Man's World Review

The Indian society is progressing for sure. We have a society where women are receiving better education, more opportunities, more freedom...wait. Really? Are we?

A lot of questions have been hailed at feminism and its ideologies, some of them being: 'Why feminism? Why not equalism, or some other term label?', 'If you want equal opportunities, why have separate seats in public transport for women?', and 'We are not saying no to educating women, but they also need to learn household duties as women...' etc. These are just some of them.

Well, Man's World provides a very different and interesting world-view. What if men got into women's shoes, and were faced with all of those challenges that a woman faces every single day in Indian society?

Kiran is the pampered son of another typical middle-class household. He reads headlines concerning women's struggles for equality, and laughs at how women demand equality but don't want to take responsibilities that come with it. He is agitated by the reservation of seats for women in public transport, and finds the entire hullabaloo over 'mother's job is not easy' overrated and nonsensical. He takes it for granted that his mother and sister would do the cooking and household chores while the men read the newspaper at the table, and criticise the food. He also sends one-liners and P.J.s to his girlfriend every morning without fail. And one day, when his girlfriend invites him for dinner and ditches him at the last minute, his friend convinces him that women use feminism as an excuse to dominate over men. Kiran frantically prays for the order of this world to be reversed, and men to take the place of women. And, voila! His wish is fulfilled, and to his surprise, he finds on his phone the next morning, a number of one-liners sent to him by his girlfriend; his father expecting him to help him with the household chores, and his mother making it sound like she is doing him a huge favour by allowing him to step out and earn. What's more, he finds that women dominate every small and big sector of the society: there are women bus drivers and conductors, women taxi drivers, women at paan bidi shops, women playing cricket on the streets, and yes, an all men's college for promoting men's education!

Father India is the popular Bollywood movie now, since fatherhood is looked upon as a very challenging job. Men at work are objectified and exploited, and favours are demanded of them in order for them to be promoted. Women chase men on streets during late nights, making the roads unsafe for them. Police-women (of course) also add to the exploitation by nonchalance at best, and inappropriate touching at worst. And there are some women who are chivalrous knights in shining armours. Mothers struggle to arrange for their sons' dowry. And men conceive. That's a man's world in Man's World for you.

The director turns the entire society upside-down, giving birth to a topsy-turvy world where gender roles are reversed. Empathy is said to be one of the most important assets of a good psychologist, in order to understand the client by stepping into the client's shoes. That's exactly what Man's World tries to do - it attempts to give the men a taste of their own medicine. And it does so in such a way that it is not in the least preachy or condescending. It causes one to question the extent to which we are revelling in our own fixed mindsets. And it does a fabulous job.