Janhit Mein Jaari is a potent film despite failing to establish balance between gender politics & sex comedy

It is a rare and outrageous thought. To have a woman protagonist play a condom salesperson is a screenwriter’s favourite nightmare, if not altogether impossible to imagine in Hindi films. _Janhit Mein Jaari_ directed by debutant Jai Basantu Singh and written by Raaj Shaandilyaa , who scripted and directed the Ayushmann Khurrana starrer _Dream Girl_ where Khurrana played a cross-voicing man who has phone sex in a woman’s voice with men, attempts the inconceivable: pun intended. A woman who sells condoms to men. After Dream Girl, Shaandilya does a gender crossover of another kind in Janhit Mein Jaari where a small-town girl decides to sell condoms for a living. I can see the all-men storyboard getting excited on the premise level itself. Providentially this is a film that survives the curse of a sensational idea gone wrong. The feisty if fractured film actually manages to make its protagonist Manu’s struggles credible and occasionally persuasive, though there is a lot of humbug in the plot that needed to be scrapped out of the storytelling before making it into theatres. Some of the condom jokes are contrary to the film’s argument in favour of contraceptives.

The bright but blurred narrative is not always able to walk that thin delicate line between defence and satire. And some gags especially the one about a condom pouch and antacid pouch, just seem so abysmally ouch, so cheerless, they should have been trashed from the storyline. The film’s heroine Nushrratt Bharuccha apparently suggested to the film’s makers that the film needed to be trimmed down. But no one listened to her: ironical in a film that succeeds to some extent in giving the female hero a voice even in a small conservative town. This spunky though the flawed film is set in Chanderi, Madhya Pradesh where men don’t use condoms let alone approve of a woman selling them. There are some delectable episodes of gender bashing where Manu (Bharuccha) tries to sell protection in a brazenly patriarchal setup. The male response ranges from disgust and horror to leery amusement. One male specimen looks sympathetically at Manu and says, “Why do you need to do this? Money? I can give you financial assistance.” Eventually, after much hemming hawing hamming (some of the supporting cast behave as though they are a part of Taarak Mehta Ka Oolta Chashmah) Manu, and the script, realize that the onus of using protection during sex must go to women rather than men. Why? Because it is the woman who becomes the victim of unwanted pregnancy. Here is where the screenplay, brave and pathbreaking in its own right, becomes dangerously deflected towards a blind alley where the debate is between condoms and abortions. The film’s heroine naively assumes that unwanted pregnancies are a result of protection-less sex and that abortions are very dangerous to a women’s health. I was reminded of a brilliant film called Never Rarely Sometimes Always where a pregnant girl travels to New York from her home town to get a legal abortion. The anti-abortion pitch in Janhit Mein Jaari is naïve, but excusable, coming from a spunky smalltown girl who wants a change in gender dynamics. But the screenwriters needed to show more maturity in negotiating through their heroine’s inconclusive arguments of sexual politics. Nonetheless, there are many factors that merit applause in Janhit Mein Jaari, notably Nushrratt Bharuccha for making her character powerful yet vulnerable. Interestingly Manu’s husband (well played by newcomer Anud Singh Dhaka) stands by his wife’s unconventional work preference even as his sightless grandfather ( Tinu Anand ) and egoistic father ( Vijay Raaz ) find her condom sales pitch condemnable. Although the film is unable to establish a fine balance between gender politics and a sex comedy it is nonetheless an important film for its argument that women need a stronger voice in bed. Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.