to witness the rape trial in court. The judge asks why have they been allowed? The lawyer says they came to see what future awaits them.

The trailblazing film - Assi, directed by Anubhav Sinha and helmed by the incredible duo of Kani Kasruti and Tapsee Pannu, is a series of such insightful dialogues and scenes.

And every twenty minutes the screen goes red to remind us someone has been raped in our country.

How we have normalized rape - something that is as heinous as, or worse than murder or manslaughter, is what the film pointedly shows us. How the survivor is made to suffer at every step after she has gone through the ordeal, how her very sense of self, her personal life and career are shattered, how the system bends backwards to help perpetrators get away, how if she can't produce concrete evidence in court, the survivor has zero hope of getting justice.

And what justice? A mere imprisonment of the perpetrators? Is it sufficient? Compared to the crime, compared to the scale of devastation, is the quantum of reprieve sufficient?

How does it bring back the shattered self-esteem, the dignity, the wholeness of the woman? Does it deter men from abusing children, babies, invalids, old women? Yes, rape is always by a man, though not all men obviously.

How do children on the streets who suffer abuse day in and day out, get relief? When rape is normalized - in social institutions, in schools, hospitals, and offices, where does the victim go?  What kind of society have we created, where children watch porn, discuss stripping women, make memes and reels on rape? What is the use of making world-class engineers, doctors and IT gurus, when basic humanity has died?

The film asks these questions and many more. Do watch it in theatres. You will not forget it as long as you live.

#AssiTheFilm #AnubhavSinha #KaniKasruti #TapseePannu #nomorerape