Malti Agarwal leaves her home for her workplace. She walks down the same road she routinely takes everyday. But a splash of liquid thrown at her face by a man and a woman on a motorcycle sends her screaming. The acid-attack takes place in the middle of the road while a crowd watches in horror. This incident takes away all traces of normalcy from her life.

Deepika Padukone and Meghna Gulzar’s Chhapaak details the struggles, stigma and journey of Malti’s self-love after the attack. The film is a fictionalised account of the real-life acid attack survivor-turned-activist Laxmi Agarwal. But this story is not just a portrayal of Agarwal's story, but also that of many women and girls who have faced this form of violence.

Acid attacks have increased over the years, even in Nepal. Since the fiscal year 2014/2015, as many as 13 women and three men have been attacked with acid. The first case that made national headlines in recent memory was that of Sangita Magar in 2015. She was assaulted by her neighbour Jiwan BK, who barged into the then 16-year-old’s tuition centre and flung acid at her. The latest is that of 15-year-old Muskan Khatun on September 2019. The 9th grader at Tribhuvan Hanuman Secondary School in Birgunj was assaulted on her way to school.

In India, this has been far more frequent and dangerous. Just a day after Chhapaak’s premiere, a 14-year-old went through the same assault in Lucknow.

It would, therefore, be an understatement to say the subject of the film couldn't have been more relevant. But there were some skeptics regarding how the film will present the issue, or rather, represent the side of the survivor—of which, it is relieving to see that the makers have taken a sensitive approach.

The writer duo, Gulzar and Atika Chohan, have refrained from portraying the lead character as someone you need to feel pity for. Rather, she is fleshed out like any other character, with ambitions and the desire to be financially independent. But it is the portrayal of the attacker that shows the filmmaker’s maturity in handling the sensitive subject.

Staying true to real-life events, the motive behind the attack on Malti is ‘to teach her a lesson’ for not accepting the attacker’s romantic advances. This has been the main reason behind many of the acid attacks in both India and Nepal. Even in Khatun’s case, a friend of the person whose advances she had rejected had assaulted her. 

The film also addresses this influence of toxic masculinity that equates women with being submissive and a complete disregard for their agency. The filmmakers are careful to showcase that it wasn’t just a one-off case, but that such attacks are intrinsically woven into the social and cultural fabric of the region.

On the very first day of the movie’s release, Zonta Club of Kathmandu, a local chapter of Zonta International, an organisation that works in the field of women empowerment, organised a special screening of the film for more than 500 people, including acid attack survivors, chemical shop owners, and the media. The audience inside the packed hall even let out a collective gasp at certain moments of the film, especially when acid was thrown at women’s faces.

This is the influence a film can have, said Jenny Khadka, an acid attack survivor and an activist who was also at the screening. 

“It was really inspiring to see a mainstream Bollywood actor portraying a role of an acid attack survivor,” she said. “Films are undoubtedly a powerful medium to grab people’s attention, and when such social causes are the subject matter, many people will be able to understand the message.”

Khadka’s photo, where she is showing her scars from the acid attacks while smiling at the camera, recently made the rounds on social media. 

“The reason for agreeing to do that photoshoot was because I didn’t want to stereotype myself,” she said. “And it was to show others that we are capable of moving on in life.”

The film perfectly captures this sentiment. Agarwal, on whom the movie is based on, is currently working as an activist and is associated with an NGO that works for acid attack survivors. As shown in the film, Agarwal even went through a legal battle, filing a public interest litigation suit against the government, demanding a stronger mechanism to control acid sales in India.

Similarly, in Nepal, Sangita Magar also filed a similar case in 2017. As a result, the Supreme Court gave an order to the government to provide immediate financial help for the treatment of acid attack survivors. Before this case was filed, the country’s law on acid and burn violence only allowed survivors to receive compensation if the perpetrators were arrested and had sufficient economic resources.

According to the revised Criminal Code of Nepal, acid or any chemical attackers can be jailed for up to eight years and fined a maximum amount of Rs500,000 if the victim’s face is injured. Similarly, perpetrators can face punishment of up to three years in jail and a fine of Rs300,000 if other body parts are injured. 

But even after the Supreme Court’s order on regulating the sale of acid in Nepal, few changes can be seen, as acid is still easily available in the market. This remains as a classic example of how much struggle and advocacy it takes for the state to bestow rights and justice to survivors.

In Chhapaak, the lead character’s journey was shown in a structured template of the regular pattern of the hero’s journey—which isn’t particularly bad, but dilutes the struggles of the acid attack survivors.

The attempt to take a sensitive issue and portray the survivor's story with respect and dignity, however, is a feat in itself. There have been earlier attempts at making a movie based on this very subject. Uyare, a Malayalam film and even Rekha Thapa’s Rudrapriya were some of them. But these films didn’t receive as much attention as Chhapaak, mostly due to the popularity of the lead actor.

After the release of the movie, the Uttarakhand state government of India even announced that it would start a scheme to provide pensions for acid attack survivors.

In one scene from the film, Malti says, “Kitna acha hota agar acid bikta hi nahi, milta hi nahi to fekta hi nahi” which roughly translates to, “How nice would it be if acid was not sold, then nobody would get their hands on it and they won’t throw it on others.”

This should be a lesson for policymakers in both Nepal and India. Although the government has banned porn, which the authorities say increases violence against women, no efforts have been made to regulate and monitor the sale of acid, which has become the newest tool to propagate gender-based violence.

Chhapaak

Starring: Deepika Padukone, Vikrant Massey, Madhurjeet Sarghi

Writers: Atika Chohan, Meghna Gulzar

Director: Meghna Gulzar

Stars: 3 out of 5