India, Jan. 1 -- 2024 was the year the International Olympic Committee voted for numerical gender parity. A revolutionary mandate. There was equal representation of men and women at the world's most elite and most celebrated sports event of the year, the Paris Olympics.

India kept pace - at least in cinema. In 2024, quite a few films passed the Bechdel Test. An unofficial invention by American cartoonist Alison Bechdel in 1985 in her comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For, it goes so: For any given work of fiction to pass the Bechdel Test, it must 1) have at least two women in it 2) talk to each other, about 3) something other than a man. A blunt and basic measure of gender equality in a book/film/show.

Ridiculously enough, many films aroun...