When I first joined Homegrown, we used to do these team-building exercises when the entire editorial team got together once a month to discuss a piece of short fiction, an article, a film, or even a work of art between ourselves. We called these our ‘show and tell’ sessions. They often led to really great conversations about the state of contemporary pop culture and to friendly arguments when we disagreed.

It’s been a while since we have done those, but Disha and I recently had a similar conversation about Pooja Tolani and Suresh Triveni’s dark comedy ‘Maa Behen’, starring Madhuri Dixit, Triptii Dimri, Dharna Durga, and Ravi Kishan. The film follows a mother-daughter trio of dysfunctional women who find themselves in a bind when a neighbour apparently dies in their home. Despite its flaws, the film is a thoroughly watchable crime caper that doesn’t shy away from having fun with itself — from its inversion of a Hindi misogynistic slur to its tongue-in-cheek major character names pulled from the famous washing powder jingle: Hema, Rekha, Jaya, aur Sushma… Sab ki pasand Nirma!

Drishya: Let’s start with the title. Pooja Tolani and Suresh Triveni have taken a misogynistic Hindi slur and turned it on its head. But does ‘Maa Behen’ actually subvert the stereotype, or does it risk perpetuating it?

Disha: I loved the film. I’ve always admired Triptii Dimri in films like ‘Qala’, ‘Laila Majnu’, and ‘Bulbbul’, so I was disappointed when she did ‘Animal’. This film redeemed her in my eyes. The title works because it uses misogyny to expose and satirise itself.

Drishya: Triptii is such a delight when she’s allowed to use her full range, especially in roles that tap into women’s barely controlled rage. She outshines almost everyone else here. Madhuri Dixit, though, more than holds her own. Her performance occasionally feels heightened, almost theatrical, but that suits the film’s stylised world of neon lights and muted colours. She plays a widow constantly performing for society while simultaneously being subjected to its insults and insinuations. Do you think Rekha would have been a more powerful character if the film hadn’t explicitly reframed her as a victim?

Disha: What struck me was seeing Madhuri unravel. Growing up, she represented grace and sweetness. Watching her inhabit a more complicated, messy character was refreshing. As for the victimhood question, I initially thought the film positioned her as a temptress — a femme fatale whom the colony gossips about. The narrative then slowly reveals what’s actually happening beneath those rumours. The whole structure reminded me of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s idea of disarming audiences with comedy before hitting them with drama. That’s exactly what happened once the film got darker.

Drishya: That’s true. But the kitchen reveal changes everything. We learn that the scandalous rooftop oil massages everyone gossips about were something her husband insisted on. That revelation reframes her entire arc. She’s a woman being punished for something she never really had agency over. Her later business ventures became less about ambition and more about survival and raising her daughters. Even her affair feels less like rebellion and more like an attempt to rebuild some version of a conventional family structure.

Disha: For me, shame is the skeleton of the entire film. We’re told Rekha is a seductress, Sushma is a fame-hungry opportunist, and Jaya is a homewrecker. Then we realise the shame attached to these women never belonged to them in the first place. It belonged to the men who harmed or manipulated them. The women absorb that shame for years, and in the climax, they weaponise it against Gupta. Because society has already branded them as disreputable, there’s almost nothing left that can be held against them. That felt genuinely powerful. It’s as if they’re saying: you’ve already made me the villain, so I’ll step into the role on my own terms.

Drishya: I loved that inversion. These women have spent their lives being humiliated and judged. By the end, they have nothing left to lose, so they turn that same shame back onto Gupta. Speaking of Gupta, what did you make of Ravi Kishan’s performance?

Disha: He was perfect for the role. Looking back at his career, it almost feels like the culmination of all the archetypes he’s embodied over the years.

Drishya: Charitra Kumar Gupta is almost absurdly symbolic. Here’s a man literally named “Character” (in the ‘integrity of…’ way of the word) who moral-polices women, complains about the smell of meat, exploits vulnerable women, and incites violence against them. It’s almost a little too on the nose: he represents the quintessential “maryada purushottam” — the ideal Indian masculine — for the “new” Indian manosphere.

Disha: Absolutely. Gupta embodies the obsession with purity and sanctity that’s often used to control women and marginalised communities. The film exposes the violence hidden beneath that language.

Drishya: And the violence is very deliberately implied. The film never explicitly says what Gupta did to Rekha, but the euphemisms point toward attempted sexual assault. What’s interesting is how differently the film approaches sexual violence compared to more direct depictions and how effectively the film uses genre. I don’t think it would have landed as strongly if it had been made as a conventional social-issue film.

Disha: I prefer this approach. One of my favourite films is ‘Sorry, Baby’ by Eva Victor, where a sexual assault is represented indirectly. The focus isn’t on the act itself but on its aftermath and impact. I think filmmakers are often more effective when they shift attention away from the violence and towards the survivor’s experience.

Drishya: The film is also realistic about what victory looks like. The women don’t really get happy endings. Jaya’s future remains uncertain. Rekha will still be subjected to gossip and rumours. Sushma’s circumstances don’t magically change either. The catharsis comes from something smaller: they’ve freed themselves, at least partially.

Disha: Exactly. Rekha stands up to Gupta. Jaya frees herself from Manas. The final sequence with the sleeveless blouses feels like a visual declaration that they’ve reclaimed something. I was particularly moved by the scene where the daughters watch Rekha getting ready in front of the mirror. We learn beauty rituals from our mothers. There’s joy in adornment, but as women grow older, that joy becomes entangled with patriarchal expectations and the male gaze. Something that should belong to us gets taken away. By the end, these women reclaim a small part of it.

Drishya: But is that enough? And what does it say that even in 2026, a film can only offer its female protagonists this much liberation?

Disha: No, it’s not enough. What frustrated me was that Gupta never really suffered public humiliation. The women save themselves, but they don’t destroy his reputation.

Drishya: The same applies to Jaya’s husband Manas — who is your stereotypical conservative Indian man who reeks of entitlement, lives off his father’s fortune, and thinks of his wife as little more than an indentured sex slave. Manas is every man who has ever schemed their way into an arranged marriage. I kept wondering whether the film would have been more cathartic if those moments had happened publicly — if the neighbours had witnessed his humiliation, even briefly. That reversal of the moral gaze would have been fascinating.

Disha: Maybe there’s still a limit to how much female revenge mainstream cinema can imagine. It’s similar to the patronising logic we often encounter in discussions about gender equality: yes, women can be independent, but only within acceptable boundaries.

Drishya: That reminds me of what we jokingly call Bollywood’s “maxidress feminism” — the sort of performative feminism that perhaps comforts women but doesn’t ruffle too many feathers. These films celebrate relatively modest acts of defiance as radical empowerment, but they stop short of granting women too much power. The women can resist patriarchy, but only to a point. They can’t become too vengeful, too angry, or too unlikeable. The women never actually release the video of Gupta. They only threaten to. Maybe they should have. If even a revenge fantasy cannot imagine women fully exacting revenge, what does that reveal about its politics?

Disha: That’s exactly it. The film offers the illusion of revolt. You can fight. You can even win. But ultimately, you’re still expected to know your place. The more we talk about it, the more I question the film’s politics. When I watched it, I was emotionally invested. I felt the injustice these women faced. So when they defeated Gupta and walked through the streets in sleeveless blouses, I experienced that as a victory. But maybe that’s the trick. The film convinces us that sleeveless blouses are enough.

Drishya: Yes. That is the question, isn’t it?

‘Maa Behen’ is currently streaming on Netflix.

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