I’d been wanting to watch Baarish (1957, Shankar Mukherjee) for a long time, but as there were no subtitles, I knew I was in for a more strenuous viewing than usual. Still, this film was a little like the missing link in my Nutan experience! It’s a pleasant movie, inspired, I think, of Kazan’s On the Waterfront, which explains why we have all those kabootars in it (Sunheriyaadein was wondering… BTW, thanks to that blog’s author for the story!), but also accounts for the film noir atmosphere. The only important aspect Baarish doesn’t adopt is the character of the Catholic priest, Father Barry. But otherwise, there’s Ramu the young thug (our lovable Dev Anand), his purifier Chanda (equally lovable Nutan), Ramu’s brother, and the Underground Boss, who in Kazan’s film was played by the fearsome Lee J. Cobb, and who’s Jagdish Sethi here. Please do as I did, go for the full story at Sunheriyaadein’s blog. Oh, don’t worry (s)he stops at the right moment to leave the suspense intact in your mind…

Baarish of course is a showcase for the two lovable ones: it’s here to entertain their fans and guarantee their interest will be sustained for two hours. It did that for me very effectively! When Ramu, sent by his brother, arrives in Chanda’s village, for example, everything’s exquisite from the start: she’s perched in a tree, spits, pouts and tinkers with monkeys (see A nutty Nutan, where a number of caps come from this scene). He frowns, glares, and pretends a lot. Apparently she believes he’s some kind of tax officer, and she’s going to do her utmost to divert him away from the house, all this to the tune of Yeh muh aur daal masoor ki. She tries by scowling at him, which doesn’t work, then she writes a false message near the entrance door (“all gone to Kashi – back next year”), but Ramu can’t read (he supposes their names are written), and finally she locks the door on him, but he peeps through from above, and spies on her! All this is delightful, and gloriously funny thanks to Nutan’s comic talents and Dev Anand’s Gregory Peck-like charms. Communications-wise, they actually bleat at one another!!

The rest of the film is very predictable, because it plays on the various moods necessary for the fan base to appreciate their heroes from the various classic perspectives: after the opening distrust, we have the love scenes, then comes danger, and there’s a great moment when Nutan is seen through the besotted eyes of the village suitors: whereas they look at her, busy drawing water from the well and waiting for her pail to fill, she suddenly becomes a dovey-eyed belle who’s entranced by their singing and trite words, comes closer to them, lends her cheek to their lips, and then, bubble-like, springs back into her previous form as the incensed maiden who’s straight out from Seema! The scene is also an opportunity to laugh at human faces, brought together as in some Rembrandt or Leonardo paintings. The film, BTW, is full of them:

I think Nutan was still busy asserting her actress’s skills, and her physique enables her to perform masterfully: she had a face she could twist into grimaces, and which could also melt into any smile! It’s a pity that the Youtube version seems cut at certain points, for example we don’t get to see the precise moment when the pair make up… A real pity, because if this moment exists, it would have been very interesting to observe! Nutan’s youthfulness as usual makes one shrink in utter wonder. I don’t know whether that “kind of well-endowed” nature, “with her puppy fat” (as Sharmi playfully suggests) has anything to do with it? I’d say yes, because her ravishing face had a fullness and a pliableness then which turned into a more straight and longish type of features later in life. Have a look:

What’s absolutely wonderful is her impersonations of loving motherly feelings in this film. I don’t remember if this struck me as powerfully in other movies. I strongly believe that Nutan’s femininity expressed itself very deeply in her motherliness. Here she hears about children for the first time:

And here she tries to make Ramu understand she’s going to be a mother:

She does it almost without being able to tell him in so many words – she believes in her joy that the man she loves and who has enabled her to become who she wished so very deeply to be, will understand her, understand the change which isn’t one, because she’s always wanted to be a mother, but which is a fantastic change nevertheless, because it’s finally real:

And then the scene where she ties herself to him by smearing on her forehead some of the blood from a wound he got in one of his scuffles (he reprimands her for doing so – I wonder if he means it could be a bad omen, which her love had disregarded?):

And finally that lovely moment of bliss when she realizes she’s finally secured her lover:

Nutan was at the height of her charms - when wasn’t she? - that lanky body which her relatives complained about, or so the legend goes, being then beautifully fleshed out. Later she thinned, and her face became more grave, more interiorized. During the late 50s her fuller shape corresponded to the generous feelings which appeared on her features, and it starts in Baarish. The downside is that her skills were still a little unhoned, if one compares with her Bimal Roy roles, for example. In Baarish she excels at expressing outrage and irony, and a little less grief and loss, as in Bandini or Sujata:

As for Dev, I agree with Sharmi, he wasn’t yet “the charismatic debonair who made all of us weak in the knees”!! His almost British phlegm had not yet become his trademark. He was still a little too brittle, a little too hurried. But then later (very British-like!) he buttoned all the shirts he wore! So yes, I don’t mind saying it was rather cool to see him shirtless and to swagger about in front of a demure Nutan who didn’t seem to notice 

See the rest of the film's photos here

There isn’t much of a story in Satyajit Ray's Pratidwandi (the Adversary, 1970): because of social and economic disruption in Bengal, young Siddharta (Dhritiman Chatterjee) and his family (mother, uncle, sister and younger brother) find it hard to cope amid the rising tide of unrest and unemployment. The film starts with his father’s cremation, which causes him to interrupt his medical studies. His nice-looking sister’s got a secretary’s job with a boss who probably values her more for other, less professional reasons, and his brother belongs to the Communist Naxalite movement.

This is what Ray wrote about the film: "You can see my attitude in The Adversary where you have two brothers. The younger brother is a Naxalite. There is no doubt that the elder brother admires the younger brother for his bravery and convictions. The film is not ambiguous about that. As a filmmaker, however, I was more interested in the elder brother because he is the vacillating character. As a psychological entity, as a human being with doubts, he is a more interesting character to me. The younger brother has already identified himself with a cause. That makes him part of a total attitude and makes him unimportant. The Naxalite movement takes over. He, as a person, becomes insignificant."

Indeed what’s striking in the way the film unfolds is Siddharta’s lack of a definite aim, his annoying half-purposelessness which goes unaccounted for. He’s significant because he doesn’t have a social or a political significance. He doesn’t fall into the pre-ordained slots; he should want to find that job, he should need to fit, he should play the roles which would free him for the enjoyment of the rich inner world which we feel inhabits him, but he slips away from conventional tracks, and even then, not that much. He does follow certain rules, but not until the expected end. Is it impatience, or maladjustment? Where, or what is the flaw? Is he under some sort of shock (his father’s death?) Is he an edgy result of obscure forces which are shaking his youth? Is the power of big city (the “Mahanagar”) too strong for his individual pursuits? Or is it simply the male hormones playing havoc in his veins? 

