Aaja Nachle (2007) is an Indian movie focused on female protagonism. The main character Dia, a dancer, is not a traditional Indian woman as she rebels against the traditions of her family and her society.
The film starts with the marriage between Dia and an American man whom she fell in love with. This relationship caused troubles in her family who didn’t agree with this marriage because of cultural differences. She is a strong woman that didn’t obey these rules and decided to go to USA with him and leave behind all the restrictions that have been inherited for ages. But this decision, made her lose her previous figure in town. People started to disrespect her because she is a divorced woman and judge her for abandoning her family.
She lives in USA for years, gets divorced and has a daughter who goes with her to her town in India in her first visit in years. In this visit, we as spectators see the same oppression practiced upon women even though years passed by. Her daughter represents the new generation of women: an open-minded and liberal little girl.
When Dia goes back to her hometown she finds out that her guru passed away but left her a video message asking her to do her best to save Ajanta Theater from being demolished because raja* decided to build a shopping mall instead.
Ajanta Theatre represents the gender identity (re)construction in the past and the present through performative arts: dance and music. It is the place where Dia finds herself, where she built her dreams and rebelled against traditions. Here the role of art is so important because art is always viewed as a second category thing compared to politics.
Another important point is that oppression against women is considered to be part of politics as well. In this film, everyone at the beginning makes fun of Dia because she’s a female dancer that’s supposedly not allowed to work in the musical/artistic field only because she is a woman. Another obstacle they put to Dia is that raja only gives her one month to try to convince people to make a show on this Theatre, if not it’ll be demolished. Despite this limited time and all these obstacles, Dia doesn’t give up. She keeps on trying to convince people for days to participate in this show. The main reason of people’s rejection was the sense of shame because dance is viewed as a shameful thing especially for women but eventually Dia succeeded in convincing them of the importance of art and uselessness of shopping mall which wouldn’t contribute in the (re)building of history and culture in this town. She said a very important sentence which emphasizes this point: One of my masters once told me that: “Art doesn’t need city but city needs art”. Therefore, no culture or history of country could be created without art and we need collaborate to keep it alive. It took her days of hard work and auditions but all this effort didn’t go in vain and on the premiere of show, it was so successful.
It an important movie that combines between topics of gender, politics and art. Thanks to Dia all her town appreciated the role of art and the legacy of Theatre will last forever. Besides, it isn’t shameful anymore for women to dance. Her daughter as a symbol of following generation witnesses all the causes her mother fought for which gives us hope that the next generation of women won’t be subordinated to traditions and repressive politics anymore.
*Raja: Indian male monarch