Tell stories carefully: Sona

Film buffs across the nation may know by now that MAMI is underway, and among the lineup of films is debutante cinematographer and director Deepti Gupta’s documentary Shut Up Sona, which looks at the life of singer Sona Mohapatra. The 90-minute piece shows how the musician takes on India’s deep-rooted patriarchy while also fighting for gender equality in the music business, especially in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement.

Speaking about the project, Sona says the idea that women live in a male-dominated society is not a notion, it’s a reality. “It is said that women are emotional, but I am not emotional, I talk with numbers. Out of 100 solo songs, only a few female singers get the opportunity. We have to prove ourselves every time. You are always made to feel ashamed. In large part of India, a woman cannot roam around outside freely, especially after 6 pm. The growing up conditions is that in the night we need to roam around donning a man’s avatar. The #MeToo movement has just started, its just the beginning. Change does not happen overnight, but art and film will change society,” she opines.

Sona adds that women need not wait for an opportunity to knock on their doors, and should instead tread their own paths. “I feel many more women need to take charge of doing hard work. We need not wait for others to bestow an opportunity onto us by making a song or a film for us. We have to do much more to take charge of our lives and our narratives. I feel that independent music for women is very difficult here; even female-oriented songs made here in Bollywood are very few. We should not sit and just complain that there is no work,” she shares.

As for the future of gender roles in India, the singer feels that media impacts men a lot. Citing the example of Sanju, which partially documents Sanjay Dutt’s many affairs, Sona says: “We celebrate a lot of men who do not need to be celebrated. Characters are kind of propaganda in films; people don’t realize how different our country is. For example in Scandinavia, the audiences will understand Kabir Singh but not to become like him. India does not look at it that way, it’s a crazy and chaotic country where we take the characters of our film stars very seriously. We need to tell stories carefully. The pop culture affects India’s men a lot. I think woman have to face so much in real life, so we need to be careful while telling a story,” she concludes.