A film stirs up a controversy. Should breast sizes be dictated? Dola Mitra finds out if everyone out there really cares

For some, the subject of Shunyo E Bukey ? Kaushik Ganguly?s just released feature film, is a non-issue. Briefly, the story is about a bride rejected on her wedding night by a husband who is repulsed by the smallness of her breasts. The film purports to say how wrong he was. Do men lust after chest size? Of course they do ? always have. But not all men, or women, have allowed their lives to be defined by that.

Making light of it, Anjali Sengupta, (a 37-year-old communications professional), says ?I am pretty underdeveloped, and have never roused any fascination in men other than to dazzle them with my sparkling mind!? Her husband, 40-year-old Aniruddha, (also a communications professional described by a relative as ?besotted by his wife,?) says jokingly, ?you can interview me, I have more boob than she does.? ?Regarding boob size,? he adds, ?for some, they might be the alpha and omega of attraction, but for others, ?sparkling minds? do tend to shine through. And I do think (or at least hope) that there are enough men for whom this is true.?

Clearly, it?s a matter of individual taste. ?There are two reasons why girls wear dupattas,? a college classmate had volunteered for our edification some years ago. ?One is to hide big boobs. And the other is to hide that you don?t have big boobs!? She would know. She was, in her own words, as flat as a washboard.

Not that the dupattas helped much. She was lovely in every way ? silken hair, peaches-and-cream skin, slender waist ? but the boys on the campus never forgave her for lacking in the chest department. She never forgave the boys and one day after everyone graduated, she quietly went away to the US, leaving most of the dupattas behind. Chances are, she didn?t meet with much luck there.

It was also in college that juvenile jokes about bra sizes did the rounds. There are those that ?uplift the masses? and those that ?make a mountain out of a mole hill?. Watching Shunyo E Bukey ? dubbed An Empty Canvas in English ? one wonders if it isn?t making a mountain out of a molehill of an issue. In spite of the college friend.

Check this out. Tista Mitra, the protagonist of the film, played by Churni Ganguly, is a girl from a wealthy Calcutta family. She marries an impecunious artist (Kaushik Sen) against the wishes of her parents because they are in love. On the night of the wedding, he reassures her of his unconditional love in a show of passion. Seconds later, he recoils in disgust. Shock, horror! She is flat-chested!

A tad incredible? There are those who think so. ?As an immature peer you may tease someone when in school or college, but, come on, a marriage breaking up because of it? Give me a break,? says a man leaving after catching the morning show at INOX.

?It?s a little unrealistic to think that he was so na?ve, especially in this day and age, as to not know she was flat,? agrees another viewer. In the movie, Soumitro, the artist, explains that it was out of ?respect? for her that he didn?t check her out first. In the rather more convincing Hollywood movie, Notting Hill, Julia Robert?s character asks Hugh Grant?s, what the obsession is with breasts. ?Your mother had them!? she reminds him, scornfully.

Dr Prakash Kothari, professor-in-chief of the department of sexual medicine, at the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, blows the lid off the myth that breast size matters in sexual attraction. ?It is unmitigated ignorance and years of uneducated conditioning coupled with Godzilla logic handed down from generation to generation that makes a man tell himself subconsciously that breast size matters. In fact, flat women are more responsive because of the simple fact that the concentration of nerve fibre is limited to a smaller area. And since love-making is a symbiotic process, a responsive partner is a more responsive self.?

But then Tista?s marriage does break up. As a painter obsessed with the nude female form, her husband cannot come to grips with the idea of being married to a woman who is ?incomplete?. ?I feel cheated,? he barks, ?why didn?t you tell me before?? ?Tell you what?? Tista does ask, adding apologetically, ?I would have told you everything, but I felt uncomfortable.?

So what is the film really trying to say? Is the camera actually doing a spot of male-gazing of its own? Not according to actress Churni Ganguly, who is also married to the director. On the contrary, she explains, ?It exposes the hypocrisy of the male whose secret desires manifest themselves in deranged ways, destroying the female sense of identity.? She points out that Tista admits to wearing padded bras. ?This indicates how she subconsciously continues to submit herself to patriarchal values.?

And this submission, experts point out, is rampant. According to Aniruddha Bose, plastic surgeon, who is associated with Apollo Hospital, the demand for breast augmentation surgery is very high in India. ?In Calcutta alone, I get five to six cases per month,? he says. ?All categories of women arrive, requesting silicon prosthesis, willing to pay the approximately Rs 50,000 that is required for the operation.? He says that even mothers bring their daughters to make them ?more appealing for the marriage market?.

In her years of experience in marriage counselling, Devaleena Ghosh, director of counselling agency, Kornash, has come across hundreds of cases in which couples have come in with problems ostensibly dealing with other issues, ?but ultimately these boil down to dissatisfaction about physical appearance. Many women suffer from insecurities and complexes about breast size, because they find that their husbands are not responsive or are straying.?

Fitness expert Mrinalini Mukherjee receives ?hordes of e-mails and phone calls? from women asking about exercises to increase bust size. But she points out that almost an equal number of women also request her to suggest exercises to decrease breast size. ?Some top-heavy women and even their husbands come to me for help. The basic problem is dissatisfaction with self-image.?

But does Shunyo E Bukey, fill the void? Or does it further reinforce feelings of inadequacy even as it speciously sets out to ?sympathise??

After Tista?s divorce a friend (played by Tota Roychowdhury) of the artist marries her. This friend tells the artist that he ?can perfectly understand the revulsion he felt because no man can love a flat-chested woman?s body?. And then he says, ?But we must accept certain things.?

The answer lies in whether or not this was meant ironically. Luckily, according to Ganguly, ?It was.?