(If you haven’t watched the film yet, this article has spoilers).
Who is Beena Tripathi?
A woman who has slept with a servant in the house; a woman who is assaulted by her father-in-law at gunpoint; a woman who constantly manipulates a system that is very much against her; a woman who has no qualms about giving birth to a child who doesn’t come out of a “joyful consummation”.
Above all, a woman who touches her baby bump and says to her unborn child, “Tum bhi survive karoge, aur hum bhi (You will survive, and me too).”
We met this Beena Tripathi in 2018 and 2020 in the Amazon Prime Original, Mirzapur. The Beena we met in theatres last week in Mirzapur: The Film is a bit far from this persona.
She survives this time as well; after all, survival is the other name of Beena Tripathi. But the question that persists is: Beena Tripathi survives in the film, but at what cost? What about her female agency that doesn’t need male support?
Beyond the regular identities, she is a woman who lives in a jungle-raj and knows the rules of the jungle to survive. Mercy leaves the room when Beena Tripathi kills her father-in-law (Kulbhushan Kharbanda).
She castrates the very servant with whom she sleeps in the Tripathi house. She uses her femininity to survive and to manipulate men in power.
Lioness Imagery And Beena Tripathi
At the beginning of Season Two, Beena Tripathi engages in raunchy sex with the servant of the house. While she continues her escapades, her father-in-law is busy watching how a lion and lioness mate on a TV channel.
Beena wants to be on top of a man in bed. In real life, she can’t do that, so she exercises her agency in bed. If not with her husband, then with the servant.
The trait of Beena’s sexual adventures is retained in the film when her lover makes a permanent tattoo of her scratches on his back during their first consummation.
From Lust To Love – Beena Tripathi 2.0
The introductory scene in the Mirzapur series featuring Beena Tripathi (Season One, Episode One) shows her having sex with her husband, Akhandanand Tripathi.
“Garam karke thanda hi chod dete hai (You leave me cold after igniting my passion),” Beena’s line, invited a meme-fest later.
In the film, Beena has a lover, Birju Lohar, who has joined the rival gang of Ravi Kishan to avenge the Tripathis. Beena can’t marry him, as the powerful Tripathis have their eyes on her. He’s also from a lower caste.
Beena schemes a plan with him to kill the Tripathis, but she kills him at the end when he is caught by her husband and father-in-law.
“Love hi toh hai, lifetime thodi rehta hai,” she says after pulling the trigger.
Not only that, when her father-in-law suspects that Beena has led Birju into their house, she says, “Mein ab is ghar ki bahu hu, maryada kaise langhan karu, Bauji? (I am the daughter-in-law of the house. How can I malign my dignity)”
An intelligent audience doesn’t need an explanation.
The sheer contrast in the dialogues shows Beena survives the sanitised Bhaukaal Raj, and her agency (if not taken) has been weakened to cater to a larger audience in the film. Or, perhaps, to avoid the wrath of the Censor Board.
Beena, who killed her father-in-law in Season Two for “forceful sex”, depended on an “aashiq” (lover) to execute a murder plan this time.
Mirzapur: The Film vs Mirzapur: The Series
Puneet Krishna, who is one of the writers of the series, also wrote the film’s screenplay.
Mirzapur: The Film is not a replica of Mirzapur: The Series.
Much to the delight of fans, the film has built a new universe with familiar characters.
The interpersonal relationships of the characters are different, the character arcs are different, and so is the character of Beena Tripathi (the only female character in the film who has been given a plot twist in the end credits).
Having acknowledged the creative vision and the huge difference in a format of the of a series and a film, the only question to the writer is: What’s the need to weaken a female agency to cater to the larger audience?
Beena Tripathi is celebrated for challenging and twisting the very system that is against her. She survives on her own terms.
When she kills her father-in-law, she makes sure she takes revenge for the maid of the house too as she has been wronged by Bauji. She is twisted, unpredictable; but she protects her own, just as she protects her child, though it’s born out of forceful consummation.
Has Beena Tripathi not weakened her own agency by killing her lover? Has she not killed the brand she is celebrated for?