panaecea

Today let’s talk about two different stories set in two different backdrops but pivoting around one theme – societal expectations from both men and women in a patriarchal set up – quite explicit in the narrative itself.

The First Story

Zanjeerein (Chains) is a tautly scripted and directed Pakistani drama revolving around two feuding tribal chieftains, the apple of discord being the barter of a woman of the family of one to the other as a compensation for a crime. This system is known as swara wherein the patriarch of a family having committed a crime (in this case murder) gives away a woman of his own family (his sister) to the victim’s family in marriage in a kind of “out of court settlement” to put an amicable end to a dispute. The only difference here is that this entire redressal or dispute settlement is carried out in the presence and with the consent of a tribal council called the jirga which is sort of  law unto itself. There is no police. No FIR. No formal investigation into the matter. No trial. No intervention by the advocates of human rights. The entire resolution is based on so-called tradition perpetuated by the elders of the council.

But does the feud end with this transaction?

No.

The bartered woman, called badley ki aurat or woman-in-transaction, is looked down upon in her new family. She dies giving birth to a son. The motherless child is not accepted either and is made to feel like the “other one” in the household. His maternal uncle (mother’s brother), who has his own axe to grind, takes advantage of the situation. He does not leave a single opportunity to poison the young boy’s mind who grows up with a deep-seated  inferiority complex manifest in rage and hatred – his sole aim now is to get his rightful entitlement.

Time passes. Chieftaincy passes on to the next generation. So do the mutual abhor and mistrust. The new chieftain is committed and protective of his people but he does not keep well. Blood analysis reveals that he is subject to slow poisoning. The suspicion obviously goes to the step sibling and his maternal uncle who are after his chieftaincy.  Before the matter can be further investigated the chieftain and his wife are brutally killed on their way to the hospital. Again the suspect is none other than the step brother who is now an absconder.

So again a jirga is called.

The cunning maternal uncle of the step brother now offers his niece (elder brother’s daughter) in swara to the deceased’s family. The offer is rejected. This gives rise to another potent issue – who is going to accept a girl in marriage who has been rejected in swara or transaction?

The chieftaincy passes on, as per tradition, to the younger brother of the former chieftain. The young man –  urban bred, well educated – does not understand this way of life where violence, considered normal, is culturally embedded in its fabric. His dream is to move abroad, study further and get married to the love of his life – his betrothed (first cousin). But he is under oath not only to take on the responsibility of chieftaincy but also to avenge the death of his elder brother. His mother’s demand is head for a head.

In the meantime, in a macabre turn of events,   the young man’s best buddy is badly assaulted in Islamabad. Before breathing his last he entrusts his newly wed wife to his friend’s custody beseeching him to protect her from the assaulter in his absence. Learning that his dead friend’s sister has named the wife as the prime suspect in the FIR, the young man brings her, under a false identity, to his mansion far away from the city. But the grieving, traumatized girl is misconstrued as the “other woman” in his life.

He reveals her identity to his fiancee and pleads with her for support. She agrees and befriends the widowed girl. But one night, after a minor altercation with him, his fiancee mysteriously goes missing. Who is to be blamed ? Of course the “other woman” who is believed to be in an illicit relationship with the novice chieftain.

Now it all pans down on a young chief who, though pretends to put up a brave front,  is breaking bit by bit inside as all his near and dear ones are being removed from his life one by one. He suspects the perpetrator is not an outsider but somebody who is among the trusted household. His own life and that of his mother’s are also in danger. So is that of the young widow under his protection. The burden of promises and pledges on his shoulders is killing. He is in the throes of depression unsure whether he will be able to do justice to his role as a chieftain and bring the culprits to book.

To make things worse, in a dramatic twist in the plot, the jirga now wants him to marry the widow of his friend because a young , unchaperoned woman cannot stay under the same roof with him without the sanction of a wedlock. 

(To continue)