Dor — a review

Does it come to us as a surprise that youth who seek independence and self-reliance are labelled either with some form of madness or seen in such deviant terms? The recently released Hindi movie Dor (The thread) revolves around a woman (played by actress Gul Panag), who marries her husband on her own accord, but is described in one scene as characteristically mad by her muslim father-in-law.

The film Dor (The thread) revolves around a woman (played by Gul Panag) whose husband has been given a death sentence for killing a fellow Indian in an Arab country, where justice is based on 'an-eye-for-an-eye' principle, unless of course the closest relative of the vicim pardons the offender. She thus goes in seach of the wife of the deceased in the state of Rajasthan, with nothing more than a photograph to help.

Before she sets out on this seemingly impossible endeavour, in a defining scene, her old muslim father-in-law is told by a lorry driver that it would be madness to go in search of an unknown person in such a big state, at which the father laughs and says snidely, "Anyway this girl too is mad!" In an interesting re-take on this, later in the film, she is asked by her male co-lead (and her 'protector' in the story), as to which mad person would set out on such an endeavour, to which she replies, "Me".

Nothing does more disservice to the cause of the film than the insistence of the script that the lead female character be portrayed in the language of insanity, as abnormal, on the pretext of heading on a seemingly impossible search mission. It is not surprising that a 'normal' woman would go to such an extent in order to save her husband. The comment therefore can only be seen as a real portrayal, though on the sidelines, of the lead in terms of abnormality.