Mary Kom is already something of a legend. It isn't just that the five-foot-two-inch Manipuri won five boxing world championships, her weight class increasing slightly over the years as she trained and bulked up; but also that she did all this while dealing with a sexist and discriminatory sporting establishment. In a country where female role models are few - as are role models for India from its Northeast - Mary Kom fulfils a long-felt need. After all, she isn't the standard female role model, either; she can hardly be patronised or talked down to. The decision by Mumbai Hindi-film impresario Sanjay Leela Bhansali - known for extremely colourful and excessively sentimental movies like Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam - to produce a film on Kom's life was, therefore, met with some scepticism. The film is now in theatres, directed by Omung Kumar; a former art director of many of Bhansali's movies, it is his first film. By all accounts, it retains the melodramatic elements that its director and its producer are most comfortable with. However, the questions it raises are deeper - questions of representation, and of where India is as a society.
The decision to cast Priyanka Chopra instead of an actor from the Northeast in the titular role was met with outrage in many quarters, and by happiness in others. The outrage is easily understandable. Few are comfortable with the idea of an actor of one ethnicity playing a character from another ethnicity. It brings back, to many, uncomfortable associations with years of outright racism. And then there's the simple fact that, after all, there aren't many roles available for people from the Northeast, and for women at that - shouldn't this one have been seen as an opportunity to introduce a new face to India's movie-going public? On the other hand, some would say that the presence of Chopra, and her enthusiastic marketing of the film, has raised its profile vastly. How many people would have seen a biopic of Mary Kom if it didn't have a big-name star? Perhaps it is relevant that Kom herself has praised Chopra's casting and her performance; she hosted the actor in Imphal, and helped her prepare.
There is also the question of the needs of the Northeast, and of the sport of boxing. As Kom herself has said, boxing is one of those sports that could do with a bit of help. Some more publicity, a touch of the glamour that comes with a big-budget movie, a reminder that international success is possible - all these things can help. Kom became a boxer because she was inspired by the success on the international stage of Asian Games gold medallist Dingko Singh, also from Manipur. Kom's own celebrity, added to by this movie, might replicate that manifold. Meanwhile the movie does, apparently, show some degree of the enormous ethnic bias that Kom had to deal with. On one famous occasion in 2009, at a national boxing meet in Bhopal, she was suspended after she lost her temper at the judges - mostly from northwest India - whom she accused of favouring her opponent, a boxer from Haryana. The movie has caused some chatter because it ends with a burst of patriotism, in which the entire auditorium is encouraged to stand up for the national anthem. Kom herself has always been uncomplicatedly patriotic in her statements. But her autobiography, and even perhaps this mainstream movie about her life, reveals how difficult it must be for her, and for others like her dealing with blatant bias, to retain a sense of belonging.