Ray’s first sequence is suggestive: the carrying away of the father’s body, his bereaved wife and then the eldest son’s station in front of the pyre are filmed in X-ray negative, as if Ray was saying: “the pictures you are about to see (in positive) are “revealed” by an invisible light which you won’t see, but which I have briefly made visible for you, so that it remains somewhere at the back of your mind.” What’s particular about Siddharta is that he’s idle:

This excellent application scene underlines his quintessential nature as a candidate. Siddharta is never employed, never chosen: he’s forever a candidate to roles or jobs he is denied. Idleness defines him: not as a lazy, inefficient loafer, but as a potential candidate with too much applicability than what is offered him. Asked what his aim in life is, he pauses and answers:

This matter-of-fact answer debunks the conventional frame which application questions forces on people: it is an existential answer, which puts forward the reality of the person in the everyday situation where it finds itself, and not in the model projection of the ideal, nonexistent applicant. Paradoxically, Siddharta can be defined as a permanent candidate, but he isn’t abstract: he’s a person who would fit in with other persons, and not with a set role in a bureaucratic system where jobs are as many cogwheels.

One might say that Siddharta is an original, a highly intelligent and creative individual. His answers to his examiners would rather reflect this. Like the Vietnamese people whose resistance to American military clout, says he, was much more unpredictable than the landing on the Moon, and so, much more significant, this young man’s answers are also unpredictable and do not fit with the board’s set of acceptably correct answers. “Your personality has the stamp of intelligence”, Siddharta’s friend tells him one night while walking in the street. But he retorts: “Who wants intelligence?” “I’ll be a copier in the bureaucratic machine”, he adds, a little later, speaking to his brother.

A society in crisis isn’t really equipped for what is really new, even if the crisis is what has prompted the fresh response. The challenge of novelty relies on being able to see that the new element isn’t threatening the old order, but on the contrary creative of an improvement of the existing order: that the new can even reorder the norms and prepare the frame for the importation of more, and better norms. But it takes a rare openness of mind to see such novelty as positive; it can easily pass as freakish. Siddharta’s remark that the Vietnamese resistance to the US was “just plain human courage” and not, say, Communist indoctrination or fanaticism means that he’s freed himself from the standard categorizing thought-process, something which is already a form of intelligence because it enables one to order reality into some kind of readable pattern. But naturally too much of it and it can rigidify or simplify a fluent and complex state of affairs.

One could say Siddharta personifies Ray’s understanding of Hamlet, maybe, because he’s in between action and inaction, he’s a “thinker who doesn’t act” (according to one of his pals). Like Hamlet he has political musings: in his brother’s room in front of the mirror (Ray shows us a Che Guevara transformation of his face) he half-wonders what an activist’s destiny would change him into; later he believes he could take part in a revolution.

Then he’s emotionally unsettled by the (all strikingly seductive) women in his environment, his sister first, whom he believes it’s his duty to defend (but Ray suggests perhaps more), then a prostitute he meets thanks to one friend of his, and whom he resists, and finally a neighbour who asks him one night to come and change a fuse in her house, and who befriends him. At one stage, he attends to an accident on the street, people get out of the car, leaving a solitary schoolgirl in the back seat: the camera goes  away from her to Siddharta, then back to her, and again to him: we half fear he’s going to do something wrong – she’s alone, the crowd is busy, the music is insistent: but he turns away, leaving us half-relieved and wondering. Hamletian unpredictability!

Siddharta says that “when his head gets hot” he might do anything: is he a toy of his impulses, of his hormones? What does this heat mean? During a major scene, he’s waiting in an overheated room with lots of other candidates for a particular job, and the choosing takes very long; everybody is restless and one applicant falls to the floor, from tension or exhaustion. Siddharta then brushes past the standing clerk, pushes the door open and enters the interview room, to ask for seats, arguing that the applicants outside are treated like animals. He’s rebuffed, and we fear for his application! But then it happens again, later in the day, he again storms into the official interviewers’ office, fights with them, throws a chair in the window, and even upturns the table, like Jesus with the money-changers’ table in the Temple of Jerusalem! The whole scene acquires a symbolical value: it’s almost nightmarish in its intensity, and could be seen as the anti-hero’s parable of fighting against a society which will never integrate him and which he cannot possibly adapt to. One wonders if he’s ever going to find a job, but the scene also shows his particular type of hot-headedness: when his world-view cannot accept the reality he’s faced with, for good or bad reasons, he cannot adjust, he prefers to break the rules and conventions and brings about a tragic chaos in which clearly he will lose, because he’s then completely alone. Like a child.

Ray insists on his childhood; there are several short flashbacks of Siddharta with Topu (his sister), near a river where she attracts his attention to a certain bird-song, and in another scene, with his brother, we realize their difference faced with the cruel act of skinning chickens. His brother doesn’t mind the idea of the French guillotine, an object which cuts life neatly in two. Siddharta is the exact opposite: his life flows from one state to the next, from one period to the next; it allows change to reshape it (“you’ve changed” he says to Topu; “you’ve changed too”, she counters): these childhood glimpses I understand as attempts to sort out the psychological genesis of his character, but also a sign that someone’s life is never so clear-cut: you cannot be “a salesman” or “a medical representative” only. A human being is several things at the same time, several persons at the same time. Sometimes the person herself doesn’t know exactly who she or he is. The way one has grown can help to solve the quandary, the way one has accepted, one has refused, the way one has loved. The subtle and rather pleasant sections between Siddharta and Keya, his girlfriend, testify to life’s infinite dimension, and Ray’s delicate and yet masterful art: details, looks, allusions, fragments: all these show how much he refused to simplify and on the contrary, how much he could see in life.

The X-ray scenes we have already alluded to bear witness to Satyajit Ray’s crafty handling of the multiple meanings and layers within his visions of human life as a whole. There are also evocations, dreams and memories, as we have seen. But one X-ray scene is particularly suggestive. When Siddharta is taken to the brothel, and introduced to this very nice-looking woman, she asks him for a cigarette, and then for a light.

He proceeds to strike a match; she bends towards him, and the sparking of the light results in the sudden X-raying of the picture:

We can see her glowing river of hair, now an incandescent white, but even to my Western eyes, this white shines so strongly of death that we almost see the threat materialize in the shot. We are also immediately reminded of the other X-ray scene at the beginning of the film, and the merging of the two scenes suggests an unnamed third: couldn’t his father have died because of such a temptress; or isn’t his death the consequence of some sin which is visited on his son who, as a result, veers and reels ever since? The prostitute blows her smoke on him and we see/feel her venomous snakelike hiss as it's made visible by the camera:

One last focus in this complex and challenging work (which is reminiscent of the French Nouvelle Vague cinema): who’s “The Adversary”? The movie’s title offers another angle from which to watch it. I have been wondering whether this title might not be in relationship with the main protagonist’s name, Siddharta, which as one knows is also the Buddha’s name? One could argue that Siddharta is a cinematographic embodiment of the Buddha: his “Middle Way between sensual indulgence (Topu?) and the severe asceticism » (link) of his Naxalite brother; his insistence on doing (or trying to do) what is right, rather than what other people do; but I daresay I don’t know enough of Buddhism to go much further… Does the last scene of the film, where Siddharta hears once again the bird of his childhood chirp away so joyfully, equate with the famed Awakening? Perhaps there is an “adversary” in Buddhism which practitioners would recognize? Excess? Perhaps the most meaningful adversary though, in Ray’s film, could be Siddharta himself? He would then be fighting against his old self and trying to become purified from the shackles of roles and rules before he can defeat him and find peace? As this is the first film in the series of the “Calcutta trilogy” (which comprises also Seemabaddha and Jana Aranya), perhaps the answer is to be found in these other movies.

