Table of Contents
Introduction
Cold night, and I had to work through it, despite having absolutely no mood for it. Somewhere along the way, I developed a bad habit: whenever I’m stuck doing monotonous, mind-numbing work, I need something playing in the background. Maybe it’s my way of coping, especially on nights when I’m exhausted, running on deadlines, and still expected to push through.
So, I started listening to Pride and Prejudice on Audible. Slowly, scenes of Lizzy (Elizabeth) and Darcy began floating in front of my eyes. Before I knew it, my mind urged me to rewatch the film (of course, working beside). But when the movie ended, my work hadn’t.
And that’s when the real protagonist of this blog entered the scene. A big round of applause for the film I’m going to talk about:“The Girlfriend”.
The word girlfriend sounds pleasant, doesn’t it? Back in my school days, it used to create butterflies in the stomach, those innocent, cute, and cringe emotions you can easily imagine. But this is not a romantic story. It is a disturbing reality, one that I have experienced and witnessed around me, something that compelled me to write this blog.
Let’s begin with its story.
The Story
This story revolves around the female protagonist, Bhooma, who goes to college to pursue an MA in English Literature after convincing her conservative and controlling father. She carries a simple wish to be self-dependent and to become something in life. Growing up with a conservative and controlling father, which is the reality for many in Indian society, having a love affair or even an interest in such things was never on her mind.
Then comes the entry of the male protagonist or we can call him the villain (in my mind, I only refer to him using curse words) named Vikram.
As in most Indian films, whether Bollywood or Tollywood, he is portrayed as the stud: a completely toxic guy on whom girls are expected to fall. But thankfully, in this movie, the toxicity is not glorified, it is shown.
Bhooma is not interested, but somehow the boy manages to manipulate her into the relationship (don’t worry about this topic; we will talk about it further). Eventually, after experiencing the toxicity and suffocation within the relationship, she decides to leave it and finally manages to communicate this clearly to her boyfriend.
Obviously, a toxic boyfriend with anger issues cannot handle rejection. He goes on to make her life miserable by humiliating her, exposing their private affairs to the entire college, sharing her phone number with men to harass her, and blackmailing her by threatening to reveal everything to her future marriage prospects.
After utter frustration and pain, after hearing from her own father that she has no control over her hormones and that she is a characterless girl, Bhooma finally fights her fears and shame, and courageously stands up for herself.
Now, let’s go deeper…
When “Fine” Isn’t Fine
Do you know that feeling, call it a gut instinct or a sixth sense, when your logical mind insists that everything is fine, yet something inside you keeps whispering that it isn’t? You know you should be fine; you have no clear reason to feel sad, and yet the sadness exists. So you ignore it. You convince yourself it will pass, until reality slowly begins to settle into your mind. And by the time you finally acknowledge it, it may already be too late…
No Means No…
It’s a simple sentence, isn’t it? And yet, somehow, one of the hardest to accept.
After Bhooma clearly tells Vikram that she is not interested in any kind of relationship, instead of backing off, he keeps pursuing her. In movies, this is often shown as romantic. Persistent. “Heroic.”
But in real life? It’s not romantic. It’s scary.
It’s scary how easily a woman’s no is rewritten by society: “Ladki ke naa mein haan hota hai.” “Women don’t know what they want.” “She says no, but there’s a yes hidden inside.”
No. There isn’t. What’s even more frustrating is how common it is for men to continue flirting, messaging, and pursuing even after a clear, verbal rejection. Let me share a simple experience of mine.
During placements, one of my teachers advised me to connect with seniors who were already placed. I reached out to a few, asking for guidance. One senior responded kindly and even spoke to me over a call. From the very beginning, I addressed him as “bhai.” Very clearly. No mixed signals. Yet, he kept flirting. I tried to ignore it and steered the conversation back to work. I didn’t want to be rude, so I replied politely.
Maybe my verbal no wasn’t dramatic enough. Because the messages continued. Random texts. Requests to call again. Casual flirting. I clearly told him I wasn’t interested and asked him to stop flirting. Later, when I called him again strictly for work, the behaviour crossed a line. I started ignoring his messages. Eventually, irritated and uncomfortable, I blocked him.
Some time later, he reached out to me on LinkedIn, asking for my resume so he could refer me to his company. I felt conflicted, even after being blocked, he still considered me professionally. I spoke to him again, keeping the conversation strictly work-related.
