Those who reduce the feminist struggle to either/or certitudes just don't get it. Feminism is not about pitting one woman against another, be it the professional against the domestic, or the salwar-kameez clad against the one in jeans. Feminism, instead, is about offering the Indian woman a rich cultural milieu in which she has the right to choose between varieties of options, as well as the right to live in dignity, no matter what those personal choices. Perhaps picking up on this democratic notion of feminism, some recent Hindi movies have framed unconventional social attitudes in their quest to explore a range of hitherto taboo issues including pre-marital sex, unfulfilled female desires, pregnancies out of wedlock, widow remarriage, divorce.

Central to this shift in themes and characters is the metamorphosis of the Indian woman from one who suffers in silence in the face of inimical social and economic circumstances to one who wrests agency and asserts herself without making compromises. Happily missing from the new plots is the woman who values her own self only through the eyes of others, commits injustices upon herself in the name of sacrifice, and/or willingly subordinates herself to ...

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