"I wish I could start from scratch. I have done good, bad and indifferent films. I wish I could erase it all and start afresh like the Professor of "Ek Din Achanak" who walked out on his family in a rainy day without even as much as informing anybody. One of the characters says: "one of the saddest things in life is that you live only one life." However famous you are, you are aware of your mediocrity in certain respects. When you realize that, you face a crisis that is insurmountable. Though I have an enviable position as a maker of good, bad and indifferent films, I cannot escape this feeling of mediocrity within. Perhaps it happens because we are too immersed in our own selves." These are, according to this website, the words which Mrinal Sen said about Ek din Achanak (1989). This sentence gives us a sort of clue to the film’s mystery, which consists in the reason for the disappearance of the central character of the movie who decides, one day, suddenly, to leave his little family, never to return. This middle-class history teacher (Sheeram Lagoo), who lives in a small Calcutta apartment with his wife, son and two girls, can thus be looked upon as a representation of the film-maker himself, who apparently felt, like him, a need to escape from what he calls his mediocrity. But contrary to Mrinal Sen, he does escape, and immerses himself not in his own self but in the rainy urban ocean.

So whatever the fictional reason told or suggested by the film, we have to understand this departure as a kind of allegorical suicide by drowning, and the film as a meditation of the impact on relatives of the meaning of such a gesture. Mrinal Sen had already worked on this type of theme. In 1979 he had shot Ek Din Pratidin (And quiet rolls the dawn) in which a family plunges into despair after the disappearance of one of the children. There was also Kharij (1982, The case is closed) which shows a family whose servant dies poisoned by carbon monoxide. In Ek din achanak, the violence is subdued, little or no recrimination occurs as the family starts waiting and looking for causes of the absence of the father, husband and teacher. Instead we go through flashbacks of a few scenes, which give us some insight about what might have happened, and we follow the relatives struggling to keep sane and continuing to live their own lives as best they can. Some manage, like the younger daughter (Seema, Roopali Ganguly) whom we see come back home at one stage, to announce her success at her degree; some manage less well, like the professor’s fragile and diffident wife (Uttara Baokar), who takes the full blow of his absence.

Yet nobody breaks down; they all stick to their interpretation of the event; one year after his disappearance, they realize the year has gone by and are a little amazed, but not much has changed really. And so the film isn’t a statement on the necessity of family union, and how much it costs if one member is cut away from the family tree. They don’t hope he’ll come back, and one is left to wonder what the film-maker is telling us. His Chekhovian characters are left in the movie without their centre of gravity, floating somehow and a little unreal.

The symbolical death becomes a sort of void, an emptiness of meaning which casts a pale not only on the professor’s departure, but on the family and even on the whole of the society which they belong to. The mediocrity infects all of them, together with the visiting uncle, who tries to solve the enigma, and in a lesser degree the former student of the professor, a young woman whom the family suspects of having had an affair with him. It isn’t a moral mediocrity, but an existential one: they are all stuck in their little circles, where nothing really happens, and which only occasionally intersect. In fact they’re all ordinary human beings in their ordinary lives, if one follows Neeta’s (the elder daughter, Shabana Azmi) “discovery” of her father’s secret:

Neeta clearly is Mrinal Sen’s interpreter; she’s the one who mouthpieces her dad’s situation for us, far from any of the false leads which the others cling to: his affair with Aparna (Aparna Sen), or the shame of a possibly plagiarized article. She tries to express his decision and what he has come to mean about him in simple terms:

During one flashback, we see him clutching him one night when he couldn’t sleep, in a loving gesture that doesn’t call for any words:

And at the end of the film, the mother also drops a line which Mrinal Sen quotes (see above):

[Yolo!] It’s something which, she says, her husband had said just before leaving, but apparently she hadn’t understood its importance because she had never mentioned it before. Neeta on the other hand, opens wide her eyes and ears, and we see that for her it’s a major clue.

Ek din achanak thus speaks about the possibility of leaving this life: one day, somebody whom we had grown accustomed to, somebody who was part of us, is gone. We scramble for reasons and causes: it’s our nature to do so. But the film doesn’t intend us to be satisfied with reasons and causes: perhaps what it wants us is for us to be ready for it? Perhaps it wants to casualize death? To make it an ordinary option of any man’s freedom? Maybe. But I rather think it wishes to dramatize the emptiness of all lives, the ordinariness. No one’s life is special to the point of guaranteeing it the glory and glamour that often follows its termination, what one calls “destiny”. Precisely in the film, the professor’s life has no destiny, no eternal meaning. Mrinal Sen debunks the lyricization of life, its cosmic-scale magnification. Instead, what we have is a man going away, and that is all. No wreaths or flowers. I wouldn’t say this is nihilism: the nothingness present at the centre of the movie isn’t destructive, like an acid might be; whereas nihilism seems to me an active force, spreading the negativity of emptiness on whatever it touches. The absence in the middle of the film is like a question, a question without an answer, this is why it is so close to the common viewer: it doesn’t attack it, rather it begs his participation.

Watch the film here

Hello to all,

I'm once again using this blog to serve as a travelog - with some students of my engineering school (INSA Rouen), we are soon to fly to India on a study trip whose programme has been prepared by them (check here - don't know if you can access this FB page publicly) ever since last September, when we started looking for Indian University contacts in order to make sure that the French students would meet some Indian counterparts. First we liaised with IIM Indore, but after some procrastination, we took advantage of another contact, and a connection was established with JNU in Jaipur! They've accepted to host our group of 20 for three days, between Feb 25 and 28th! Thanks to them! They have organized our stay, with activities, industrial visits, academic sessions, and discovery of the city. We're hoping to make the most of the time, and perhaps establish contacts which could continue with them after our return to France: who knows, invite some of them, start a partnership... All this is still rather vague.

The rest of the time has been planned during the fall semester by India-hungry students, 15 of them (+ 3 who are joining us for the trip). In order to make the most of our time there, they had to organize an itinarary, book hotels, find the prices of visits, think about the trains, the connections... We hope everything goes according to plan, but... we'll see! In Delhi, we should be meeting up with former INSA student Dhruv Lijhara, who's involved in a publishing firm, and our time of arrival will be that of the Delhi World Book fair, so he'll be quite busy! Still we hope to have some time with him, and maybe he'll show us his country in a way ordinary tourists can't see it!

