My Date with Queen

Recently I went on an evening date with Queen. I had been long back planning for this and finally managed to find time for her. Now don’t take it in a wrong sense. It was anything but romantic and fantasy that tickles your brain. It was refreshing, fun, realistic and heartwarming. Unusually engaging. Oh!! What do I say about her? I don’t have words to make my thoughts make sense at least to some extent. She was everything I ever dreamt of. She is the woman of my Bharathi’s dream. She is that unique yet addictive flute note of my Rahman.

“OH cut it off!! That’s getting dramatic.”

Well... I can hear some of you saying that. Ya, even I feel that’s too much for a prelude. Now coming to the point, Queen is nothing but a movie which I watched recently. (Pat yourself, if you have found that already, even if it was a giveaway). I fell in love with Queen the instant she gave back her engagement ring to her fiancée and walked on the road with her smile describing the true happiness she has in her heart. That’s totally not who she was few days back. She had the same yet different smile before her wedding which gets called off. The smile is different where before it expressed her ignorant, wishes towards fantasy which she grew up with, that is going to come true soon and later the smile of wisdom she attained from the freedom of letting herself out and explore. I liked her in the beginning of the movie because she reflected more than half of the Indian women whose thoughts are driven only by their male counterpart. I loved her in the end because she reflected the one whom I wanted every woman in India to be.

This is not a movie about an overnight make over or a girl behaving like a guy to portray feminism. This movie silently explains that feminism is not standing against men or patriarchal society, but realizing that women can make independent decisions on their life and has all the right to live life the way they want to even if its wrong to some eyes.

My Idea is not to write another review of the movie. I just wish to share few scene that made this movie special atleast for me.

We have Rani who has just survived a called-off marriage trauma, a much expected marriage which was the only thing she lived her last few months of life for and in her mind which was the next life time of days she dreamt of living. Now her fiancée calls of the marriage saying “It’s better this way”, she gets heartbroken and locks herself in her room for a day and cries her heart out. It’s the conventional concept of marriage in here and the social expectations attached to it, led to her fear to meet the people outside. But she doesn’t give herself away that easily. After getting fed up of crying, she decides to go on her honeymoon, to her much dreamt place Paris and Amsterdam, alone. Repeat alone.

Like a lost kid in a carnival, we see Rani initially struggling to fit into the new place. I loved the way Vikas Bahl portrayed her innocence which she carried towards the end. She faces a series of misadventures, almost get mugged by a robber, runs around the streets of Paris imagining that Eiffel tower is following her, buys souvenirs for her family from a sex shop, tries to crack Santa Banta non veg jokes to a her newly got half Asian friend.

There is also a much liked scene, when Rani is in Amsterdam, she calls up her childhood friend to talk about the fun she’s having in Europe. “Tum Europe ghoom lo yaar, hum yahan potty dhote rahenge,” says the friend to Rani. [“You roam around Europe, here I will keep cleaning the potty”] It silently portrays the way the dreams and desires of our girls which silently taking up Sati in the name of marriage.

Queen is totally not our Indian guys want a girl to be. No matter how many movies come, all the praise and standing ovations are bounded only to the four walls of the theatre. Because our Queen drinks and dances in a pub all night, she lives with a group of three men in a single room and roams the city with them, she also explores her interest and excellence in cooking and go over to win a contest and also we see her having her first kiss with the Chef and finally dumps her fiancée and goes for a Rock show with her friends. Now that’s not a girl whom a guy here wants to marry right?? I doubt. Anyway, I just loved every second of it.

Even with some flaws, I loved the movie from the very beginning with Rani regretting her brother isn’t taking photos on her phone to put up on Facebook and ending with a Facebook timeline to accompany the closing credits. It’s a movie about exploration, in this case self-exploration where Rani finds out herself.