1. Plot

2. Cast

3. Reception
    Box office  Critical response  Accolades 

4. References

5. External links

• Tannishtha Chatterjee
• Radhika Apte
• Surveen Chawla
• Adil Hussain
• Lehar Khan
• Sayani Gupta

Plot

Parched is the story of four women in a desert village of Rajasthan, India. The village and the society are plagued by several social evils, age-old traditions and practices of patriarchy, child marriage, dowry, marital rapes and physical and mental abuse.

Rani (Tannishtha Chatterjee) is a widow struggling to support her old mother-in-law and teenage son, Gulab (Riddhi Sen). Following village customs, Rani marries Gulab off to a child bride by paying a hefty sum to the bride's family. Meanwhile, Gulab is disrespectful, rebellious, and prefers to loiter with a gang of spoilt friends, and spend time with sex workers. Janki (Lehar Khan), the child bride, hopes to stop the marriage by chopping off her hair but is still forced into the relation. Lajjo (Radhika Apte) lives in the same village as Rani, and is a close friend and aid in Rani's struggles. Lajjo is in an abusive marriage with an alcoholic husband, Manoj (Mahesh Balraj). Having failed to conceive, Lajjo is mocked for being infertile and therefore worthless in the eyes of her husband and society. The fourth woman is Bijli (Surveen Chawla), an erotic dancer in a travelling entertainment company. Bijli is a close friend and advisor to both Rani and Lajjo.

The movie begins with Rani and Lajjo visiting another village to see Janki and fix a price for her dowry. Meanwhile, Gulab is seen loitering and teases an educated woman, until her husband, Kishan (Sumeet Vyas) approaches. While at Janki's house, Rani receives calls on a cell phone from an anonymous caller started off as a wrong number but now consistently tries to charm her. Later, at the Gram Panchayat, the village participates in solving local issues. The first issue is of a girl named Champa (Sayani Gupta) who ran away from her husband and tried to return to her parents. The Panchayat forces her to return despite her revelation that her husband's male family members all rape her. Kishan and his wife try intervening but are ridiculed for their progressive opinions.

Kishan is a forward thinking local entrepreneur and employs women in the village for handicrafts and handloom jobs. The women reveal at the Panchayat that Kishan has secured a large contract for their handicrafts and so they are prepared to save money for the installation of the satellite and televisions. The elders reluctantly agree and this angers some men in the village, including Gulab, who start to resent Kishan for trying to liberate the women.

The conservative and patriarchal village men are seen to be constantly visiting Bijli. She has been increasingly turning down offers for sex work which irks her boss, who threatens to replace her with a new younger girl Rekha (Tanya Sachdeva). Gulab's marriage to Janki pushes him deeper into the darker areas of loitering and prostitutes, and later with his friends, take revenge on Kishan. First they destroy his handicraft goods, and later on they beat him half to death, which makes Kishan and his wife to leave the village. Janki struggles in the marriage and is repeatedly beaten by Gulab.

Frustrated, Bijli picks up Rani, Lajjo and Janki, and visit a local fort. During the chitchat there Lajjo realizes that her inability to give birth might also be just her husband's inability. In an experiment, Lajjo has sex with Bijli's lover (Adil Hussain) and becomes pregnant. Bijli returns to the company to find that her dancing spot has been given to Rekha. She resorts to engaging in traumatic rough sex with multiple men in order to make money which leads to them raping her.

When Rani discovers that Gulab stolen her last bit of savings, she stops and confronts him, and Gulab angrily walks away, saying that he intends to leave the women to fend for themselves. The next day, Rani sells her house and pays off her debts. She relieves Janki of her marriage, allowing her to reunite with her childhood love Heera and asking her to continue with her studies.

Lajjo informs Manoj of her pregnancy and he begins to beat her, and he accidentally falls onto a fire and is burnt alive. Rani, Lajjo and Bijli together finally run away from the village in search for a better life, away from all the misery of customs, traditions and patriarchy.

Cast

• Tannishtha Chatterjee as Rani
• Radhika Apte as Lajjo
• Surveen Chawla as Bijli
• Adil Hussain as mystic lover
• Sumeet Vyas as Kishan^[5]
• Lehar Khan as Janki, Gulab's wife
• Riddhi Sen as Gulab, Rani's son
• Sayani Gupta as Champa

Reception

Box office

The film failed to have significant box office collections after its release in India.^[6] The film grossed {{INR|12.03 crore|link=yes}} ({{US$|{{To USD|120.3|IND|year=2016}} million|link=yes}}) worldwide, including {{INR|1.98 crore}} ({{US$|{{To USD|19800000|IND|year=2016|round=yes}}}}) in India and {{US$|1.5 million}}^[7] ({{INR|10.05 crore}}) in other markets.^[8] It was most successful in France, where it grossed $1,072,253,^[9] from 160,379 ticket sales, the fourth highest for an Indian film, after Salaam Bombay, The Lunchbox, and Jalsaghar.^[10] Parched also grossed {{Euro|235,223|link=yes}}^[11] ($264,058) in Spain.^[9]

Critical response

The film received critical acclaim. On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, Parched has an approval score of 90% on the basis of 21 reviews with an average rating of 7.4 out of 10.^[12]

Meena Iyer from The Times of India rated the film 4.5 out 5 stars, and mentioned that Parched "takes you into a disturbing and thought-provoking territory".^[13] Anupama Chopra of Hindustan Times gave the film a rating of 3 out of 5 saying that, "The larger narrative of the film is inert and clunky but the spirited female characters will stay with you."^[14] Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave the film a rating of 4 out of 5 saying that, "Leena Yadav's Parched is an irresistible beast of a film. As incendiary as it is entertaining, it goes where Indian cinema rarely does without becoming exploitative - into the erogenous fantasies of long-suppressed village women who are no longer willing to countenance their restrictive veils."^[15] Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave the film a rating of 2 out of 5 saying that, "Radhika Apte, Surveen Chawla and Tannishtha Chatterjee's film is failed by too much violence and unnecessary gloss."^[16] The Hindu criticized the film saying that, "Parched is an unconvincing indictment of patriarchy that feels staged." and gave the film a rating of 2 out of 5.^[17] Suparna Sharma of Deccan Chronicle gave the film a rating of 2.5 out of 5 saying that, "Parched feels like it’s unsettled, struggling between wanting to tell a real story, but also keen on concocting a fairytale happy-ending."^[18]

Accolades

References

External links

• {{IMDb title|3043252|Parched}}
• {{rotten-tomatoes|parched|Parched}}

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