The Role Of Women In Guru Dutt's 'Pyaasa'

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Prostitution have its roots in subcontinent since a very long time. Through the portrayal and representation of prostitutes in films and literature there have been new trends. In early years of Pakistani and Indian cinema prostitution was repetitive and popular topic among filmmakers which made it possible to evolve and change overtime. However the reason for existence of prostitutes is still a question for our society. Laura Mulvey, a feminist film theorist in her article, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, writes that the women on screen are object of desire. Her overall point is that we live in a patriarchal society where women and men are subjected to certain roles. Such as women are passive while men are active participants in society and culture. She basically argues, “The magic of the Hollywood style at its best arose… from its skilled and satisfying manipulation of visual pleasure. Unchallenged, mainstream film coded the erotic into the language of the dominant patriarchal …show more content…

Waheeda Rehman, plays the role of a young prostitute Gulabo. Guru Dutt plays the role of protagonist, Vijay. The twist in plot comes when Vijay reunites her love with Meena a college girl who is married to a rich publisher while Gulabo is the street-prostitute who is in love with Vijay. “In Pyaasa (1975), Vijay is a poor struggling poet and so, marginalized by society. In the beginning of the film, he rejects a prostitute Gulab and blames the national leaders who should be relieving the society of such misery. But at the end of the film, the marginalized hero walks out of the society holding the hands of the socially marginalized prostitute. Incidentally even in this film there is a hint of Gulab’s antecedents lying in the rich former history of tawaif: she is in fact, is the only person in the narrative who appreciates poetry for itself and not for some other

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