Prathyush Parasuraman
Why should a woman biker face different challenges on the road different from that of men? There is mist, flash floods, flat tyres.
Dhak Dhak, the all-women biking trip film, starring Ratna Pathak Shah,Dia Mirza, Fatima Sana Shaikh, and Sanjana Sanghi, begins with these women trying to find a sanitary place for one of them to squat and pee.
The complications of them being a woman are wound tighter, layered by their age, religion, and personalities. Dhak Dhak does the labour of completely flipping any assumption of what we might consider a “biker”.
Uzma (Dia Mirza) is a married woman in a burqa, Manjari (Sanjana Sanghi) is a Radhe-Radhe-chanting virginal mouse, and Mahi (Ratna Pathak Shah) is a grandmother, an old woman with young dreams. (Fatima Sana Shaikh) is a vlogger with raw wounds (nudes leaked).
As the women journey through Delhi and Ladakh, there is a female monk, an entrepreneurial cook, a truck driver, a soldier, road construction worker all of whom spew wisdom as the women undertake their journeys.