At first, Babita Singh Reporting talks to you about a suspended ASI, Baby, from Bhopal navigating life as a career woman in a patriarchal society. But look closer, and the film directed by Ambiecka Pandit and released on Prime Videos quietly draws attention to the same patriarchy subjugating its men—the very people presumed to be its beneficiaries.
Starring Nimisha Sajayan, Barun Sobti, and Anshumaan Pushkar, Babita Singh Reporting, is ostensibly about a woman finding her way back to herself. The film's premise tells us that Baby is a people-pleasing copy who accepts fake raid charges instead of her senior to win leave for her sister-in-law's godbharai in Rewa. There, she reunites with her childhood friend Bansi (Sobti), who is murdered that very night.
Primarily about a woman juggling between her duty towards her work and her family, the film's more interesting observation lies in the men orbiting her, and the different ways they have learnt to inhabit masculinity when the traditional script of the macho man no longer quite works. Contrary to several films and shows that have focused on the ability of its hero to be physical violent to exert his masculinity, Babita Singh Reporting, presents men who resist that. They are emotionally expressive, caring, eager to be present as husband and friend -- what can be considerable called "soft masculinity". Yet the film questions if "soft" is the answer to the everyday violence that both men and women experience.
Take Sharad (Pushkar), Babita's husband. He isn't the archetypal patriarch who announces his authority through anger or violence. His masculinity is considerably softer: he is emotional, vulnerable, and capable of crying. But the film understands that vulnerability doesn't necessarily undo entitlement. In one of its most revealing moments, Sharad's hurt takes over a confrontation in which Babita is the one who has been wronged. He cries; she ends up consoling him. The scene highlights an instance of performativeness that makes Sharad seem like the nice guy. The emotional labour quietly shifts back to the woman.
Sharad isn't necessarily pretending to be vulnerable. His pain can be genuine however the dynamic it produces remains deeply unequal. Soft masculinity doesn't have to be fake to be performative; a man can sincerely inhabit the role of the sensitive, emotionally expressive partner and still expect a woman to listen, understand and soothe him.
On the other hand, Bansi represents a different, perhaps sadder, shade of that softness. His masculinity is shaped by absence. He is lonely but willing to put other people's needs over his. And the film allows that loneliness to exist without turning it immediately into either menace or redemption. His connection with Babita grows from recognition—the feeling of finding another person who understands what it means to be isolated. There is tenderness in the way he gravitates towards her as she investigates who may have murdered him, but also a deeper need: to matter to somebody.
That makes Bansi's protectiveness more complicated. For men who have been taught that intimacy is difficult to articulate but usefulness is a virtue, being needed can become a substitute for being known. His instinct to help Archana (a school friend) is affectionate, but it is also one of the few ways he knows how to express closeness. The loneliness underneath it is unmistakably human. It is not only a desire to have someone, but to have a place in someone else's life. Moreover, his soft nature makes him an easy target to loot and eventually allegedly murder. And this is where Bansi becomes important to the film's larger conversation about masculinity, despite the character not sharing enough screen-time.
Male loneliness isn't always the angry, isolated man we have become accustomed to seeing on screen. Sometimes it is the quiet man who wants companionship but doesn't quite know how to ask for it in the most obvious ways. Babita Singh Reporting asks its viewers to pay the attention to those subtle hints.
Sharad and Bansi, in that sense, sit at opposite ends of the same emotional spectrum. Sharad has intimacy but struggles with accountability; Bansi has loneliness but reaches for connection. Both reveal how deeply men can remain dependent on women to make sense of their emotional lives.That is what makes Babita Singh Reporting more interesting than a straightforward indictment of patriarchy. It recognises that the system doesn't only produce women who are expected to accommodate men. It produces men who can be profoundly lonely inside the very structures that privilege them.
Babita's rebellion, then, isn't simply that she begins speaking for herself. It is that she stops making herself responsible for what the men around her feel.