4.3 Bazaar Film Analysis

4.3 Bazaar (1982)
This film directed by Sagar Sarhadi was one of the best films depicting the social conditions of impoverished families in Hyderabad. In order to gain financial advancement, these families traded their daughters to foreigners (mostly from the gulf) in return for large sums of money, within the veils of marriage. The film centres round the lives of two Muslim women, Najma (Smitha Patil) and Shabnam (Supriya Pathak). Najma is a woman who wants to settle down with her lover Akhtar, officially under marriage, for which she arranges a wedding transaction with a hefty financial settlement between Shakir Ali Khan and Shabnam’s family. She later finds out that she had been completely ignorant to the relationship ties between Shabnam and Najma’s brother.
Najma represents the older daughter who is laden with the

It centres round the trials and tribulations that she goes through because she dared to live life on her own terms. A young Muslim girl that grew up on the film sets watching, appreciating and learning the art of acting and dancing. When she becomes a teenager she performs a song in one of the films which infuriates her father making him taking the decision to marry her off to his best friend’s son. After struggling and rebelling she ends up accepting her father’s wishes.
On the day of her child birth, because of a fight between her father and the father-in-law, Zubeidaa gets a divorce from her husband. She becomes a sad and lonely independent mother that loses interest in life. Aunt Rose Davenport (Lillete Dubey) becomes an important person in bringing a change into Zubeidaa’s condition. She introduces her to Maharaja Vijayendra Singh (Manoj Bajpai) who falls in love with her and proposes to her. He becomes a breath of fresh air in Zubeidaa’s life and she decides to marry him even when her mother says that her son will not be taken away by