‘No toilet, no bride’ says latest poster of Akshay Kumar's Toilet: Ek Prem Katha

The marketing of Shree Narayan Singh’s upcoming film, Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, has been highlighting the serious matter of open defecation in the villages of India. One of the posters showed a lush green field with the tagline, ‘Nature is not a toilet’, while another showed its lead actor Akshay Kumar standing out on guard with a lamp in one hand and a mug in the other. Another one that came out on Thursday showed a gang of women headed to the fields with mugs in their hands.

The current government, who initiated the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in October 2014, has been leading the ‘No toilet, no bride’ campaign in several North Indian states like Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. Earlier this year, over a thousand villagers came together to declare that they wouldn’t marry their daughters into households that did not have a toilet attached.

Without a toilet in the house, rural women are forced to relieve themselves in the outdoors where they are more vulnerable to violent and sexual acts against them. Outdoor toilets also increase the risk of unhygienic sanitation practices.

Therefore, the latest poster of Toilet: Ek Prem Katha shows Akshay Kumar dressed up for his wedding day with the tagline 'No toilet, no bride'. The upcoming film, said to be based on a true story, is said to address the subject of importance of toilets head-on. The poster hints at the possibility that Bhumi Pednekar declines to marry the groom (played by Akshay) because his house does not have a toilet for her. The rest of plot might follow his quest to build a toilet for his bride, thus completing the 'prem katha' or love story.

In a recent interview, Akshay Kumar had said, “When I heard about the real story of how a woman, stood by her ground. She got married to a guy and she realised that he doesn’t have a Toilet at his place. And she asks for a divorce. For just one toilet. Just one toilet and I think that woman is unbelievable for standing her ground. It’s not about the toilet, it’s about the shame you go through.”

Toilet: Ek Prem Katha’s first trailer will come out tomorrow, while the film is due to be released on 11 August 2017.