Where society elevates duty above desire, stigmatises sex outside marriage and enforces compulsory heterosexuality, in Fire these conventions are subverted. I desire to live. I desire Sita. I desire her warmth, her compassion and her body. I desire to live again.
Fire is a film that starts a process of questioning.
Women can also be bearers of communalist ideology as illustrated by the leading role of the Mahila Aghadi in this instance. The two Hindu women depicted in the film look, dress, behave and live as millions of others do in India. They work for the family business preparing sweets and drinks, cook and serve their husbands, care for the aged grandmother and so on. They are the antithesis of the deviant or outsider in the communalist imagination. Yet within the private sphere to which they are consigned, they can and do find happiness, and with each other.