Leena Yadav's Parched has been in the news for reasons both good and bad: it survived a battle with the Indian censors and won accolades the world over in renowned film festivals, including Toronto. And finally it released in India on Friday. Parched is the story of three women - Bijli (Surveen), Lajo (Radhika) and Rani (Tannisththa) - who live in a patriarchal village of Rajasthan that thrives on masochism. While Bijli is a dancer and also a prostitute, Rani is a widow raising her son on her own and Lajo is a wife trapped in a violent marriage and accused of being barren (banjh).

Writer-director Leena Yadav's Parched comes to Indian theatres after a year-long run on the international film festival circuit starting with its global premiere at Toronto 2015. In terms of storylines, Parched - co-produced by Ajay Devgn, no less - is to impoverished women of rural India what last week's much-acclaimed release Pink is to educated, middle-class urban Indian women: both films are about the physical dangers, prejudice and discrimination women face in contemporary society, and the consequences of rebellion.

Towards the beginning of Leena Yadav's Parched, two Rajasthani women -- Rani (Tannishtha Chatterjee) and Lajjo (Radhika Apte) -- are riding in a crowded bus. The windows are rolled down; the wind blows on their faces. Lajjo's dupatta falls off her head, but Rani covers it. 'This wind feels wild,' Lajjo says and then she adds, 'It's touching me everywhere.' And then Lajjo pulls Rani towards the window, 'Tu laigee zindagi ka mazaa?'

Leena Yadav's Parched is an irresistible beast of a film. As incendiary as it is entertaining, it goes where Indian cinema rarely does without becoming exploitative - into the erogenous fantasies of long-suppressed village women who are no longer willing to countenance their restrictive veils. It tackles themes that are both elementary and universal - the perils of misguided masculinity, child marriage, domestic violence and the pitfalls that lay in wait of women who seek to express their innermost urges.

Women have the right to decide what they want. They can articulate their needs and desires. And they have the power to put a stop to abuse and violence: these crucial themes are toplined in Leena Yadav's Parched. The film would have been welcome at any time because the more discussion around them the better; coming a week after Pink, the timing seems even more opportune.

Parched revolves mainly around Rani (Tanishtha Chatterjee) who is a 30 something widow in a fictional town from Gujarat, Ujhas. Rani mortgages her hut to fetch a beautiful bride for her 17 year old son Gulab (Riddhi Sen). He is an arrogant prick who considers having sex with a sex worker makes him a 'man'. Gulab is soon hitched to Janaki (Leher Khan) but much to Rani's surprise, this set-up does not make her life better but only worse.

The whore is strangely (albeit, rightly) the symbol of freedom in this rural film. To start with, the choice of who she wants to sleep with rests with her. And here I'm referring to the particular character in this pic. Unlike the rest of the women in the hamlet. She has greater ownership over her own body. She is also slightly above judgment. Or at least couldn't care less. How does one even shame the supposedly shameless?

Set in rural Rajasthan, Parched revolves around three women-Lajjo (Radhika Apte), an ostensibly infertile woman married to an abusive husband, Rani (Tannishtha Chatterjee), a woman dealing an insensitive son and his new bride and Bijli (Surveen Chawla), a dancer and a commercial sex worker, who is fed up of being used for sex and dreams of a new life. How these three women deal with struggles that they encounter in a feudal and patriarchal society, is what Parched is all about.

It is quite a wave of fresh air to see so many women centric films come in a span of nine months. And all of them have managed to work tremendously not just at the box office but even attain a big thumb's up from the critics. Radhika Apte, Surveen Chawla, Tannishta Chatterjee and Lehar Khan starrer Parched also takes us back to seeing what happens when four women chill together. Now before I speak further, I'd like to wipe out the misinterpretation caused by the promos of Parched and state that no, not a woman empowerment film! Bewildered? I was too when I watched the film.

Parched serves up a feminism of different kind. It's not at all urban and contemporary; in fact, the themes of misogyny and chauvinism at work in this movie are unmistakably feudal. But it presents a way out of hell for the women. Even when the women helm from rural India and are not at all educated, they have a chance at a better life. It portrays a harsh reality of Indian culture, especially one that's prevalent in the deepest interiors. While the reflections of women exploitation may not be new, this movie does add a deep sexual angle to the storytelling.

Leena Yadav's Parched takes you into a disturbing and thought-provoking territory. Even as it cleverly intertwines the stories of the three protagonists all of who have had a raw deal in life, it simultaneously puts the spotlight on how there is still an India where a woman is treated as a sex object; where her only role is to serve her man. Rani who was married off at 15 to an alcoholic Shankar has been widowed for 17 years and has to fend for herself and her callous son.