‘Choli Ke Peeche Bra Hai!’ –-

Anjali Chatterjee tells a visibly uncomfortable Rocky inside a lingerie shop in the film Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. This scene from Karan Johar’s latest (and possibly his ‘wokest’) film stands out in how it subverts the iconic Khal Nayak (1993) song featuring Madhuri Dixit and Neena Gupta gyrating to the catchy tunes of ‘Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai’.

‘Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai’ has given us more than just catchy tunes, though. An entire generation of millennials would grow up to this song playing in the background of the public spaces we have encountered in the twenty years since its release, in clubs and even family functions. Not just that, the suggestive lyrics have been, for so long, promptly instrumentalized to harass several women.

So, when Churni Ganguly’s Anjali–evidently done with Ranveer Singh’s Rocky squirming at the sight of women’s undergarments–says that it is really nothing but a bra behind the choli (blouse), as a woman, you find it cathartic. Especially, because the predominant male gaze in pop culture’s conventional portrayal of the female anatomy – zooming into a heaving cleavage here, the navel on a hairless, washboard stomach there – builds a sense of mystery around the female body. Such that, the camera looks at women as objects of desire and not as functional bodies. And for the same reason, while we get excited to see titillating shots of the female body, we are uncomfortable to see a woman breastfeeding in public. 

…the camera looks at women as objects of desire and not as functional bodies.

The gaze expects the woman to be ideal to be looked at and for this, maintaining the mystery of what is behind the blouse is important. This particular scene in the film subverts exactly that. 

Johar and his team of writers also attempt to counter the gaze by situating Ranveer Singh’s character as the subject of objectification. In the scene, Rocky is made to wear a bra for Anjali to gauge better how the garment would look and the camera pans to Rocky’s flinching face, evidently uneasy at the attention leading to an outburst. After getting an earful from Anjali, Rocky goes on to defend that his ignorance/uneasiness stems from the respect he has for women. 

The gaze expects the woman to be ideal to be looked at and for this, maintaining the mystery of what is behind the blouse is important.

We probably know many such well-meaning men around us. Men, who respect women, (going to the extent of even pedestalising them – ‘Aurat ghar ki lakshmi, devi…’, etc.) but are blissfully oblivious to many things, such as how they find the chaddis they wore a day before, cleaned and kept neatly folded the next day. And the same men most definitely do not know or are indifferent (blame patriarchy) to how female bodies do so much more than just appear. The chaddis we wear are not always thongs (get stuck at the wrong places), a lot of us prefer comfortable, breathable cotton underwear that will not chafe against our cellulite thighs and that sometimes our chaddis stain with period blood and discharge. Uncomfortable to hear but yes, choli ke peeche it is truly just a worn-out bra that has now become comfortable because the underwire doesn’t cut through our flesh anymore.