SECRET WOMEN’S BUSINESS

napkin to the womenfolk of his village even if he is ridiculed, heckled and thrashed. His mother (Nutan Surya) calls her son a mauga (sissy) so many times that it could be his nickname.

But no, Phullu is not gay. Every man who is interested in menstruation is not gay. Cleverly, debutant director Abhishek Saxena has portrayed Phullu as a virile heterosexual whose marriage to the comely Bigni (Jyotii) triggers off a libidinous binge in Phullu and an antilibidinous outrage in his mother.

“She rubs herself with Lux soap twice every day and he keeps smelling her all day long,” the old lady complains to the neighbourhood gossip.

Phullu’s adoration of his wife reminded me of Nawazuddin Siddiqui in Manjhi: The Mountain Man, though this is far more sexed-up adoration. The use of an old Mukesh song Chand si mehbooba and a memorable romantic trip on a boat across a silent river, convey the love that this man feels for his signi cant other.

The dialogues are voluptuous and swarmy, the way the rural people speak when they talk about bodily functions, specially sex. But some of the actors are clearly amateurs facing the camera for the rst time wearing newlypurchased, loud, unsophisticated saris to look their cheesy parts.

Whatever reservations one may have about the lm’s crude exterior and cruder contact points in the plot where Phullu addresses the menstrual issue, all our misgivings are blown away by Sharib Hashmi’s plot-de ning performance.

He breathes an unvarnished earnestness into Phullu’s part making us believe that a man can actually be this committed to accessing sanitary pads for women who can’t afford them.

Many sections of the lm, like the episode with the well-meaning press reporter (played by Namya Saxena) convey a coarseness of conception and

The only person who steals the show in the lm is Matin Rey Tangu as the young Guo, who Laxman befriends. He is charming with his oriental looks and impish demeanour. The Chinese actress Zhu Zhu plays his mother Liling with air.

Shah Rukh Khan in a cameo with his tattooed visage and ears studded with earrings, as a magician is dead pan and at. He does not help to uplift the narrative or add emotionally to the lm.

Om Puri as Banne Chacha, the guardian of an ashram, Isha Talwar as his daughter Maya, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayub as Narayan with his ‘knock knees’ and Yashpal Sharma as Major Tokras have their moments of onscreen glory.

Overall, Tubelight has the tempered magic of cinema but it fails to ignite the emotional quotient.

Troy Ribeiro

an inelegance of execution that make us cringe. But there is much heart to Sharib Hashmi’s role, and a genuineness about his character’s mission to make every woman’s time of the month, comfortable.

Phullu gets you not for any discernible cinematic qualities, but for just being what it is: a lm about a simple innocent rustic man who wants to make women comfortable. Period.

Subhash K. Jha