Most girls in India still go through the trials and tribulations of arranged marriages and face some of the most blatant yet derogatory requisitions. Three IIT students made a video parodying Carly Rae Jepsen’s song, Call Me Maybe, to take on to the marraige trials in a satirical way.
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Final year students, Krupa Varghese, Anukripa Elango and Asmita Ghosh created a video as part of Saahitya 2016′s Sir Mix-A-Lot song parody contest, entitled 'Be our Pondati,' where the lyrics have been inspired from matrimonial ads published regulalry in newspapers.
The revamped video features Varghese, as a conservative mother-in-law, looking for a daughter-in-law who will produce babies soon, prepare food and work part-time.
In a whimsical way, the video shows how woman are objectified when they are expected to fit into 'tall, thin, fair' category for his good looking, rich son. The chorus of the song asks, "Do you have what it takes to be his wife?"
Varghese told The Hindu, "We’re not attacking the institution of marriage at all; we’re just trying to say the form it’s being expressed in needs to change."
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"It’s a stereotype that’s justified by the society I’m in and when the parody is someone's reality, its actually quite sad," she added.
The grim reality of the arranged marriage culture is presented as a subtext, about which the girls say, "As feminists, we wanted to call out the double standards and hypocrisy both men and women have to face in the matrimonial process."
The song that was put up on April 4 went viral on YouTube, and has got nearly 1,60,000 views since then.