The Bengali film Onyo Opala reimagines marriage as a place of shared oppression and unexpected friendship
Can a transfeminine and a cis woman become friends or fall in love within a heterosexual marriage under patriarchy? How does a woman accept her transgender husband, her forced in-law household, her homosexual son and her raped motherhood?
As a trans woman, I felt very privileged after watching the Bengali film Onyo Opala. Because privileges arise not only spatially, but also through temporal differences, which determine our pursuit of happiness. For me, a queer house, a university and a home with selected families are the spaces that bring happiness. But if I am temporarily suffocated under a previous regime in which transsexuality, homosexuality, traditions, customs and religion minutely control women’s bodies; then my survival might be questionable. And during this time, Opala and her husband Shyam, a trans woman, lived.
Image via Onyo Opala
After the Partition and the disintegration of the Zamindari tradition, the film begins to reveal the heterosexual marriage between Opala and Shyam. Shyam knew what she was from a young age. Although people think of her as an able-bodied cisgender male, she is not. Therefore, she became a devotee of Lord Krishna at a young age. She believed herself to be the Radha of Krishna, while after marriage Opala in turn believed she was the Radha, the Radha of her Shyam. Shyam served both her Lord Krishna and the Patriarch, the guru of her family. She was deeply attached to the Guru.
One night, Opala saw her husband having sexual intimacy with this guru behind a closed corridor; Afterwards she decided to die by ingesting poison. This made Shyam go alone, full of fear, and finally one night she confessed her true identity in front of her wife and asked her to be her friend (in Bengali it means Sokhimeye Bandhobi, Meye = Girl, Bandhobi = Girlfriend), not romantically. Shaym really loves Opala, but not in the role of a husband. From a young age, she wanted a companion with whom she could play and share her secrets.
False marriage vows in which a person is secretly gay, bisexual or transgender are unacceptable; It has always been women who are the victims of violence. Things are different at the time of Shaym-Opala. Today, with the advent of globalized media, identity politics, and high educational awareness, where there is the opportunity to consume queer content, date queer people, join and form communities and associations, and gain economic security through independent income, marriages of convenience are no longer understood.
Shyam and Opala shared lovely moments after this incident. However, the lives of these two friends came under scrutiny when Opala was raped by Shyam’s guru one night. Shyam was also heartbroken when she learned the truth while Opala decided to keep the baby for her in-laws to prove that the child belongs to her and Shyam. Her in-laws always accused her of being impotent and so it was her only chance to prove them wrong. This shows how patriarchal violence, abuse and torture make transfeminine/queer and female bodies vulnerable and abused.
Image via Onyo Opala
In the post-interval narrative, the film introduces a significant temporal shift. After aging and becoming dependent, the Guru returns to Opala in search of care and salvation, where he finally lays his soul to rest. His last wish was Opala’s forgiveness and the reunion of his son, which Opala did not fulfill. Opala’s son has now also returned from the USA. The narrative subsequently reveals that he is the child born as a result of the Guru’s rape of Opala. Opala wanted her son to marry a girl. But at some point she found out that her son was also gay and in love with a man from the USA. She accepted her fate without any resistance. The film also ends here, perhaps leaving it open to interpretation by the audience.
Because she lives in traditional times, every viewer can relate to what she went through. The kind of “endurance” she has within her soon runs out, but is never lost. So she endured her faith again. It does not decide what is right or wrong, who is wrong; Like how she forgave everyone, maybe even the guru who raped her and came to her to seek shelter for a few days where he finally rests his soul. Opola is perhaps and will always remain “different”. That’s why the film is titled “Onyo Opala”, where the Bengali word “Onyo” means “different”.
Being different is something we associate with queer or marginalized bodies. Opala’s body and her experiences as a woman are also “Onyo”, i.e. “different”. She is different because she accepted, loved and cared for everything and everyone except being herself. Opala was forced into a heterosexual marriage, which is nothing more than a political institution that forces women to do reproductive work. In both cases, Opala is forced to become a wife and Shyam is forced to become a husband. Neither of them chose these gender roles. It is the patriarchy that forces both to conform to the “mandatory heterosexual norms,” as Rich (1980) aptly puts it.
The most interesting part that I felt connected to is that the film unexpectedly anticipates transfeminist politics. Instead of positioning cis women and transfeminine people as competitors for recognition, Onyo Opala makes us aware of how both become subjects of patriarchal regulation. Opala’s body is controlled through reproduction, widowhood, and sexual violence, while Shyam’s body is disciplined through forced masculinity and heterosexual marriage. Their lives reveal different expressions of the same patriarchal order.
At a time when women’s and transgender rights apply equally competing concerns both in India and the outside world, particularly the rights of trans women versus the rights of cisgender women, this film can be read as a great resource for recognizing common structures of oppression and possibilities for solidarity. As Leslie Feinberg (1992) rightly puts it, “We are pitted against each other to keep us from seeing each other as allies. True bonds of solidarity can be forged between people who respect each other’s differences and are willing to fight their enemy together.”
References
- Feinberg, L. (1992). Transgender Liberation: A Movement Whose Time Has Come. Worldview Forum.
- Rich, A.C. (1980). Forced heterosexuality and lesbian existence. Journal of Women’s History, 15, 3. https://doi.org/10.1353/jowh.2003.0079
