LIPSTICK UNDER MY BURKHA deals with four women of different age groups, all of them residing in the dilapidated Hawai Manzil in Bhopal. Usha Parmar aka Buajee (Ratna Pathak Shah) is the matriarch of this crumbling building and also a widow. Her favourite pastime is reading Hindi romantic novels, similar to Mills & Boon, that ignite a strong desire for a male companion. Shirin (Konkona Sen Sharma) works secretly as a saleswoman and she is very good at her job. Unfortunately, she has to keep this part of her life a secret from her husband Rahim (Sushant Singh), who works and lives in Saudi Arabia for most of the year.

Women-centric films have been quite the rage since the past few years, but filmmakers making such films have nevertheless stayed within the confines of the 'Laxman Rekha' created by 'sanskaar'. Which is exactly why Censor Board chief probably cringed at the thought of issuing a certificate to Prakash Jha's production venture Lipstick Under My Burkha- for the film thumbs its nose at patriarchy and misguided morality with such a wicked grin that lesser mortals are bound to feel threatened by it.

A lipstick can be as dangerous as a gun and a symbol of rebellion. This beautifying accessory is the common link that binds the struggle of four women across different age groups and social backgrounds living in the same locality. Rehana (Plabita Borthakur) is a college student whose aspiration to be a desi Miley Cyrus is crushed under the weight of her Burkha stitching sewing machine. Shireen (Konkona Sen Sharma) is a salesgirl by day and a sex toy for her husband at night whose only wish is for her partner to love her like a man loves a woman.

Shireen (Konkona Sensharma) is a sales girl whose husband stays in Saudi and visits home occasionally. Whenever her husband comes home, she is forced into a passionless sex every night by her husband who treats her like a sex toy. Shireen's husband Rahim (Sushant Singh) doesn't know about her profession as she is intelligent enough to know that he'll never approve of it.

Bollywood has been termed as a male-dominated industry since forever, but times are changing and so are the films. Producer Prakash Jha's Mrityudand was the depiction of a woman's heroic act against the evil and Lipstick Under My Burkha falls under the same category. With Ekta Kapoor's Dirty Picture in 2012, which almost changed the trend in Indian cinema, more filmmakers have come up with female-centric scripts.

In the final moments of Lipstick Under My Burkha, as the four protagonists face the explosive consequences of their perceived rebellions, we hear firecrackers bursting in the background. Director Alankrita Shrivastava uses the backdrop of Diwali to tell us that the lives of these women may be going up in flames, but they'll go out with a bang.

After a long and controversial battle with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), Alankrita Srivastava's Lipstick Under My Burkha finally hits theatres on Friday. With all the hue and cry around it, you would expect a film that is all about sex. Except, this isn't. Lipstick Under My Burkha is a simple story about four women and their dreams - of financial independence, of becoming a singer, of moving to a big city and of simply, enjoying life.

Sometimes the threat of a ban is the best thing to happen to a film. Especially if the filmmakers decide to fight back, and win: from being the kind of film which potentially could have remained a festival-fringe, Lipstick Under My Burkha has arrived in theatres this week, all guns blazing, giving us the finger. And I can tell you that it's absolutely worth your time, and your thoughts: this is exactly the kind of film we need more of, with its deep, personal, political and powerful look into women's lives, which says what it needs to, and makes its points, without being preachy or polemical, or beating our heads with it.

The biggest disappointments of Lipstick Under My Burkha are its sex scenes. Devoid of any heat, photographed in the most unimaginative manner, and 'calculated' to a fault, the sex scenes in Lipstick Under My Burkha have the power to wean both women and men off sex. (Because it can have this same effect on both genders, the film does make a unique case for Gender Equality after all!) And therein also emerges the shallowness of this film that turns women's liberation into a dissertation topic and infuses it with no feelings whatsoever.

The "burkha" in Lipstick Under My Burkha must be viewed with all the baggage the word carries. It is not a literal reference to the form-camouflaging garment worn traditionally by Muslim women. "Burkha" here is a reference both to the piece of clothing and the curtaining off of a woman's dreams, desires and feelings. This film is not about women of any particular religious group. It is about all women living in the shadow of tyranny.

Four women - all residents of Hawai Manzil in Bhopal - dream of a better life. They are: Shirin (Konkana Sensharma) a wife and mother of three who lives with a controlling Saudi-returned husband (Sushant Singh); Buaji (Ratna Pathak) a 55-year-old widow and Manzil's matriarch who secretly enjoys racy literature; Rehana (Plabita Borthakur) a burkha-clad teenager who idolises Miley Cyrus and wants to sing in the college band, and Leela (Aahana Kumra) a soon-to-be-married beautician who hopes to escape with her lover (Vikrant Massey).

The burkha as a piece of outer clothing used to obviate temptations of the flesh - it could well have been the ghoonghat - is only a leitmotif in Alankrita Shrivastava's rebellious but even-toned film that got the goat of the man who undeservedly heads India's censor board and bleats a bit a too much against anything that he perceives as being at variance with his ultra-conservative worldview.