Gatta Kusthi Wrestles To Subvert Patriarchy, But Packs In A Few Punches

Director: Chella Ayyavu

Cast: Aishwarya Lekshmi, Vishnu Vishal, Karunas

There is this wistful line in Gatta Kusthi that aptly conveys the anguish of women who do not have the privilege to dream. “Women have to fight with their family, even before they dare to fight their opponents.” While these words sit right on Aishwarya Lekshmi’s Keerthi, a gifted gusthi player, the line might apply to anyone who had their wings clipped. This sentiment is the bedrock of Chella Ayyavu’s Gatta Kusthi, which treats angry, exhausted women and their struggles with surprising perception. 

So, even if Keerthi, an ass-kicking athlete is crushed when her father tells her to keep her dreams tucked away for a “family life”, she doesn’t fight back and neither does her dad take any pleasure in her agony. Instead we get a meaningful scene about how not all women have the licence to dream, despite living on the cusp of change and equality. 

Gatta Kusthi opens with Keerthi and her unique story in small town Palakkad. She is a firecracker wrestler, who gets the fighter genes from her favourite uncle (Muneeskanth). And just as she wrestles opponents and lecherous men outside the house, she wrestles plenty with her family inside the house (which includes a kinky grandmother who says the most audacious things with a loveable smile). “You don’t have to give up wrestling. Just wrestle at home, like I did,” she winks.

After driving countless matches out the door — all threatened by her biceps and brains — the family forces her to smother both. So, she covers up the biceps with a blouse, and attaches a ridiculous amount of extensions to her bob in an attempt to bury her brains. All for Veera (Vishnu Vishal), a simpleton, who has a ridiculous checklist for a wife. Topping the list is his requirement for the bride to have hair that flows below her knee (which is cause for some raucous laughter in the film. PS: You will never be able to look at hair extensions the same way again). And a close second on the list is his future bride’s near illiteracy. “I want rasam from her, not Periyarism,” he says. But Veera is not your textbook misogynist. His uncle and only guardian (Karunas) is — and a despicable one at that (he teaches Veera the beauty of manhood, which is of course defined by having your partner wrapped around your finger).

So, an enraged, yet love-sick Keerthi is packaged to marry off Veera, and the fun begins. A culmination of this is in the intermission scene, which is a ridiculously enjoyable and irreverent subversion of the boy’s club that is the masala film genre. And It is delightful to see Aishwarya Lekshmi kick some ass with full agency and no fluff. Vishnu, who excels in these scenes with his comic timing, stops, moves aside and lets Aishwarya have all the fun. 

But from thereon, the story begins to slide, and so does its politics. Even if its heart is in the right place, the genre somehow renders its messaging ineffective. So, in place of subtle yet piercing depictions of female drudgery in domestic setups, like in The Great Indian Kitchen, we get overripe sermons about the wronged “hard-working” women of this country who tirelessly fight for their dreams. But should women get to live their lives only if they break their bones playing a sport or work hard enough for their family? 

Keerthi’s attraction towards Veera, too, is bewildering. His only redeeming feature is his stance on dowry, which sweeps Keerthi off her feet. Perhaps this is an indication of the poor standards of decency one has for men. The conflicts in the film, too (except for a really hateful Karunas) are weakly written with bozos masquerading as villains. While the film scorns the idea of women “fixing” men with a superbly written scene where a gang of housewives deride their husbands in solidarity, it inevitably ends up using Keerthi as a tool to fix Veera, as warm as he becomes towards the end. 

The laughs at the expense of Veera too become counterproductive after a point when men in the theatre chuckle over a person’s masculinity being threatened by a woman’s strength on screen. Are they laughing at the irony of the situation or the man who is supposedly “incapacitated”? To the film’s defence, the laughs — ironic or not — doesn’t matter in its universe. Ayyavu sets out to tell a commercial tale about sexism. And he largely succeeds in his pursuit. For, two steps forward and one step backward is still one step forward.