Ladies’ Special: A Short History of On-Screen Sisterhood

“I suppose women embrace all identities – mother, wife, sister, daughter – except friendships,” says a character in Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies (2023). When new bride Jaya (Pratibha Ranta) not-so-accidentally finds herself in another man’s home, the film offers up a delightful twist. Even as Jaya is working towards an ulterior motive (spoiler alert: She wants to go and get an education), she forms a friendship with the women in her fake husband Deepak’s (Sparsh Shrivastav) family. She gently encourages Deepak’s sister-in-law, who is in a long-distance marriage, to say her husband’s name, a practice that is unthinkable for the women in their community. Jaya also inspires her faux sister-in-law to pursue her love of art, and the two women become genuine friends. Towards the end of the film, we learn that while she was plotting her own escape, Jaya was also secretly working to find the missing Phool (Nitanshi Goel), Deepak’s actual wife. By viewing Jaya mostly from the perspective of a suspicious police officer, the film plays on the conventional suspicions that surround a young woman who doesn’t cower, and instead confidently flouts social norms. Usually, such behaviour is punished, but in Laapataa Ladies, it earns Jaya a chosen family, one that loves and supports her more than the one into which she was born. “Like there are bro-codes in life, I think there is an absolute dearth of sisterhood, and we really need to promote it in a big way,” said Sneha Desai, one of the writers on Laapataa Ladies.

“Earlier, we didn’t really see female friendships on screen,” said Ishita Moitra, one of the writers on the hit streaming series Four More Shots Please!, a show that resolutely foregrounds female friendships. “You only saw women pitted against each other,” Moitra told Film Companion. “Whether it was a TV serial or a feature film, women were always fighting for the same thing, vying for the same thing. You didn’t really see that sort of feeling of sorority.” 

Sisters Before Misters

Over three popular seasons, Four More Shots Please! has followed its lead quartet, each of whom have their share of challenges in life and love. No matter what happens, Damini (Sayani Gupta), Anjana (Kirti Kulhari), Umang (Bani J) and Sidhi (Maanvi Gagroo) come together at their favourite pub after a long day to vent, unwind, and bask in each other’s company. Even as they playfully tease each other about inappropriate crushes and bad decisions, they also offer advice and unconditional support whenever their friend needs it. When Damini suffers a miscarriage, there are no words exchanged; her friends just let her sink into a warm group hug. When Umang calls off her wedding, her friends are an unshakable pillar of support for her. Often, it feels like it’s the four of them against the world, but as Umang puts it, “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, and no one else I’d rather be with.” 

“When Four More Shots Please! came about, we knew that this was something that we hadn't really seen much of, at least in India,” said Moitra, who was also one of the writers on Karan Johar’s Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023). “Obviously it’s a show, so there will be drama, but it has to feel and sound real. And I think that’s the reason that it connected with so many people. There are things that women only talk about to other women. There are things that you need your sisters to carry you through. That was the endeavour with Four More Shots Please!” 

When they are not being eclipsed by larger-than-life heroes, the relationships that female characters have with each other have long been superficial or antagonistic. Moitra pointed out the hypocrisy of a term like ‘cat-fight’, which refers to a wild altercation between two women: “Nobody says ‘dog-fights.’ Men go to war with each other, but it’s always about, like, ‘cat-fights’ between two actresses. It’s just laughable, but that’s the way it used to be.” Perhaps that was why the final scene of Alankrita Shrivastava’s Lipstick Under My Burkha (2016) felt special. We don’t get a neat resolution to the challenges the film’s four heroines have faced. Instead, we see the women retreat to a safe haven, away from prying eyes, where they can share their fears and fantasies, smoke a couple of cigarettes, and laugh together. In one another’s company, they find a sense of understanding and support that had previously eluded them. It’s a pure, powerful moment of female friendship, something that still feels like a novelty in Hindi cinema nearly a decade after the release of Lipstick Under My Burkha. 

Breaking the Cycle

Last year, Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani saw women forging unexpected friendships within a family setting, even with the film’s arch villain being the matriarch Dhanlakshmi (Jaya Bachchan). “We wanted it to be nuanced,” said Moitra. “Jayaji’s character is a victim of patriarchy herself. There were so many things that went wrong in her life. There is a reason she is the way she is. But her daughter-in-law is not the same. That inter-generational trauma does not go down to Rani (Alia Bhatt). She looks at Rani as a person and not as a bahu (daughter-in-law). For Rani, these are people she grows to love and admire. There is a genuine affection that those three have, Rani, her mother-in-law and sister-in-law. It was a conscious thing on our part while we were writing.”

