There is a pitch, as Kopal Khanna states, that we are all sold from a very early point in our lives. The words may differ, the manner in which it is put forward may be disguised as something else, however, the underlying foundation of it remains the same: ‘Live your life in the way we envision it.’
‘Besharam Ladki’, by Kopal Khanna, then, serves as a canvas for sketching out the fallacy that lies in projecting the idea of individual growth as something that needs to be structured or curated. After all, society does seem to have a vested interest in the lives of those that are completely unrelated to them.
Khanna begins her performance by beseeching her audience to keep a secret for her. As she goes on, we learn she is six months away from hitting 30 and is consistently subjected to questions and perceived opinions regarding her marriage. Ah, yes, that sacred institution that binds people together. You see, India has a fascination with marriage that most other countries cannot hope to match. For us, as a people, life has always been a series of steps that you must take. From getting good grades, to getting a job immediately after we graduate college and then, perhaps most importantly, getting married. Of course, having kids is naturally the next step. Somewhere, along the journey of attempting to build a cultural identity, we have, as a collective, begun to see life as a uniform, structured table rather than the exciting, unpredictable experience it actually is.
I digress. However, I only do so based on what Khanna builds up to in her performance. ‘Besharam Ladki’, as a spoken word performance, isn’t just another rail at societal expectations and pressures. It is, rather, a unique insight into how we, as a society, are consistently trying to maneuver the experiences and lives of others according to our expectations. Sometimes, these expectations become shackles for others, holding them back from truly ever being the person they can be.
Of course, there is a sense of acceptance on Khanna’s part. At the end of ‘Besharam Ladki’, Khanna explicitly states that if being an independent woman, in charge of her own life, leads to being viewed as ‘Besharam’, she whole-heartedly accepts the label. The word, itself, only has power due to the misconstrued perceptions that people have. Once those go, the label is just another empty word, devoid of any value other than the syllables it is composed of.
It does get you thinking, however. What about all the women who couldn’t shake off the label as just another word? The women who had to give up their own autonomy to pander to these societal beliefs and expectations. Like it was mentioned earlier, Khanna’s ‘Besharam Ladki’ isn’t just another spoken word performance. It makes you sit and think about what projecting your own expectations on another can lead to, the manner in which it can make them deviate their lives. And, for a country such as ours, that’s an incredibly important thought to be pondering over.