The rest of the time, after the first 3 days in Delhi and the subsequent 3 days at JNU will consist in a tour of Rajasthan which will resemble what I had done back in 2010, but not to worry, you never bathe in the same river twice.

We're off on Friday Feb 21st.

So... The few upcoming posts will be in French for family and friends back home!

We all had a meal together in December at the Indian restaurant in Rouen, Le Maharaja!

Bonjour à tous,

Un premier jour assez difficile car après une longue attente du groupe principal à l'aéroport (4h), nous sommes allés à l'hôtel qui avait été réservé depuis la France, mais apparemment sans avoir eu accès aux Commentaires des utilisateurs! Or, ces commentaires étaient en fait franchement mauvais (ce qui  été confirmé quand nous sommes arrivés après avoir été dirigés de ça de là dans sa direction), car l'état général de la literie était déplorable, et les vaillants étudiants étaient pas mal fatigués de n'avoir pas dormi dans l'avion, et aspirant à un peu de repos voulaient en prendre, naturellement, et furent très dépités de ne pas pouvoir décemment s'installer dans ce 1er hôtel.

De plus avec Thomas Coursin je me suis séparé du groupe principal, qui avait appelé quelqu'un de ce 1er hôtel et attendait qu'il vienne les chercher (ceci avant de connaitre l'état des chambres), et du coup quand nous sommes revenus, plus personne; mais nous avons providentiellement rencontré un gars qui nous a conduit dans un "tourist office" où l'on nous a expliqué pourquoi ce premier hotel était une arnaque, et pourquoi il fallait modifier tout. Après coup de fil  et réunion des deux groupes, nous avons donc décidé d'écouter les conseils de Zafar (photo) qui nous a concocté des modifications importantes du voyage et du programme!

Bref, il était déjà pas loin de 3h, je crois, quand nous sommes arrivés au nouvel hôtel, et le temps pour les étudiants de se poser, de prendre une douche, et de se prépaprer à repartir manger, il était bien 4h  Sans trop réfléchir, nous nous sommes mis en tête de marcher jusqu'à Connaught Place, la grande place centrale de Delhi, mais sans prévoir qu'environ 3 kms nous séparaient de notre quartier (Karol Bagh). Arrivés là bas épuisés, avec rien dans le ventre depuis très longtemps, nous sommes rentrés dans un restau thaïlandais et avons commandé la nourriture qui est enfin arrivée dans nos estomacs, souvent extrêmement épicée, vers 17H30! Voir ci-dessous l'état des étudiants crevés mais repus!!

Retour à l'hotel heureusement plus détendu en touk-touk, et partie de rigolade assurée. Demain balade dans Delhi, nous l'espérons, selon un rythme plus détente!...

Bonjour tout le monde,

Journée à Agra aujourd'hui, très beau temps, voyage en car un peu long pour y arriver, mais les étudiants en mode "Waouh", à la fois bien sûr pour la Merveille du monde qu'est le Taj Mahal, mais aussi pour les rues d'Agra, pleines de la "vraie vie" indienne, les animaux, les boutiques chamarrées, les gens partout, et puis ensuite on est allé voir le fameux fort rouge d'Agra, assez vite visité en fait, où l'empereur qui construisit le Taj Mahal a été, soi-disant, enfermé par son fils...

Mais en fait la journée a été un peu ternie par des soucis d'organisation avec des guides qui se sont imposés à nous sans qu'on le demande, et donc nous avons dû mettre les pendules à l'heure à Delhi ce soir avec le responsable de l'office du tourisme. On est 20, donc c'est sans doute naturel que les désirs de différents profiteurs s'intéressent à nous! Enfin, demain, nous quittons Delhi pour Jaipur, où les étudiants de JNU nous attendent!

Désolé du délai pour remplir ce blog avec les infos des derniers jours, mais pendant les 4 jours passés à JNU (Jaipur National University), nous ne disposions pas, bizarrement, de réseau internet ou téléphone ! Étrange pour une université ! Cela dit, peut-être pas tant que ça, car cette université est formatée sur le modèle des Public Schools britanniques, avec grilles d'entrée qui isole les « grounds »,uniformes, sonneries pour la fin des cours, respect scrupuleux de la hiérarchie, etc. Quand nous avons pu enfin accéder à une salle info pour avoir accès à nos messageries, vendredi dernier (28 février), nous nous sommes aperçus qu'il y avait un contrôle sur tous les sites non utilitaires, ce blog y compris !

Mais bon, l'impression d'ensemble a été cependant excellente, notamment à cause de l'accueil, formidable, de toute la communauté étudiante, de l'administration et de notre « Event manager », Shivam Gupta (photo ci-dessous), avec lequel j'avais été en contact avant le voyage. C'est lui qui avait concocté notre programme, a supervisé tous les contacts, autorisations et informations nécessaires pour que nous puissions être logés et nourris, c'est aussi lui qui avait prévu les visites, sorties, animations diverses de notre séjour.

Il y a d'abord eu la cérémonie de réception avec M. Bakshi, le chancellor (président) de l'université, accompagné des deux vice-chancellors : nous avons été honorés avec les traditionnels colliers de fleurs, puis on nous a fait monter dans une salle d'apparat avec collation, film et speeches de bienvenue. Ensuite nous avons fait un tour du campus avec Shivam (qui a été avec nous pendant l'intégralité des 4 jours, et s'est détendu de plus en plus au fil de notre connaissance mutuelle).

Les logements en résidence pour les étudiants, et dans la Guesthouse pour nous deux enseignants, étaient tout à fait à la hauteur, sauf peut-être les douches: il fallait demander de brancher l'eau chaude. Chambres séparées, un bloc filles et un bloc garçons. Les repas étaient pris dans le « mess », en général spécialement préparés pour nous, et donc pas top épicés. Mais il y a quand même eu plusieurs étudiants qui ont souffert de tourista, notamment une que Shivam a dû emmener chez le médecin.

Le premier jour, les INSAiens ont pu présenter leur école, sous toutes ses facettes, devant un auditorium comble, rempli d'étudiants et de professeurs ; chaque département représenté en la personne des étudiants présents a été décrit : la formation, les stages, les emplois, etc. Des étudiants se sont portés volontaires pour les départements non représentés. Tout cela au micro et en anglais, évidemment. Les questions ont ensuite fusé : différences entre les systèmes français et indien, une journée type (les indiens étudient le samedi!), comment faire pour venir étudier en France...

                                                                  Le cours de yoga!

