Indian Girls dont want to be like Sunny Leoni

today while scrolling down the youtube, I suddenly paused my search and fingers at the name of a small movie- ‘meri beti sunny banna chahti hai’. On the face, it was shocked to hear about the existence of such a movie but then I decided to watch and analyze the mindset behind the making of such movies. In that eleven minutes movie, there were three characters including a central character- a girl who made her parents shocked on her life goal. She argumentatively tries to convince them that why she wants to become like sunny leoni in her life. Her most obvious logic behind this aim was that just like the way a businessman used to trade his good and services likewise she will also do.

Well, before analyzing and interpreting the movie, its character, storyline, and motto behind it, I want to share a challenging episode of my own life which happened almost a year ago when I was going through the toughest time period of my journey of life . In fact, before proceeding to this too, I want to tell about myself that I am born in a middle-class family in a small village in north India. Being the only sister of two brothers, my parents brought me up like my brothers.

I never felt differentiated. I took in science and double post referring in management and public administration and later qualified UGC NET in both of my master degrees. I later went on to prepare for civil service examinations, where I made it up to the interview level once. Being a distinguished student in my career span I was ambitious but unluckily I find disguised employment only that too only in private sector, none of permanent nature or in the government sector, blame it to the menace of reservation system here. Now, while wishing for some worthy job I kept my search on.

The difficult time made me penniless, hopeless, jobless etc and I was eager to regain respect in my life. In those times I met an individual, in fact, an old age man in his mid-60s, whom I knew from my previous work experiences and always respected as an elder man. Being a rich person, owning dozens of ventures in his name, I asked him for employment-related help. On the face, he admitted quite decently but later he offered me rather more lucrative option wherein he proposed to make me the Managing Director of one of his IT firm in return of something which I could never compromise. That day has shattered me and broken my mind into pieces. I literally cried standing on the street but with a strong mindset, I chose to continue looking for the options and kept trying to find my way.

After around a month I was called to serve at one of the renowned universities. Today, I am well placed here and have told people with the ‘filth in their mind’ that a woman can survive using her intellectual capacities also. She considers need to sell the lower half of her body to feed her stomach rather she has the upper half too- a brain, an intellectual capacity, a thinking power, decision-making ability and much more. Her capacities cannot be undervalued just because she is a woman. Henceforth, while relating back with the original thought of this article I want to say that perhaps the teachings of my parents and seeding of ‘sanskar’ in my childhood, learnings from ‘Arya Samaj’ (Since childhood I saw the performing of Yajja in my father’s home) saved me from making any wrong choice even in whatsoever difficult the time may be.

Tracking back from the historical times, Indian women had a glorious history. India has an exhaustive list of brilliant women – Rani Laxmi Bai, Ahilya Bai Holkar, Amrita Sher Gill, Razia Sultana, Savitri Bhai Phule, Rani Padmavati, Usha Mehta, to the women of Modern India- Kiran Bedi, Kalpana Chawla, Indira Gandhi, Lata Mangeshkar, Nirupama Rao, Sumitra Mahajan, Pratima Patil, Tessy Thomas, Arundhati Bhattacharya to name a few; which should be the ideal for Indian Girls or women. These ladies have made the exemplary contribution for the country. And now in the name of earning just a few bugs, how can a woman accept to get her modesty eroded !!! Even all the women already into the red-light areas are not there by their own will, there may be some serious compulsions or any unavoidable circumstances. The director could have picturized for the rehabilitation of such troubled women.

And to the girls with teenage, the impact of such movie will be certainly negative because of tender age and less knowledge about the world around them, they may get trapped into the clutches of those ill-mindset ideas. I will say definitely it is the product of total and altogether nuisance thought process and nothing to do with practical / real world. This is just another approach to divert the mindset of young girls or women in difficult times. I seriously doubt the intentions of the director behind the making of such a movie. Rather than showing such an idiotic role model to the young girls, he could have shown the stories of achievements of women in India. The viewers also would have appreciated his contributions, intentions for the society, especially women.

Well, I assume that the spirit of India and Indian women never lies in making such ill-choices. They have been known to sacrifice even their lives to save their honor like Rani Padmavati and many more examples can be taken from history. The girls should learn that we had a proud past and irrespective of what cinema forces us to see, we must apply our own discretionary power and try to earn back self-respect to us. Remember, none will respect us until we ourself will not. And yes! we have the capacity to reach in the space missions, we can never put our own dignity on sale.

Ms. Minakshi Sehrawat