Why must the lipstick be hidden? Because open desire is dangerous. In patriarchal structures, a woman who expresses desire—especially sexual desire—is labeled “characterless,” “loose,” or “westernized.” She becomes a threat to the social order. The burkha, in this sense, is not just cloth but an ideology: it exists to make female desire invisible. The lipstick, by contrast, is visibility. It is color on the face, attention drawn to the mouth—the organ that speaks, kisses, and sings. To hide lipstick under a burkha is to admit that a woman’s voice and her pleasures must be smuggled into existence.
The film brilliantly unravels this tension through four women from different generations. There is the college girl who wants to be a pop star, hiding her Western clothes and her love for a photographer. There is the young bride trapped in an abusive marriage, who finds escape in erotic phone calls. There is the middle-aged widow, a successful beautician, who dares to fall in love and desire sex. And finally, the elderly woman—the grandmother—who clandestinely reads a trashy romance novel, dreaming of a passion her life never allowed. Each one hides a “lipstick” beneath her own “burkha.” Their stories reveal that the desire for pleasure, autonomy, and visibility is not a matter of age, class, or religion—it is universally human.
However, the film does not suggest that the burkha is the enemy. For many women, the burkha or hijab is a choice, an identity, or even a form of liberation from the male gaze. The real enemy is the enforced concealment of self. The lipstick is not in conflict with the burkha when the burkha is freely chosen; the conflict arises when the burkha becomes a cage and the lipstick a crime. The film’s title thus works as an oxymoron—two things that should not coexist but do, every day, in millions of purses and hearts.
In conclusion, “Lipstick Under My Burkha” is a battle cry wrapped in a love story. It reminds us that revolution is not always in the streets with raised fists. Sometimes, it is in a locked bathroom, applying a forbidden shade of red. It is in the stolen glance, the whispered phone call, the hidden book. The lipstick will not tear down the burkha—but it will stain it from the inside. And that stain, over time, becomes impossible to ignore. The question is not why a woman hides lipstick under her burkha. The question is: why has she been forced to hide anything at all?
The metaphor extends far beyond clothing or cosmetics. In offices, homes, and university hostels, women wear invisible burkhas every day: the expectation to be polite, to not take up space, to postpone their dreams, to laugh at sexist jokes, to be “good girls.” The lipstick underneath is the startup they want to launch, the solo trip they crave, the lover they choose, the child they refuse to have, or simply the right to say “no” without explanation. Bringing that lipstick out requires courage, because once revealed, it cannot be hidden again.
Critics of the film, including the Indian Censor Board, initially refused to certify it, calling it “lady-oriented” and containing “sexual scenes” that were “lascivious.” Their discomfort was telling. What they found objectionable was not explicit violence, but the celebration of female erotic agency. The board’s initial ban proved the film’s thesis: that a woman’s right to her own body, her own fantasies, and her own lipstick is still seen as obscene. The subsequent public outcry and eventual release with an adult certificate marked a small victory—not just for the film, but for the conversation it forced open.
At its core, the lipstick represents . In many conservative societies, a woman’s body is not her own. It is a public trust, a marker of family honor, and a canvas upon which community morals are painted. The burkha—whether literal cloth or metaphorical code of conduct—is enforced to keep that canvas blank. To wear lipstick is to sign one’s own name across that canvas. To hide it under the burkha is an act of tactical defiance. It says: I will obey the rules in public, but in the privacy of my own skin, I will be free.