How ‘Maa Behen’ reclaims the messy woman

By reclaiming four iconic names, the Netflix film questions why women are still judged by impossible standards of purity and perfection

“Hema, Rekha, Jaya aur Sushma,

Sabki pasand nirma”

Whether you grew up in India in the 1980s or ’90s or even the 2000s, those four names wash over you in a single musical wave — the Nirma jingle. The visuals in the cheerful detergent advertisements might have changed over the decades. But the jingle never left. The names were not accidental. They coincided with some of the biggest female Bollywood stars of the ’80s – women who were widely adored but at the same time were very different from each other. These were also common household names. The jingle in the end, just wanted to say no matter which sphere of society you belong to, you would prefer Nirma to “wash your clothes.”

Suresh Triveni’s Maa Behen, now streaming on Netflix, borrows those four names — Rekha, Jaya, Sushma (Hema takes her own sweet time to appear) — and asks a gleefully subversive question: What if these women were messy, selfish, sharp-tongued, and absolutely done with being good?

Let’s start with the title itself. Maa Behen. In large parts of the Subcontinent, these two words are rarely said together as a compliment. As a phrase, the dyad has long existed in the shadows of abuse and moral policing. Women are granted respect only when they fit into a sanctified role. Triveni takes these words that have long been used to threaten or insult men and to remind women of their sacred roles as mothers and sisters and turns them on their head. The women here are selfish, reckless, frustrated, and contrarian. They are human.

Pay attention to where the film is set: Adarsh Colony. Adarsh means ideal, model, exemplary — the kind of name Indian housing societies love. It carries a promise of respectability, of people living correctly. And who is the family’s most vocal critic in this model colony? A man named Charitra Singh. Charitra means character, specifically moral character. In Indian usage, when someone says a woman’s charitra is bad, it is never neutral. It is a verdict. It is a sentence. Their home itself is named 333 Kripa Bhavan — kripa meaning grace, something the colony has never once shown these women.

The idea of “good” and “bad” women has always been policed by people like Charitra Singh, men and women who live in Adarsh Colonies and appoint themselves the moral guardians of women who never asked for their opinion. The society’s self-appointed moral guardians are often fascinated by the very women they condemn. Respectability depends on having someone to judge. The supposedly wayward woman becomes essential to the performance of virtue. Outrage is rarely just outrage; it is curiosity, obsession, and voyeurism disguised as concern.

This is why the casting works so well. Madhuri Dixit carries decades of cultural baggage as one of Hindi cinema’s most beloved stars. She spent decades being cast as the graceful dancer and devoted lover. Thus, when it is she who plays a character who is free-spirited, it is almost liberating. It feels personal. Jaya, on the other hand, shows us the cost of “goodness” that women have to pay. Despite having lived her life abiding by the laws of society, she ends up failing to be “the perfect daughter-in-law and wife” in a marriage she never wanted.

The TV anchor from the crime show Khalbali narrates Rekha’s imagined life with breathless scandal — she is a disgrace to motherhood, a stain on womanhood. We recognise his voice immediately. We have heard it on news channels, in WhatsApp groups, at family dinners, on evening walks in the colony park. The voice that holds women against an impossible standard and then enjoys telling them they have failed.

Maa Behen is not a perfect film. But its essential argument is airtight. The Nirma jingle gave us four names. Triveni borrows those names and asks us, very politely, to let go. Hema, Rekha, Jaya, Sushma are back. But now, instead of washing things clean, they embrace the mess.

The writer is correspondent, The Indian Express. [email protected]