In 2005, fifteen-year-old teenager, Laxmi Agarwal was assaulted. Acid was thrown on her face and body by a close family friend, Naeem Khan. In an all too familiar saga, the attacker, a man almost double her age, was angered by her refusal of his marriage proposal. Khan took his revenge on Laxmi by what he thought would be an attack to destroy her life. However, Laxmi turned that hate around and has become a symbol not just of survival but of victory over such violent vengeance. The film Chhapaak is based on Laxmi’s life.
This is Meghna Gulzar’s third film (after Talvar and Raazi) on real-life stories fictionalised for mainstream audiences. Told with a tautness and control of narrative that has become her trademark as a director, there is no melodrama or overt victimisation in the film. There is no obvious villainy either. It is what it is, and the viewer can take the message and do with it what they will. As Namrata Joshi says in The Hindu, it is the “sparseness, minimalism and austerity in the telling and an essential quietude that lend Chhapaak an emotional force of its own”.
