Midway through watching the Vipin Das-directed 2022 Malayalam film Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey, I thought that let me do a quick Twitter search about what others are saying about the movie. One of the tweets, which read that Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey is an action comedy, struck me as interesting. The word comedy was particularly striking because I was under the assumption that it’s a film about Jaya (the protagonist) dealing with the ordeals of married life, including domestic abuse.
And after I finished watching the movie, I would still not call it an action comedy. Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey is a beautiful piece of storytelling about Jaya, stuck fighting her conservative parents and abusive husband. Jaya wants to study further (anthropology, to be specific) but is married off to Rajesh by her parents. She is not given much of a choice except for the fact that Rajesh, who runs a poultry business, agrees to ‘let’ her take coaching for competitive exams after marriage.
After their marriage, the story picks up momentum and gradually Rajesh’s true nature is revealed through daily activities. For instance, one of the most interesting habits that Rajesh has is that he only eats chickpea gravy and idiyappam for lunch. In fact, it is during one of these lunches that his abusive nature is first on display. One day when Jaya prepares a stew instead of chickpea gravy, he throws it away and breaks the utensil. Soon after that, he is shown to be constantly abusive. He slaps Jaya for the silliest of matters like washing his jeans without asking him. However, it is not just Jaya who bears the brunt of his abuse. Rajesh also calls his sister moti and is very disrespectful towards his mother as well, often belittling her.
But his mother keeps defending him by saying that he is very naïve. Jaya, however, does not buy this naivety. When complaining to her parents does not yield any results, who ask her to ‘adjust’ and ‘compromise’; she takes the matter into her own hands. It turns out that after she got to know Rajesh’s abusive character, Jaya started learning self-defence from YouTube videos. One day when Rajesh is about to slap her, she kicks him so hard that he is both physically and mentally stunned. He is now scared of Jaya. To navigate the situation, he hatches a plan after discussions with his friend to record her abusive behaviour and blackmail her. However, this time his family witnesses Jaya kicking Rajesh and soon there is an altercation between the two families.
Rajesh’s mother accuses Jaya of beating up her ‘naïve’ and ‘innocent’ son, completely ignoring how he has been continuously abusive towards her. It becomes a matter of great concern that she dares to retort to his abuse. His friend ‘resolves’ the matter by saying that if people get to know about the incident, Rajesh’s reputation would be ruined. Hence, both parties should try to forget the past and be more cooperative. Another plan is hatched, as Rajesh is advised to make Jaya pregnant as that’s how ‘the feminist type women can be controlled’. The idea is that once she becomes a mother, she will be busy raising the children and also give up her ambitions of working outside.
The plan works, as Rajesh pretends to change his demeanour and Jaya becomes pregnant. But soon after that she finds out about his intentions, and in the process faints and loses the baby. The scenes after the miscarriage are particularly interesting. There is no sympathy for Jaya from anyone. Instead, her mother chides her by saying that ‘why did you get married if you did not want to’, completely ignoring how Jaya was forced to get married. After this, the couple separates and there is a messy divorce proceeding in the court. The film, however, ends on a happy note as Jaya is shown taking over Rajesh’s competitor’s poultry business.
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The film has the right mix of emotions, screenplay and storytelling. The film is successful in bringing out the hypocritical nature of society when it comes to domestic abuse. When Jaya is the one getting slapped, she should adjust. But when Rajesh gets kicked, it is an anomalous act that becomes completely unacceptable. It is also commendable that the movie is set in a middle-class setting as most often there is a tendency to portray domestic violence as something that only people of lower classes do.
It has been only a few months since we witnessed the messy public court trial of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s defamation and domestic abuse case. It was one of those cases that were presented as one in which ‘you have to listen to both sides to know the truth’. At such a time, a movie like Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey is the right kind of intervention. It very clearly shows that what Jaya does is an act of self-defence, as she is slapped first. There are no ‘two sides’ to this story.
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The author is a sociologist by training and teaches Sociology at Indraprastha College for Women (IPCW), University of Delhi. She is also one of the co-founders of Doing Sociology.
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