Review : Hari-bhari

Haribhari can be classified as a drama with a social message. I believe it was made with support from the Govt. of India’s Ministry of Health and Family Planning. Unlike the image which “social message” creates this film is neither drab nor dreary, but a really interesting drama. Hari-bhari means “fertile” and is often used in vernacular terms to indicate the fertility of the womb.It is the story of three generations of women of a Muslim family, living in a village in Uttar Pradesh.The women are the grandmother Hasina (Surekha sikri), her daughter Ghazala (Shabana Azmi), Hasina’s daughters-in-law Afsana (Nandita Das) and Najma (Alka Trivedi), and Ghazala’s teenaged daugther Salma (Sachdeva). Out of Hasina’s two sons, the elder Khaleel (Lalit Tiwari), stays in the village with his wife Najma, and tends to the family land, while the younger Kurshid (Rajit Kapoor) works in Meerut, while his wife Afsana stays with his mother and brother’s family.

The story unfolds episode fashion; we get to hear of first one then another issue, and the whole gamut is weaved into tales, interlinked by the fact that all the women belong to the same family. Each women due to her age and circumstance experiences a different set of problems, and the director deals with a host of issues, like illiteracy, ignorance and superstition, lack of control over their own bodies, and lack of female empowerment.

When the film begins, Ghazala has been married several years to a capricious man, Munir (Srivallabh Vyas), who has once again driven her out of the home, because she hasn’t been able to give him a son. Ghazala comes to her mother’s home, where her brother and his wife take her and her daughter in. Of course, despite the fact that Munir is an evil-tempered man, everyone wants her to go back to her husband’s home.

While Ghazala is at her mother’s home, the story focusses on other problems in her family. We see that Najma wants an end to her perpetual pregnancies, and Salma wants to study instead of getting married. We see how Ghazala and Najma help each other in difficult situations, and how Najma, going against her mother-in-law and religious pressures, opts for a sterilization procedure. In contrast to these two, is the semi-educated (uptil class 5th) Afsana, who is a stickler for fundamentalism and calls down Allah’s wrath on Najma’s so-called wrongdoing. Khallel stands by his wife’s actions, and Khurshid (back from Meerut for a few days)supports them too.

Salma, meanwhile shuttles between her father and her grandmother’s homes, chiefly because her father having driven her mother out, now wants to avail himself of Salma’s house-keeping abilities. So, she’s forced to go to his home to cook and clean for him. She tells her mother of having heard of Munir’s plans to remarry. Khaleel tries then to get Munir to take Ghazala back, and agrees when Munir demands a color TV in return. Ghazala does finally refuse to go back to Munir’s house, and wants to give her daughter a better life through education, but society and circumstances do not make it easy for her.

At the end of the movie, Hasina is diagnosed with cancer, because of problems while having many children. Salma has her problems solved because her mother has dropped the idea of her marriage and has agreed to let her study further.

The movie has an arresting storyline, although it is not outrageously eventful. Life goes on, and there are no instantaneous or easy solutions. The director does a marvelous job of marrying reality and fiction into an entertaining yet thoughtful film. The cast (each and everyone of them) is stellar. So if you want to see a quality film, plain and simple, this one is it.