Pendant les quatre jours, nous avons assisté à des cours (plutôt adaptés pour nous que vraiment typiques du quotidien des étudiants indiens), nous avons visité des laboratoires, nous sommes allés voir une entreprise (Neelam Aqua = Eau bleue) de solutions chimiques pour la purification des eaux industrielles (il était prévu une deuxième visite ce jour-là, mais pris dans un orage impressionnant, nous avons dû l'annuler). Nous avons profité d'un programme culturel complet de Jaipur, puisque le jeudi 27 c'était la fête de Shivratri, grande fête annuelle de Lord Shiva, le dieu hindouiste, et Shivam avait prévu de nous emmener au temple. Après cette étonnante visite, départ pour le fort d'Amber, à quelques kms de la ville, où les amateurs de folklore ont été gâtés : montée au fort à dos d'éléphant, turbans de toutes les couleurs, incroyables mosaïques, points de vue imprenables sur les montagnes alentour, etc. Et ce soir-là, Shivam nous a proposé de nous emmener à Choki Dhani, un village artisanal où nous avons pu admirer les métiers traditionnels et apprécier un fameux repas !

La « Valedictory ceremony » (cérémonie d'adieu) fut un autre temps fort de notre séjour, avec deux respectables « dons » (professeurs) de l'université qui nous ont fait part de leurs impressions de notre visite et de leurs souvenirs de voyages en France, leurs liens avec notre pays. Il est clair que la France, non représentée dans la liste des universités partenaires avec JNU, est pourtant bien présente, car plusieurs professeurs et chercheurs sont venus étudier ou participer à des conférences et colloques chez nous. Cette cérémonie a été l'occasion pour les étudiants de remonter sur l'estrade pour évoquer leur expérience à JNU, ce qu'ils ou elles en ont retenu, ce qui les a marqué, et évidemment Shivam, notre « GO », a été plébiscité ! Cela dit, nous avons été en contact plus approfondi avec plusieurs étudiants, tels Karan, le jeune prodige informaticien, la belle Nithiya, en stage à IBM, Mukesh, le brillant népalais, Parag son ami, ainsi que Ritesh, qui m'a expliqué ses peines de cœur ! Certainement ces étudiants avaient été choisi par Shivam pour leurs qualités académiques et de relationnel (c'était indiqué dans le programme), mais cependant, de vrais liens ont été tissés, et ils ne se sont pas du tout comportés comme si leur « mission télécommandée » leur avait pesé ! Les adresses mail et profil Facebook ont vite été échangés.

Notre expérience à JNU a été vraiment formidable ; nous avons senti une incroyable disponibilité, une gentillesse, un sens de l'accueil et une curiosité de tous les instants à notre égard. Que de photos, de paroles, de sourires échangés ! Je pense que nous avons été comblés. Nous emportons avec nous le projet de démarrer au moins un échange avec des étudiants indiens et l'INSA, et peut-être ultérieurement, un partenariat avec cette jeune université, qui a vu le jour il y a seulement 7 ans et témoigne d'un dynamisme et d'un enthousiasme très indiens.

Enfants à Clock Tower market, Jodhpur

Suite à notre séjour universitaire, le programme des étudiants comprenait la visite des villes de Jodhpur et d'Udaipur, où nous sommes à présent. Les trajets que fait notre petit car de 22 places sont plutôt rapides, nous avons parcouru hier la distance entre les deux villes, en s'arrêtant au fameux temple jaïn de Ranakpur, suffisamment rapidement pour profiter d'une soirée agréable à Udaipur, où nous sommes répartis en deux hôtels, car les étudiants n'avaient pas trouvé de chambres à leur hauteur de prix dans un seul hôtel.

Nous avons du super beau temps, les étudiants sont tous contents, pas un sujet de plainte, remarque Ludovic. Assez souvent, les étudiants se répartissent en petits groupes, avec des objectifs communs, du shopping, des visites, car au début nous avions tendance à faire les choses tous ensemble et de fait, on circule mieux et plus rapidement quand on est par deux ou trois. Cet après-midi je ne sais même pas ce qu'ils sont fait, il y aura sans doute des récits ce soir. Certains devaient assister à une cérémonie au grand Jagdish Temple, puis aller voir le City Palace, avec une promenade en bateau sur le lac. Mais les voies de l'Inde sont impénétrables, et nul ne sait quelles rencontres ils auront fait, qui ils auront rencontré, qui les aura invité chez eux (des fois pour les plumer!)..

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Les étudiants à la guesthouse de Jodhpur

Nous avons été frappés, en venant ici depuis Jodhpur, de voir à quel point Udaipur est déguisée pour les touristes (j'allais dire leur vend son âme) : alors qu'à Jodhpur, les marchés du centre-ville sont grouillants de commerces et boutiques où se rend la foule indienne, ici, à Udaipur les shops tendance bobo chic sont légion, même si le spectacle est magnifique (broderies, couleurs, antiquités, lumières, peintures sur les murs...)! On voit bien que la direction générale se fait en direction d'une clientèle riche et artiste. Par exemple, certains de nos étudiants étaient en manque de chocolat, et se plaignaient de ne pas pouvoir en trouver auparavant. A Udaipur, aucun problème : le moindre pas de porte vend des Mars, des Kitkat, même des tablettes entières ! Jodhpur au contraire se caractérise par une heureuse combinaison de brouhaha et de trépidation qui ne cherche absolument pas à faire impression sur le blanc fortuné. Bien sûr, dans les deux villes, on nous prend en photo, on s'intéresse à notre porte-monnaie ; mais la sophistication atteint un degré évidemment supérieur à Udaipur.

Jeune visage de la ville bleue

Avec ça, tout le monde est accueillant, souriant, communicatif, et il semble y avoir un optimisme généralisé, dont je ne sais pas trop d'où il vient. Cela m'avait moins frappé la dernière fois. Quand on s'arrête dans les magasins, on nous demande de quel pays on vient, et cela permet de commencer des échanges, souvent intéressants, parfois cocasses, toujours intelligents. On découvre que de « simples » marchands de rue sont des voyageurs, parlent excellemment le français, ou bien font des études... Ce qui est passionnant, c'est que l'indien de base (enfin, celui qui entre en contact avec les touristes que nous ne cessons jamais d'être) est ouvert à son semblable, sans méfiance, sans acrimonie ou morosité comme dans nombre de pays. Il semble normal de penser que les vendeurs doivent mettre sur leur visage une apparence de civilité, mais quand on les entreprend vraiment, ils ne font aucun obstacle à de la vraie discussion, ils sont immédiatement eux-mêmes, et le contact devient plaisant et amusant très facilement. Forcément, nous avons moins de rapports avec les femmes, car la population qui vend, qui observe, qui attend, est majoritairement masculine. Mais dès que les femmes sont en confiance, elles sont comme les hommes, et c'est tout aussi agréable.

