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Kalki Koechlin’s video, The Printing Machine mocks the society's silence on a range of issues and especially the growing numbness against crimes against women. The video is also a powerful reflection of the way news treats women's issues in India.
Kalki Koechlin dressed in a nude coloured wrap, with very little make-up has rapped a self-composed poem called The Printing Machine. The Printing Machine video produced by the Culture Machine and uploaded by Blush on Youtube has logged in over a lakh views within a day of its release. That’s a lot of views for a topic that most would call feminist trash but it is lesser than expected views for a celebrity fronted video talking about women’s issues.
Deepika Padukone did it for Vogue India and the video went on to log well over one crore views. There is the obvious disparity in star power between Deepika and Kalki but the deeper answer lies in the rap song.
“Fear The Beast Riding The Night. From Delhi To Pondicherry.
Catcalling. Wowing. Growling. Grrr Grrr Grring….Beasts on a shopping spree.
It’s midnight Cinderella! It’s 10’o clock You Dirty Fella.”
Kalki has taken on not just the catcallers and the rapists but she also questions the media – news and social media both, for normalizing the way we consume news of crimes against women.
“Gang-rape. Japanese Tourist. International. Stink Stink.
Strip-search for Menstruating. Blink Blink.”
Where the Printing Machine stops to be a rap song about women issues and more a song about the state of women in Indian society is,
“Irom. Force-fed from Starving. Think Think…
…Of sweeping statements made by official establishments. To Take safety precautions and make improvements based on political views and religious sentiments”
The five-minute video is an opinion piece of what she feels about being a woman in India – about being told to behave a certain way because she is a woman and values that depend on what others think.
“Ladies can’t fight seriously in lingerie.
So hurra hurra.
Let’s throw her a bikini everytime she raises her head to fight me.
You see, God forbids multiplicity for a woman in our society.”
Kalki Koechlin’s Printing Machine will not move mountains and might not even raise the desired number of views for its producers but the content is powerful and is a small step in saying, “Stop. Think. Stories That Become Our History. Know what…One day, irony of ironies will one day reveal….How our great Indian society fell to its knees…At the mercy of small little…printing machine.”