Breaking old cycles is also an important part of Laapataa Ladies. Speaking about the tender and tentative friendship that is forged between various female characters — like the tough-talking Manju Maai (Chhaya Kadam) and Phool, and between Jaya and her honorary in-laws — Desai said, “I feel that women connect on a much more emotional level.” Particularly when it comes to the relationship between mothers-in-law and new brides, centuries of patriarchal conditioning have contributed to developing a hostile, adversarial relationship between the two. What’s lost in the process is true friendship. “Because of that conditioning, I have always felt that we’ve never been able to dwell on those relationships in a very organic way. We’ve never been really able to encash on the friendships that could have possibly been there in those relationships,” said Desai. When Deepak’s mother (Geeta Agrawal Sharma) hopefully asks her mother-in-law, “Can we try being friends?”, it’s a moment that is as gentle as it is radical. 

Laapataa Ladies, with its portrayal of easy, joyous friendships between its female characters, emphasises the camaraderie between the women in the film. Jaya encourages the women in Deepak’s family to pursue their happiness; Phool and Manju Maai grow to care deeply for each other; and ultimately, Phool and Jaya teeter at the beginning of a lovely new friendship. “These are not urban people. They are not people who are educated,” said Desai about the women of Laapataa Ladies. “They are not people who understand sisterhood in a real sense. They are, in fact, living a life of societal conditioning, of suppression. They have been raised and brought up to adhere to very typical relationships in life. And yet they break these shackles knowingly and unknowingly,” making the female friendships in the film that much more refreshing.

Women on Top

For Moitra — whose favourite representations of female friendship include Sex and the City, Bridesmaids (2011), Monica/Rachel from Friends and Meredith/Christina from Grey’s Anatomy — the future is bright. “Now there are a lot of shows, at least on OTT, as well as feature films, where women are coming together,” she said. “That whole Madonna-Whore Complex is not there. So there’s a nuanced portrayal of women. Like, she can be this and that and many other things in between. I feel like that also lends to more authentic dynamics on screen.” The pilot episode of Four More Shots Please!, which is titled “Ambitious. Prude. Feminist. Slut.” is in line with this thought-process. The opening narration declares: “Labels don’t define us. Actually, a woman can be all of these things, and all in one day.” 

Even in films or shows that are not predominantly about female friendship, there has been a positive shift. “I can see that even on shows which are about other things, it might be a crime thriller or whatever, but you can see that women characters are interacting with each other differently,” said Moitra. According to viewership reports, some of the most popular streaming shows last year centred around women, from Aarya and Dahaad to The Trial: Pyaar, Kanoon, Dhokha; Kaala Paani and Saas, Bahu Aur Flamingo. “We are 100% going to see more of [female friendships] simply because there are a lot more women writing now, and also because platforms are headed by women, and very smart women,” Moitra said. “And they’re also choosing the kind of stories that other women find relatable, that even men are interested in watching — eventually, it’s not about gender. If it’s a story that you find engaging, you will watch it. And I think it’s very important because it’s been far too long. We need lots and lots and lots of narratives about women led by women.”

Desai said, “We have come a long way from the saas-bahu sagas that we’ve grown up watching, the kind of poisoned, jealous, insecure relationships, stereotypes that we’ve been fed all our life. I think the newer generation is depicting women’s friendships in a very refreshing way, and more of it needs to happen.” If the excitement surrounding the teaser of Excel Entertainment’s Jee Le Zaraa — the road-trip film starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Katrina Kaif and Alia Bhatt whose production is now on hold — was any indication, Indian audiences are more than ready for the “girls to take the car out”. Indeed, with the upcoming heist-comedy film Crew, we have three three established Bollywood heroines “taking the plane out”. The film features Tabu, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Kriti Sanon as flight attendants with big dreams and little means. More importantly, they’re best friends who’ve always got each others’ backs. Crew is written by Nidhi Mehra and Mehul Suri, the duo who gave us Veere Di Wedding (2018), a noteworthy addition to Bollywood’s small but growing canon of authentic female friendships, which also includes films like Thank You For Coming (2023) and The Archies (2023). 

“There is an emotional quotient to a female friendship,” said Moitra. “There is this sense of camaraderie, but it’s also a bit like therapy. It is a support system. For us, friendship is a safe space. It’s a no-judgement zone where you can be your authentic self.” The simple act of women supporting other women, bonding with each other, always looking out for each other, is a rebellion against the patriarchy, both on screen and in real life — one that often gets packaged in our films and shows to seem preachy, performative or unconvincing. However, that more and more stories emphasising women as complex characters who prioritise standing by their girlfriends — think of how Veronica (Suhana Khan) and Betty (Khushi Kapoor) refuse to be cast in a love triangle and fight over Archie (Agastya Nanda) — is good reason for optimism. It’s also a reminder that as opposed to melodramatic conflicts, resistance to misogyny and regressive attitudes can be layered into the everyday by showing women as friends rather than competitors. “If that is the kind of cheerleading that we can get from the women in our lives, women can go a very long way,” said Desai. “It's not necessary for all women to climb the ladder. If you cannot climb the ladder, you can hold it up for somebody else. And that itself is an empowering act.”