Affrontement entre un éléphant et un cheval à tête d'éléphant dans le "Hall of heroes" sur la colline de Moti Magri (Udaipur)

Je pense que les indiens sont bien dans leur pays, ils en sont fiers, ils sont contents de le faire partager à d'autres nationalités, de leur expliquer ses particularités. Quand on parle un peu hindi, c'est l'intérêt immédiat, même si ce phénomène doit exister un peu partout : la langue rapproche les gens. J'ai pu utiliser le hindi davantage cette fois-ci qu'il y a trois ans, car notre groupe s'est trouvé confronté à davantage de situations où des interlocuteurs ne parlaient pas anglais, mais aussi parce que j'avais progressé. Parfois c'était très hésitant, mais j'ai eu le plaisir de m'apercevoir que certains réflexes étaient en place. La compréhension, cependant, est toujours presque nulle, sauf quand la personne parle très doucement et répète. Il faudra que je revienne plus longtemps pour pouvoir commencer à comprendre les gens !

Traversée du lac Fateh Sagar, jusqu'à l'ile "Nehru Park"

Demain, nous partons en principe pour Pushkar, la cité sacrée (et elle aussi éminemment touristique) de Brahma, et je dis en principe car nous avons eu quelques soucis avec le programme élaboré pour nous au départ à Delhi, qui doit durer jusqu'au 6 mars au soir (nous reprenons l'avion le 7), mais le chauffeur du car bizarrement a un permis jusqu'au 5 mars seulement. Nous avons téléphoné à l'organisme à Delhi, afin qu'ils appellent le chauffeur, mais avons eu beaucoup de difficultés à faire marcher le téléphone indien, à le recharger, à contacter les gens de Delhi, et quand nous les avons contactés, à être sûr qu'ils avaient fait le nécessaire ! En principe c'est fait, mais c'est compliqué.

Amba Mata Temple, Udaipur

Des « Namasté » (bonjour) à tout le monde, et « Phir milenge » (à bientôt) !

Bonjour à tous,

Voilà, nous sommes revenus! Ci-dessous quelques dernières impressions avant la reprise. Merci pour les commentaires, et merci à ceux qui nous ont aidés pour faire que ce voyage soit possible!

La dernière étape du voyage a donc été la petite ville de Pushkar, connue pour être un centre spirituel indien, où se situe le seul temple de Brahma de toute l'Inde, et où se rassemble tous les ans en novembre une célèbre foire aux chameaux. Nous devions, selon le programme prévu au début, dormir sous tente, mais il y a eu tellement de modifications que finalement, ça a été un hotel (ci-dessous, la "Green Haveli")

et peut-être cela a-t-il été pas plus mal... Nous sommes ensuite sortis voir la ville, et là nous avons subi l'arnaque religieuse organisée de Pushkar: des rabatteurs nous donnaient, le long de la route, des pétales de rose à aller jeter dans le lac; d'autres faisaient de même plus loin, avec force injonctions de bien faire ce qu'on nous dirait; et à un endroit, il fallait tourner à gauche, dans une ruelle qui mène au lac, parce que les pétales ne se jettent que là. Au bord du lac, des marches y descendent, et chacun est pris en charge par un gars qui nous explique que grâce aux pétales et à un bracelet, on ne sera pas embêté dans la ville à l'entrée des temples, etc. Il nous fait descendre au bord de l'eau, nous fait asseoir, nous débite son discours sur la nécessité de respecter ce lieu sacré, il y a quelques questions sur la famille, les bénédictions à obtenir pour elle, des divinités en rapport avec notre geste d'offrande, et un saupoudrage de karma: on est prêt à faire la "donation", de préférence évidemment en billet, en euros, et le plus possible - 20, 50 euros pourquoi pas! Inutile de vous dire que j'ai refusé tout net, de même pour le speech, mais plusieurs étudiants ont été assis, entrepris, sollicité, parfois à leur corps défandant. Beaucoup d'exaspération, de gêne et de déception d'être ainsi alpagué par les professionnels du "tourisme spirituel".

La suite de la ville est également décevante: marchands du temple à tous les coins de rue, clinquant, fausse intériorité, chasse au touriste, et surtout, surtout, plus aucune joie dans les rencontres. Les vendeurs sont passés de l'autre côté, du côté de l'argent. Ils nous sourient à peine, alors qu'ailleurs, à Jodhpur, à Delhi, les regards étaient vivants de cet accueil chaleureux qui transforme le moindre marchand en hôte de son pays ou de sa ville. Ici, l'habitude de voir le touriste, et sans doute aussi, le touriste superficiellement dévôt, a tué le rapport humain. Un Dieu désincarné éloigne les hommes les uns des autres, et si l'on cherche Dieu ailleurs que dans le regard de son frère, on s'aliène de ce dernier. Ceci est vrai, je pense, autant pour les indiens que pour les étrangers, à Pushkar. Tous ces babas cool, ces toqués d'un spirituel faussé par la recherche (pourtant authentique - voir ici) d'un sens qui revient à s'écarter de l'humain, en faveur d'un ésotérisme mystico-illuminé (et aidé en cela par les drogues, "douces" ou pas): comment en vouloir aux profiteurs locaux opportunistes, qui exploitent un tel vide religieux? Evidemment ce système choque les personnes qui, venant dans ce genre de lieu pour une démarche intérieure authentique, se heurtent à son exploitation marchande, mais bon, la leçon ne leur est sans doute pas si mauvaise. Et même si ce genre d'expérience ne permettra pas, sans doute, aux occidentaux dupés de se rendre compte que la foi qu'ils ont perdue ne saurait être retrouvée par un pélerinage à d'autres sources que la leur (car venir à Pushkar ne relève, dans le fond, que de la curiosité intellectuelle), au moins leur venue sert d'elle (au moins en partie) à améliorer l'ordinaire de quelques familles locales.

Après notre nuit à l'hôtel, nous sommes réveillés à 5h30 pour aller faire la dernière partie de notre programme, le safari à dos de dromadaire! Truc improbable s'il en est, nous nous sommes retrouvés de nuit, à dos de chameau, en train de nous balancer à travers les ruelles désertes de la ville en direction d'une zone sablonneuse qui devait être vendue comme "le désert"... J'ai l'air critique, cependant nous nous sommes bien amusés et la sortie fut un succès:

Après la ballade en dromadaire, nous avons attendu à l'hôtel que de l'argent (5000 roupies) nous soit rapporté, car la veille nous avions dû en avancer au chauffeur du car qui n'avait pas été assez payé (et donc pas assez de gasoil pour le car), ultime avatar de rebondisements variés qui ont émaillé l'organisation très approximative de notre programme hors de l'Université. Finalement, l'argent est arrivé vers 10h, et le long trajet de retour a pu commencer en direction de Delhi, où un dernier hôtel nous attendait. Un dernier petit saut dans les rues adjacentes pour trouver à manger, et la petite nuit (finie à 4h30, aïe, aïe) qui nous séparait du départ à l'aéroport s'est passée, non sans quelques aléas encore, car un chauffe-eau défecteux dans une des salles de bain, qui avait même électrocuté une des étudiantes, nous a obligé à leur demander un changement de chambre!

