'Lipstick Under My Burkha' is a metaphor about hidden desires: Director Alankrita Shrivastava

After the world premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival, Alankrita Shrivastava's much talked about Lipstick Under My Burkha will return to India for the MAMI festival. In a free-wheeling chat, the 36-year-old director talks about the inspiration behind the film and the aspirations of ordinary women in small towns and tier two cities.

Your film has an interesting title: Lipstick Under my Burkha. What did you want to convey through the name?

It's a metaphor about hidden desires; about the things we want but sometimes may not be able to express. It's also about the secret lives of four women.

The film is set in Bhopal. Is there a sexual reawakening in small towns and tier two cities?

There is a reason why the film was set in Bhopal. With the changes in India, spurred by rising consumerism and digital revolution, I feel that women too are on the brink of some kind of a change. Earlier, their aspirations used to be completely suppressed. Today, the milieu is such that it has become very hard to contain these desires. We are living in interesting times in terms of women's voices. The big cities may have already witnessed that change; now the smaller ones are in the throes of transition. The characters depicted in the film are also on the brink of transformation. Lipstick... tries to capture that moment of change.

Your protagonists are women from middle- and lower middle-class families. Was that a conscious choice since they have been, historically, the most oppressed lot, shackled by patriarchal values?

I must say these shackles are both external and internal and they exist in different forms. The film was born out of the feeling that I am bound by some shackles within. I come from an educated, liberal, upper middle-class family. Even so, I sense that there is something inside me that keeps holding me back. I wanted to explore that feeling. Rather than examining it in a milieu like mine — I have already done that in my first film Turning 30 — I thought I should look at it from a different backdrop through characters who are bound by both external and internal limitations. However, what makes this story special is that I don't feel that otherness. I really don't see that much difference between myself and the characters in Lipstick... Even if somebody confronts more external shackles in life, I feel that the true battle is within us. Patriarchy has existed for so many generations that we have already struggled with what we want and how, in the process, we have internalised so many things — those feelings of shame that I do not deserve something or that I can't have it all or that I can't do so much. We have boxed ourselves in due to these internal reservations. I have realised that before taking on the outside world, I need to tackle my biggest enemy, i.e., myself because I don't believe enough in my own self.

How difficult is it to make women-centric films in Bollywood

I am solely interested in working on women's stories because I am fascinated by those characters. I wouldn't be able to make a comparison because I haven't tried to do a film that doesn't have women as central, pivotal characters. Having said that, it's very tough and challenging and, therefore, you can see there had been hardly three-four women-centric films in the recent past. And even when you consider a film like Pink, it works because there is an Amitabh Bachchan. Dangal is such an inspiring story, but it needs an Aamir Khan. Thousands and thousands of films are made about men. So I am very happy with films like Kahaani and Neerja because it means that people are open to watching them. Otherwise, small films on women always get sidelined, which is very, very sad.

We also need to improve the content to feature more nuanced female characters. What we see now is either a heroine or a vamp or a victim. In this triangle, real, layered, complex women are virtually lost. Women can be flawed, funny, crazy, ordinary and extraordinary. They can have many shades, and there is a lot to be explored. The Hindi film industry is definitely doing better than before in this regard, but let us not rest on our laurels.

The film's trailer has notched more than a million views in just six days. What does that tell you?

I am overwhelmed. I wasn't expecting this kind of a response. We uploaded the trailer because we have started doing the rounds on the festival circuit. I have been inundated with congratulatory messages from all over India. It's so heartening to know that people are actually interested in what we are trying to say. It's a sign of change and films like Pink have paved the way. I feel there is some sort of openness to this idea now.