Ghar Ki Murgi Review: Sakshi Tanwar Is Brilliant In Panga Director’s Short Film!

Ghar  Ki Murgi(Short Film, Sony LIV)

Starring Sakshi Tanwar,Anurag Arora

Directed  by Ashwini Iyer Tiwary

Rating: *** ½ (3 and a half stars)

Admit it. Mother or Wife, or maybe that Sister… all of us have taken the  woman who runs the kitchen in our home for granted.Thankless  job…work without pay…saving on the  househelp’s wages…such are   the  innuendos  that  underline  a  householder’s thankless  morning-till-night  toil.

What if SHE, the woman who looks after everyone  and everything in the house,decides  to take  a break? Sakshi Tanwar, in a performance that makes  the 18-minute  performance look like an eternity  of  coiled emotions that barely emerge  to the surface in a simmering wave  of poignancy, is Seema the  ‘Everyday Housewife’ that  singer Glen Campbell sang about.

Sakshi is an actor I’ve always admired .Her ability to project ordinary lives is extraordinary. Watching her  go through the  slogging paces of housewife’s daily routine I was again struck by her  propensity to project  the  epicenter of  middleclass  hypocrisy without making a song and dance of it.

Speaking of which, there is a moment  in this precious  if predictable short film with long legs  where Sakshi after serving samosas  for her daughter’s friends , hides behind the door and dances with them to  her ‘favourite’ song. The daughter ticks her off.

“Please  don’t embarrass me.”

Sakshi’s face fell, and I remembered  my mother who was  trying to learn driving when I was a teenager. My brother and I  hooted her out  of  her  little wish-fulfilment.

Then there’s the other  very-familiar situation of  the  husband bringing home  a bunch  of  buddies from office  whom   the wife must entertain with smiles and pakodas and  in return, get insulted by her  husband(Anurag Arora)  who doesn’t even know he has insulted her.

“Baat sirf ek baat ki nahin hai,” she  later explains to her  insensitive  husband, evoking the Thappad logistics of a devoted housewife’s litany of insults which are  here manifested  in a determination to take  a  month-long break in Goa.Alone.

 Ghar Ki Murgi treads  familiar territory  of the  householder taken for  granted by her family. There  is something supremely uplifting cathartic and reassuring about Sakshi’s  presence. Ashwini Iyer Tiwary owes her a full-length feature.

A  thought. Isn’t there something  exploitative about using Sakshi’s talent for  a short film but running to Kangana Ranaut for the  big picture?

Yes, on some  level or the other we are  all guilty  of  exploitation, neglect , insensitivity. Sorry Mom,I  hope you are driving around in your car  up there without two boys discouraging you noisily.