En dépit de ces quelques déconvenues et (peut-être inévitables) énervements causés par le système D en cours en Inde, nous revenons de ce voyage globalement ravis. Notre séjour à JNU, évidemment, le coeur de notre projet avec les INSAiens, a été un moment de découverte et de partage formidable. Certaines visites ont ravi le groupe, comme par exemple le temple Jaïn de Ranakpur. Et les différents moments passés entre nous, sans conflit, dans un esprit de rigolade et de plaisir partagé, de convivialité et de mutuelle entraide, nous ont fait trouver le temps court et les jours remplis. Nous nous sommes autant découverts les uns les autres que le pays et ses habitants; nous repartons avec des projets de poursuite de l'expérience, sous forme d'échanges, de partenariat, de relations bilatérales, tout cela à voir évidemment avec les instances de l'INSA. Nous sommes conscients tous de nous être laissés bousculer par un pays différent, des habitudes culturelles, alimentaires, relationnelles différentes, et nous pensons que cette ouverture à l'autre est le défi le plus intéressant d'un tel voyage.

Here’s an addition to my collection of reviews of R.K. Narayan’s novels: Mr Sampath, the printer of Malgudi (first published in 1949). As usual with Narayan, what’s most pleasant is his style, the brisk eventfulness which he masterfully conveys, and how takes you along an effortless journey through Malgudi’s sunburnt charm. This time it’s centering on… no, not the printer, but on another guy, an editor called Srinivas who in due course ties up with Sampath the printer, but really the story is told from Srinivas’ point of view and it starts and ends with him. The book covers two fields of activity, that of newspapers and publishing, and then that of film production.

Srinivas is the head of a small family, but lives at his brother’s hook, and even if the latter doesn’t grudge his bhai’s studious leisureliness (Srinivas has vowed to read all of the Upanishads), he one day comes to him and reminds him that it could be a good idea for him, now past thirty, to go out and look for work. Srinivas acquiesces, and, not knowing what to do, goes to his native town, (turns out to be Narayan's Malgudi ), to try his luck. He soon comes up with this idea of a paper which he would call The Banner, and dreams of educating the population thanks to the wisdom of ancient texts confronted to modern realities. He’s an educator, in a way. First he secures some lodging from a rather worrying and skin-tight landlord who thinks he's a ascetic, but anyway there isn’t much choice, and since for the time being he’s a bachelor (his wife and child are waiting for him to call them when he’s ready to receive them) he has to make do. Then he has to look for a printer, and after a few failures, falls upon this Sampath who seems at first like just the man he needs. Sampath has the boisterous, happy go lucky personality that matches Srinivas’ more sober and philosophical one.

The two strike a deal, on very advantageous terms for Srinivas, because there is never any question of money. Strangely, Srinivas can never go and look at the press, but he trusts his new partner. So with this arrangement the Banner starts issuing, and one of the best parts of the book begins, ie, the pressure of making everything fit together for the Friday, when the proofs go into print and Srinivas can enjoy a day’s rest, before a new week begins, and then starts anew the ordeal of preparing everything for the following week’s paper. Srinivas has a workplan: each day is devoted to one part of the journal, editorial, politics, local life, letters to the editor, etc. The letters, by the way, are a real drudgery: they start piling up in the garret where he works, and he can’t keep up. Most go unanswered but, thinks Srinivas, most are parasitic by-products of the new interest created by his journalistic effort: people write to him about everything, inform him about everything, hoping to use his paper as an information medium. One day, Sampath announces the arrival of his wife and boy, who had been writing many times to ask what had become of him, and had never got an answer! He transfers them to his poor lodgings, and of course his life starts getting more complicated, because he has to include his wife’s social standards into the complexities of his work schedule!

Other characters throng his days, especially a young bank clerk called Ravi, who’s desperately in love with a girl who has left Malgudi some time ago now, and who languidly dawdles her portrait for Srinivas one day. Upon seeing it, the editor staggers: it’s a real masterpiece: he has a genuine artist in front of him, in the guise of a dejected clerk! But Ravi’s plight is too great for his talent: nothing will make him abandon his dejection, no proposal to draw something from his artistic hand works. With Sampath, they rig plan after plan: all fail, and anger Ravi all the more. There’s also the episode between Srinivas and his landlord who has in mind to marry his grand-daughter with Ravi, and has come to see him on that account: many colourful dialogues are told in relationship to this. Then one day, a catastrophe occurs: for some obscure reason, the workers go on strike, and Sampath makes Srinivas understand that they can make one last issue of The Banner, but it’ll be over after that! In fact, some of the happenings in the book aren’t satisfactorily explained: we never know, for example, what those workers’ demands were, and if something might have been done to placate them, so work could resume… Were there workers? Was Sampath’s refusal to show the press to his friend a way to hide some personal involvement which he decided to cut short because he had some plan in mind that we aren’t told of?

Whatever: Srinivas is soon asked to join the team of high-flying professionals who have landed in Malgudi to shoot a film. Because he’s well-known as a writer, he’s promptly asked to write the story: he decides it’s going to be the story of Shiva’s killing of the god of love. His life changes a great deal from the moment he joins the film-team: true, he has to write the script, which turns out to be very severe in tone and inspiration, and then he has to suffer many alterations in terms of song inclusions, or dance moments, but otherwise he has much more time, and this is a way to discover more about his wife, his landlord, and there’s a good deal of light-heartedness there. On the sets one day arrives the heroine, a certain Shanti, from down South. She’s a beauty, and what’s striking is that she bears a surprising resemblance to the girl Ravi had fallen for. Sampath becomes her mentor, driving her around and looking after her needs. But soon it’s all too clear he’s fallen in love with her, and Ravi notices her (and them), naturally. From then on the situation is going to be more complicated, and the tone of the story weightier. The happy association of editor and printer is a thing of the past, and instead we have a sillier, gentrified Sampath and a sombre Ravi, prowling on the sets searching for the semblance of his great passion. Srinivas pulls out slowly, realizing the enterprise is going to its doom.

This moment comes during the shooting of the main scene, a dance scene with the killing of the god of love. Everybody is tense, a lot of money, too much, has already gone into the project and the people from the city who are in Malgudi to supervise the movie are tired and worried. Shanti, the southern beauty who plays Parvathi in the film is exhausted and overworked, tired of having to sit through so many takes. Then, just after the shooting begins, a devil jumps out of his box: Ravi lurches forward and snatches her away from everybody! In the commotion that follows, Srinivas understands everything is lost and the project has failed. They will not be able to buy the broken material and ruined sets, and Shanti has suffered a shock which will need weeks to recover from. But he fatalistically resigns himself to the situation and, as usual in Narayan’s stories, the closure comes from a sort of extraction of the hero from the strife and bustle of this world, and an understanding that truth and virtue lies elsewhere:

“In this maze (of human relationships) Srinivas walked about unscathed, because he had trained himself to view it all as a mere spectator. This capacity saved him from all the later shocks. He saw, without much flutter, the mangling that was going on with his story. The very process by which they mangled his theme attracted him, and he moved from room to room, studio to studio, through floor-space and setting, laboratory and sound processing and moviola, into projection room, watching, and he very soon accommodated himself to the notion that they were doing a picture of their own entirely unconnected with the theme he had written.” (p. 178)

