#KetchupCut: Kusum Tripathi’s unwavering stance for equality in love and marriage in Aap Jaisa Koi is one that will stay with us for a while

Kusum's refusal to accept her husband’s so-called progressiveness in Aap Jaisa Koi is the reclaiming of voice and visibility that speaks to every woman’s fight for respect at home!

The conversation around a husband “allowing” his wife to do what she wants has always been a sign of pretentious progressiveness. It was first called out memorably by Sunny (Farhan Akhtar) in Dil Dhadakne Dowhen he confronts Manav (Rahul Bose) for proudly saying that he “allows” his wife, Ayesha (Priyanka Chopra) to be the first woman in the family to work and run her own business. That moment established the hollowness of progressiveness for the sake of appearances because if Manav were truly progressive, there wouldn’t be a hierarchy in their marriage at all. Ayesha wouldn’t need his permission; she would already be free to make her own choices.

This same conversation is taken forward in Aap Jaisa Koithrough Kusum Tripathi (Ayesha Raza). The difference in both films is crucial because while Sunny calls out Manav, it is still a man pointing out the hypocrisy. With Kusum, it is a woman taking a stand for herself and refusing to let anyone else speak on her behalf. And it’s almost poetic too, because co-incidentally Ayesha Raza, who plays Kusum, was also present in the Dil Dhadakne Do scene where Sunny delivered that dialogue, almost like she heard Sunny and took the conversation ahead in another universe.

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In Aap Jaisa Koi, every time Bhanu Tripathi (Manish Chaudhari) justifies his behavior in the name of love or respect, whether it’s his casual insulting jokes at her expense or his claim of being the “only man in Jamshedpur” who allows his daughter to study and wife to work, as though that alone makes him progressive, Kusum refuses to play along. He acts like he deserves a medal but Kusum pushes back. She flips the situation and asks him point blank if he’d be okay if she joked about him the way he jokes about her in public? And who is he to give her permission to work? She makes it clear that she makes aachar to sell because she wants to as she enjoys making it and because she wants her own standing, so that no one can turn around tomorrow and say she was “allowed” to work.

But for Kusum, it is about more than just calling out her husband. It is about becoming visible as Kusum, not just as someone’s wife, mother or bhabhi. Her relationship with Joy Bose (Saheb Chatterjee) plays a big role in this. For years she had been pushed into a corner of invisibility inside her own home, so much so that she had almost learned to live with that loneliness, until Joy truly saw her for who she was and through his gaze she found herself again. To reduce this simply to an extra-marital affair would be unfair and to call it cheating would be insulting. Because more than an act of rebellion or defiance, it was about rediscovery of lost identity, falling in love with herself once more and refusing to normalize her husband’s behavior. She makes Bhanu realize that her life isn’t over yet and he wouldn’t even notice if she packed him food and served his tea as usual while she herself disappeared. That is why her final act of walking away lands so well! Because it’s not just about Bhanu, it’s about how so many homemakers are pushed to the brink of oblivion, their absence hardly felt in a world that proudly claims to value them.

This standalone scene in the film says what the larger film struggles to land effectively, that most of us act progressive, boasting about our modernness and understanding, but can't actually bring it into action. We write long essays about women’s equality yet forget to practice it in our own homes. Society prides itself on having changed but if you just squint to look closely, the cracks are visible everywhere. Limits are still placed on women; they're just more well-disguised than before. You'll find them under the “care” and “well-being of women” section everywhere. 

Love only needs love in return. But love also demands respect that cannot exist without equality, something that Kusum wouldn’t sacrifice anymore!