Published at : January 13, 2020Updated at : January 13, 2020 07:58Kathmandu<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Malti Agarwal leaves her home for her workplace. She walks down the same road she routinely takes everyday. But a splash of liquid thrown at her face by a man and a woman in a motorcycle sends her in a fit of scream. The acid-attack takes place in the middle of the road while the crowd watches in horror. This incident takes away all traces of the normalcy from her life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Deepika Padukone and Meghna Gulzar\u2019s\u00a0Chhapaak<\/em>\u00a0details the struggles, stigma and the journey of Malti\u2019s self-love after the attack. The film is a fictionalised account of real life acid attack survivor turned activist\u00a0Laxmi Agarwal. But the primary preamble of the story is the real portrayal of not just Agarwal, but of many women and girls who have faced this form of violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These assaults have increased over the years even in Nepal. Since the fiscal year 2014\/2015,\u00a0as many as 13 women and three men\u00a0have been attacked with acid. While the first case that made national headlines in recent memory was that of\u00a0Sangita Magar\u00a0in 2015. She was assaulted by her neighbour Jiwan BK, who had barged into the then 16-year-old\u2019s tuition centre and flung acid at her. The latest is that of 15-year-old\u00a0Muskan Khatun\u00a0on September 2019. The 9th grader at Tribhuvan Hanuman Secondary School in Birgunj was assaulted on her way to school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In India, this has been far more frequent and dangerous. Just a day after\u00a0Chhapaak<\/em>\u2019s premiere, a 14-year-old went through\u00a0the same assault in Lucknow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It would be, therefore, an understatement to say the subject of the film couldn’t have been more relevant. But there were some sceptics of how the film will present the issue, or rather, represent the side of the attack survivor\u2014of which, it is relieving to see that the makers have taken a sensitive approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The writer duo, Gulzar and Atika Chohan, have refrained from portraying the lead character as someone you need to feel pity for. Rather, she is fleshed out like any other character, with ambitions and the desire to be financially independent. But it is the portrayal of the attacker that shows the filmmaker\u2019s maturity in handling the sensitive subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Staying true to the real life events, the motive behind the attack on Malti is \u2018to teach her a lesson\u2019 for not accepting the attacker\u2019s romantic advances. This has been the main reason behind many of the acid attacks in both India and Nepal. Even in Khatun\u2019s case, a friend of the person whose advances she had rejected had assaulted her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n