Lipstick Under My Burkha is a 2016 Indian Hindi-language black comedy film written and directed by Alankrita Shrivastava and produced by Prakash Jha. The film stars Ratna Pathak, Konkona Sen Sharma, Aahana Kumra and Plabita Borthakur, while Sushant Singh, Sonal Jha, Vikrant Massey, Shashank Arora, Vaibhav Tatwawaadi and Jagat Singh Solanki play supportive roles. The movie shows the secret lives of four women who are in search of their freedom. Even after facing all the odds and obstacles in their way, they still manage to find their way to claim their desires through small acts of courage.
The first trailer was released on 14 October 2016. The film was initially denied a release in India in January 2017, after the country's Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) refused a certificate, stating that "There are contagious [sic] sexual scenes, abusive words, audio pornography and a bit sensitive touch about one particular section of society". The film premiered at the Tokyo and Mumbai Film Festivals, where it won the Spirit of Asia Prize and the Oxfam Award for Best Film on Gender Equality. The film received two nominations at the 63rd Filmfare Awards, including Best Film (Critics) and Best Supporting Actress for Ratna Pathak.
Plot
Rosy is introduced as the heroine of an erotic pulp fiction novel titled Lipstick Dreams. Throughout the film, her story is narrated by a 55-year-old widow, Usha Parmar, as she reads the novel in secrecy. In a small neighborhood in Bhopal, Usha serves as the old matriarch and has become used to being addressed as "Buaji" (Aunty); she has all but forgotten her own name and routinely gazes at a self-portrait from her youth.
Rehana Abidi, a fresher in college, lives in the same neighborhood and sews burkhas for her family's store. She steals make-up to wear at college where she takes off the burkha, which she is forced to wear by her family, and transforms into a jeans-wearing singer who loves Miley Cyrus.
Leela is young beautician who runs her own parlor in the neighborhood. She wishes to travel the world with her secret lover, Arshad, who runs a small photo studio. She frequently arranges meetings with professional destination wedding businesses and offers her make-up services and Arshad's photography, in hopes of free world-wide travel for both of them.
Also residing in the same neighborhood is Shireen Aslam, a burkha-wearing house-wife. Shireen is a mother to three boys and secretly works as a door-to-door sales-woman. Her husband, Rahim, is sexually dominating and forbids the use of contraceptives, due to which she gets multiple secret abortions and repeatedly takes emergency contraceptives to prevent more pregnancies. Rahim maintains a cold attitude towards Shireen and uses her only to please his sexual urges, while she yearns for his affection.
Rehana decides to audition for her college's band and catches the attention of Dhruv, the band's drummer, only to be snubbed by the popular girl, Namrata. She participates in the ongoing protest against the ban on jeans and openly expresses her opinion on the oppression of women. Later, Rehana is pleasantly surprised when Namrata invites her to a weekend house party. To prepare for the event, Rehana steals a dress and boots from the mall. Usha arranges for Leela's marriage with a man named Manoj, at the request of Leela's impoverished mother.
On the day of her engagement, during a power outage, Leela has sex with Arshad and films it on her cellphone. Her mother catches her in the act and scolds her for tarnishing their reputation but manages to cover up the situation. It is revealed that Leela's mother makes her living as a nude model for art students. Usha takes the children of her relatives for their swimming lessons, where she is pranked by one of them and almost drowns in the pool. She is rescued by the swimming instructor Jaspal, who calls her by her real name and suggests that she take swimming lessons. Usha begins to fantasize about Jaspal and buys a swimsuit to begin taking lessons from him. She eventually engages in phone sex with him, under the alias of "Rosy", while he is under the impression that Rosy is Komal, a young girl who takes lessons from him. Shireen is told by her doctor that she has an infection in her uterus and that she should only use condoms as a contraceptive. She discreetly buys them in chocolate-flavor from the pharmacy, but her husband Rahim refuses to use them while they are having sex.