But the pattern repeated. Every two days: “How are you?” Unnecessary messages. Flirting again.
At that point, I blocked him for the second time.
Now, I know the judgment that often follows: “If you were uncomfortable, why did you talk to him at all?”
Here’s the reality, when women are studying, working, or building careers, many people flirt. We can’t cut off every single person immediately. Politeness is not consent. Professional conversation is not availability.
What shocks me the most is this: Even after clearly saying, “No, I’m not interested,” he continued to make me uncomfortable.
Why is it so hard to accept no? Why is respecting boundaries treated like a favour?
If a woman speaks to you kindly, it does not mean she is interested in you. It does not mean she is available to you.
And yes, I have seen men who are genuinely respectful towards women. I deeply appreciate and respect those men. But there are still many, well-educated, urban men, who either don’t understand a woman’s no, or simply choose not to.
This issue isn’t limited to women either.
In the movie, the character Durga likes Vikram and keeps pursuing him, even after he clearly tells her multiple times that he isn’t interested. No matter who you are, or how deeply you fantasize about someone, continuing to pursue a person after they’ve said no feels terrible in real life.
It’s irritating. It’s disrespectful. It’s violating. And sometimes, it’s frightening.
No means no… Regardless of gender.
And it really shouldn’t be this hard to understand.
Manipulation
Earlier, I mentioned that Bhooma was manipulated into a relationship. And naturally, a question arises, How can an adult be manipulated? Doesn’t she know what she wants and what she doesn’t?
I asked myself the same thing.
But then I realised something important: that’s exactly how manipulation works. It doesn’t arrive loudly. It doesn’t announce itself. It slowly blurs your boundaries until you no longer recognise them. When Vikram suddenly kisses Bhooma, without asking for her consent, everything becomes confusing for her. She doesn’t get the space to process what just happened. And before she can even make sense of her own feelings, she wakes up one day to the realisation that she is someone’s girlfriend. A relationship formed without her conscious agreement, like a deer being hunted slowly, trapped without realising when it lost its freedom. Bhooma’s nature plays a role here. She is a people-pleaser. A girl who has been conditioned to adjust, to avoid conflict, to not say no. And when we see her father later in the film, her behaviour suddenly makes sense.
Her father isn’t just conservative, he is emotionally manipulative. There’s a childhood scene where Bhooma is happily spending time with her aunt, enjoying herself. Her father responds by withdrawing affection, as if punishing her for being happy without him. That moment says everything.
A similar pattern repeats in her adult life. After Bhooma performs exceptionally well in a college play, she excitedly shares her happiness with Vikram. Instead of celebrating her, he says things that dampen her joy and make her feel small.
When someone consistently makes you feel insecure, guilty, or uncomfortable about your own happiness, especially when that happiness doesn’t involve them, that’s not love. That’s emotional abuse. This is how control works. Slowly… Quietly…
They want to control you, your life, and your sources of happiness so completely that, over time, you start abandoning everything that once brought you joy. You stop meeting people you like. You distance yourself from friends. Your world begins to shrink until it revolves around just one person. And once you become emotionally dependent on that single person, the toxicity feels normal. You don’t even realise how trapped you are or how to leave.
That’s manipulation. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just devastatingly effective.
Controlling Nature
There is a scene where, once again, Vikram takes Bhooma to meet his mother, obviously without asking her, without discussing it with her, and completely ignoring her no.
His mother is shown as a woman who has been physically abused and emotionally conditioned for years, to the point where she no longer talks freely with guests or has courage to look at them, and does every small thing for her son, even keeping his shoes back on the rack. Vikram idealises her and says she should be worshipped for this behaviour, the behaviour a mental condition created by years of physical and emotional torture.
And this is the kind of woman he expects his partner to be. He talks about his plans with Bhooma, how she should be a homemaker instead of doing a job, without ever asking her what she wants, what she wishes for, or what kind of life she imagines for herself. No opinion asked. No choice given. This is the point where Bhooma realises how controlled she is in this relationship and how suffocating it actually is.
Throughout the movie, again and again, we see the same thing: the male protagonist never bothers to ask his partner about her will, her wishes, her dreams. All that matters is him, what he wants, what he decides, what he can control. He doesn’t want a partner; he wants someone who does everything for him, and that too according to his will.
Even when he arranges everything for their marriage, he doesn’t ask Bhooma if she wants to marry him or not. He simply tells her the decision he has already taken alone.
