Consent is tricky business. The "Yes"s and "No"s get all tangled and stretched around. Men can take one yes to mean a yes to everything, and there is the alternative, as exemplified in films too, suggesting that when a girl says no, she means yes.
The film The Amorous Adventures of Megha and Shakku (video above) traverses this tricky terrain through the Maharashtrian dance form of Lavni. A sensual dance, it lends itself quite well to the "delicate and complex" subject of consent.
"Do people think consent is like hard cash? You can't hold it your hand and see it. You have to learn to sense it!" Shakku explains to Megha. And "if men got that point, imagine the ecstasy."
The two act out their experiences with men, and besides "yes" and "no", also tell us that the middle ground of "maybe" is okay too.
The video stars Shakuntala Nagarkar as Shakku, Megha Ghadge as Megha, and Gaurav Gera as Chikna Bhari.
This is part of a series of videos on the subject of love, sex and desire by Agents of Ishq – a multimedia project run by documentary filmmaker Paromita Vohra. Earlier there was a sex education class performed by kids for kids, Main aur Meri Body, which was equal parts entertaining and informative. And another on an "an LGBT inclusive Rose Day" called Phoolz for Love.
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