This Bollywood movie celebrates the inner beauty by normalizing vitiligo

The Bollywood (Indian Hindi-language) movie, Kuch Bheege Alfaaz (English meaning ‘some moist words’), is a fresh breather in a world where everything we see has a fixed societal standard including beauty. The leading lady in the movie, Archana has vitiligo and just like anyone else with this skin condition, often finds herself stared upon, but that does not stop her from living and loving.

The positive thing about this modern day love story is that Vitiligo has not been demonized. The skin patches are not portrayed as something very bad happened to her. Rather, vitiligo has been normalized in a beautiful and pleasant manner.

The lead female character Archana (played by actor Geetanjali Thapa) is a free-spirited, outgoing girl who talks her mind and lives a normal life just like any other young independent woman of her age. She does not seek validation from others to feel worthy.

Everyone interacts with this bubbly girl and no one is bothered about the white patches.

In short, vitiligo is not a big deal!

Living with vitiligo, she has her own share of insecurities when it comes to exploring love and relationships. But, we all have our fair share of insecurities and we live with them daily while continuing our lives, just like her.

She is a financially independent woman, a meme artiste. Despite her outgoing free-spirit personality, Archana has not been so lucky in the love department as she is still searching for her prince charming.

Having tried multiple blind dates on Tinder and majority of them ending on a disappointing note, she has not yet given up on love. She handles rejections exceptionally well and looks forward to explore more opportunities as they come her way with a charming, ever-ready smile.

Read more: Sarafina fame South African actress Leleti Khumalo embraces her vitiligo

The storyline

A misplaced phone call connects her to a radio jockey, RJ Alfaaz (played by Zain Khan Durrani). A loner in real life, RJ Alfaaz is popular among many because of his beautiful voice and heartwarming poems. Their friendship blossoms over the phone, without actually meeting each other until the last moments of the film. The story beautifully portrays the blend of both modern and old school romance and will surely tug at your heartstrings.

Set in the quirky town of Kolkata, where both old and new exist side by side, it is a slow burn romance as two different souls connect through a wrong phone call and gradually fall in love with each other. The lead characters embrace each other for their inner beauty without seeing each other as they connect via phone calls, text messages and social media and only at the climax of this 116 minutes love story, they meet and reveal their true identity to each other.

The first Bollywood movie showing the lead female character with vitiligo

In a world where skin conditions like Vitiligo are so under-represented, it is quite amazing to see our protagonist Archana wear it like her badge of honor. She has friends, a vibrant social life and does not believe in hiding her spots.

Despite of living in a metropolis, she is not spared of those unwanted remarks and occasional stares owing to the patchy skin. Any person with vitiligo will easily find these experiences relatable. But her fighting through those setbacks and perseverance as she navigates through her professional and personal life are commendable. The old age, rigid beauty standards of the society are challenged and shown smashing through this film, which indicates towards a more inclusive and accommodating world.

Taking clues from the public sentiment, the government of India is already proposing a law to ban advertisement of skin fairness creams, a Bollywood movie showing vitiligo in a positive light is definitely a step in the right direction.

Kudos to the brilliant filmmaker Onir for picking this unique storyline

Known for making path breaking, powerful movies, director Onir’s ‘Kuch Bheege Alfaaz’ is a prime example of how Bollywood is slowly and steadily breaking the general norms regarding beauty and is not obsessed with ‘flawless’ skin anymore.

This film inspires the audiences to embrace and celebrate one’s inner beauty.

“My siblings were fair skinned and I got a dusky complexion. As I grew up, people would ask ‘what happened to you?’ referring to my dark skin tone. This movie’s storyline gave me the opportunity to incorporate those experiences.” Onir

Feel lucky to be a part of this wonderful movie, says Geetanjali Thapa

According to the national award winner actor Geetanjali Thapa, she thoroughly enjoyed playing the role of Archana aka Archie, the female protagonist in the movie.

“Unfortunately, majority of the population misunderstands Vitiligo. It is not communicable, but so many people think otherwise and the lack of proper knowledge and awareness has led many living with Vitiligo to be driven to a corner and not fully accepted into the world. In this movie, my character is a normal girl with vitiligo. She is like you and me. She is intelligent, independent and lively woman without having any insecurities about her personality.” Geetanjali Thapa

Why should you watch this movie?

This slow paced romantic love story is just like a warm cup of tea on a rainy day. As the movie progresses you grow along with it. It is not only about heart-fluttering romance and mushy love, but also about rejections and how they are a part of life. It gives out a strong message of loving oneself and not seeking validation from others.

This thought-provoking film will take you on a ride showcasing various emotions such as pain, sorrow, regret, inadequacies, imperfections, and loneliness which makes us human. At the end of this trip, you will find yourself more in love with your flaws and happy to be yourself. So, do give it a watch and share your thoughts in the comment section.

There are opinions that someone with vitiligo in real life should have been roped into play the female lead, but honestly saying, it is too much to demand from the makers because it involves a lot of money, time and efforts to make a movie and they are very much justified to hire the actors who they feel capable to do justice to the project.