While writing this, I can feel the suffocation myself. And it makes me think about people who are in relationships like this, not only women, but also men who are controlled by emotionally abusive partners or even parents. I honestly wonder how suffocated they must be feeling, living inside such control every single day.
At the end, the suffocation Bhooma experiences turns into panic attacks. In abusive and suffocating relationships, anxiety and panic attacks are real even if people find it hard to accept that. Physical abuse leaves visible wounds. Emotional abuse doesn’t. But the trauma it creates often stays with a person for their entire life.
No Seal, No Deal…
Wow… I think this might be my favourite topic.
In the movie, after Bhooma finally tells Vikram about the breakup, he threatens her. He says he will tell her future love interests that she slept with him. Straight-up blackmail.
But pause for a second. Why is this even considered blackmail?
In the US or most Western cultures, this threat wouldn’t work. No one can ruin a woman’s future by saying she had sex. So why does it work here? And I already know the argument that follows: India is a pious land. Women here are not like that. They should be “pabitra.” Okay, fine. Let’s accept that logic for a moment.
But then I have a question.
Men are also part of this culture, right? So how does it make sense that a woman “loses” her virginity on her own? She loses it with a man. Then why does the so called “great Indian man” feel entitled to sleep with women before marriage, but refuses to marry one who has done the same?
This fear exists in Indian society because many men, consciously or subconsciously, follow one brutal rule:
“No seal, no deal.”
A woman’s worth, her respectability, her character, all of it is decided by a thin membrane called the hymen. A man with multiple sexual partners is a stud. A woman with the same history becomes a slut. And no, this isn’t just a rural or uneducated mindset. This is not limited to villages where women are killed if they don’t bleed on their wedding night. This is the mindset of urban, educated men. Men I have seen. Men I am surrounded by. Let me tell you about a close friend of mine, let’s call her Isha.
She was in a relationship for two years. Their families knew. Marriage was on the table. They were physically involved. Later, she found out that the man had been cheating on her for almost a year. When Isha eventually entered another relationship, her new boyfriend called her characterless. A whore. A slut. He made her feel ashamed and guilty, constantly reminding her that he was being kind by accepting her, because no one else would. I’m just relieved she’s out of that toxic relationship now.
I once spoke to another woman, I used to call her Di. She told me she stayed in a toxic, abusive relationship for nearly ten years for one reason alone: she had been physically involved with him. She believed that since she had already “crossed that line,” no other man would accept her. She had suicidal thoughts.
And the worst part? Even women internalise this thinking. We are taught that once we have sex, we are “used.” That a broken seal makes us unworthy of love, respect, or a fresh start.
For women, the words come easily: “She’s used.” “Who buys a product whose seal is broken?” “Her body count isn’t zero, so she has no character.”
A male friend once told me, without hesitation: “No seal, no deal. That’s against my values. And a man without values is nothing.”
Values? This is what we are calling values now?
These are educated people. People with degrees. People who talk about modernity and progress. And honestly, I don’t know what disgusts me more, the mindset itself or how casually it’s defended.
Let’s make one thing very clear.
Sex, before or after marriage, is about mutual consent. If a man’s character is not judged by his sexual history, then a woman has no reason to be humiliated for hers.
Wanting a partner without sexual experience because you wish to explore everything together is a preference. That’s fine. But then live by those values yourself. Don’t demand purity from women while granting freedom to men.
And for God’s sake our izzat is not stored inside our vagina.
Conclusion
Somewhere along the way, when something wrong is happening to us, we choose to ignore it. As women, we are taught tolerance, it is ingrained in us, often passed down by our own mothers. We are taught to put ourselves last, to prioritize others and our families first. And after watching films where toxic masculinity is portrayed, when similar things happen to us in real life, we don’t even realize it. We begin to believe that the uneasy feeling inside us is wrong, when in reality, what is happening to us is wrong.
There is also a character, Vinaya, Bhooma’s friend, who has soft feelings for her. A man who respects her, helps her, values her opinions, and never crosses boundaries. As usual, he is shown as not very attractive or conventionally good-looking. But men with these qualities are far more respectable and, I feel, make the best partners because life with them is not suffocating.
I know it is easier to identify what is wrong in someone else’s life than in our own. And even when we do realize it, it takes immense courage to stand up for ourselves. But it is important to do so. It is important to be complete within ourselves first. It is important to love ourselves first. And above all, it is important to remember:
YOU ARE IMPORTANT.