An even more radical distance seizes him upon viewing a final incident in the story, which is Ravi’s weird exorcism, ordained because the poor painter has gone quite mad at having lost again the source of his passion. He’s surrounded by drum-beats and songs, and being whipped to chase the evil spirit out of him. Needless to say it won’t work, and the exercise is all in vain. But this is what Srinivas philosophically notices:

“Ravi winced under the repeated blows. Srinivas felt an impulse to cry out: “Stop it! Its is absurd and cruel.” But he found himself incapable of any effort. The recent vision had given him a view in which it seemed to him all the same whether they thwacked Ravi with a cane or whether they left him alone, whether he was mad or sane – all seemed unimportant and not worth bothering about. The whole of eternity stretched ahead of one; there was plenty of time to shake off all follies. Madness or sanity, suffering or happiness seemed all the same… It didn’t make the slightest difference in the long run –in the rush of eternity nothing mattered.” (p.208)

The fatalistic stance which with RK Narayan ends his story is in keeping with its beginning, when Srinivas, living off his brother’s food, was daily immersed in his reading of the Upanishads, and used to meditate on their traditions and: “as he grew absorbed in it he forgot his surroundings” (p. 12). Compared to the truth and light coming from meditated ancient wisdom, what can present action contain of value? The hustle and bustle of worldly pursuits are finally useless and void when pitted against the eternal facts which will always govern the affairs of men. The only sensible attitude is to understand this unchangeable order. Yet Narayan is so keen to show us the tenderly comings and goings of his fellow-men! His books are so full of their lively cares and worries! How can we reconcile the two opposite dimensions of a life so full and yet so empty? I suppose that the two coexist because this is what human life is made of: a rush of time into a rush of eternity. Only eternity takes a longer time to rush…

Here are a few flashes from the activity which marked thereturn of our trip to India and JNU in February/march:

First a feedback of our (too short) stay at JNU:

Here's the link:

http://jnujaipur.ac.in/NewsUpdate_File/JNU%20LIVE%20Newsletter,%20Dec.2013-Mar.2014_NewsLetter-May-2014.pdf

Then our photo-exhibition:

Here are a few photos from the Exhibition:

Hello ! As Nutan’s birthday was coming up, I wanted to resume some hold on the blog (sorry readers for my lack of habit, another blog has kept me busy, plus my PhD research) and went through my hoard of Nutan stuff, so I’ll put up some of it as an illustration for this website (Cineplot), that perhaps some of you are used to visiting. I for one discovered it recently, and I really should have known its Nutan page (if it existed, but I’m not certain) before voicing my regrets about the scarcity of Nutan facts here. It contains some fantastic 1992 comments on the actress, the year following her death. I strongly recommend the link “the daughter”, written by Shobana Samarth (thanks Cineplot for letting me quote these extracts):

“1953-54, however was her lean phase. All her films were flopping. That's when I decided to send her to a finishing school in Switzerland. She was a lanky girl and everyone said she was too thin. I thought she could do with a bit of grooming. Before that, in 1952, we had gone to Mussorie and there, just for a lark, she entered a beauty contest. And to everyone's surprise, even her own, she was chosen Miss Mussorie. While she was still in Switzerland, I received an offer for her from S.Mukherjee. I thought it was a good chance because Filmalaya was a big name then. So I called her back from Switzerland. She now looked plump and nice.”

I tried to find a "plump and nice" photo!

What do you say about this motherly concern?! I wonder if Indian mums now have the same outlook on their girls’ curves… Another part of the testimonial, naturally tuned-down owing to the circumstances of the writing, reveals some of the relationships which were at the origin of their drift during the sixties and seventies – it does seem that, perhaps mother-in-law like, she lays the blame on her daughter’s marriage!

“All this changed once she got married. We grew distant and then came the incident which severed our relationship for twenty long years. Nutan and Tanuja were never really close. Maybe because both were poles apart, temperamentally. One was an introvert and the other an extrovert. Nutan never really approved of anything that Tanu did— "Vedich aahe" (she's crazy) she used to say to Tanu's naughty ways. (…) In 1983, Nutan and I made up. We became close like old times and never once mentioned the feud and the twenty year silence that followed.”

What Gautam Rajadhyaksha, the well-known photographer of Bollywood stars, writes about his long-standing friendship with Nutan is exceptional, because he makes her talk about herself and her family:

“I got a lot very early in life. I feel I have achieved everything in the right time, but I have managed to maintain it a little while longer than many. With actors or actresses, it's a fade out or a fade over to another category in 15 years time. I was a leading lady for over thirty years and my transition was gradual and smooth. Yes. I do feel a sense of achievement. But the credit doesn't go entirely to me. Luck had a big hand in it. I must admit I've had it easy, though. (…)

It’s great listening to what she has to say about the relationship to her parents:

“My parents separated and I met my father rarely. A few months before he died, when he was ill, I got to be close to him. I wish I had spent more time with him. It is one regret and guilt, I can never get over. Not only because I couldn't be the daughter I would have liked to be, but the immense loss that I felt on not being able to spend more years of my life with such a warm, caring and brilliant man. He could have enriched my life so much. I wasn't proud, but rather pleased about being recognized as Shobhana Samarth's daughter. Once during a school show, a teacher who was dressing me up, suddenly said, you look like Shobhana Samarth. Are you related to her?' I stammered, ‘S..s ..she's my mother.' Years later, my mother met someone in Europe and asked her if she was related to an Indian actress called Nutan!

I suppose this is what Mamma called her "lean phase"...

Then she mentions the fact of her being deemed too thin by Indian standards and goes on about her experience in Switzerland, something I’d never heard mentioned in any of her biographies (which makes me wonder whether the cineplot website is all that old):

"I was terribly thin and within the industry there was a joke that if you want to draw Nutan, just draw a straight line. My mother even feared that perhaps I had TB. So at seventeen, despite the fact that I had so many film offers, my mother sent me to a finishing school in Switzerland. The one year that I spent in Switzerland was the happiest in my life. I could play, study, be free and catch-up with what I missed in my teenage years. I did a secretarial course which has paid dividends several times over. I do my typing, accounts, tax matters, every clerical job required to keep my money matters straight. I learnt French, which I can still speak and write. When I returned to India, I was forty pounds heavier and then began a wonderful phase.

Somehow I wonder whether this statement is the real Nutan speaking, and not Nutan the well-brought up young lady who says what her mother wants her to say! But even if down deep she must have known that her weight and figure had nothing to do with her acting skills, she was probably pleased of avoiding the candlestick remarks. Then she speaks about her husband, again for me a territory which until now (as far as I’m concerned) had been completely unchartered on the web:

"Sujata I thought would be my last film, as I was getting married and naturally presumed that house and family would take precedence. But Rajnish said, 'if you were a painter or a writer, I wouldn't have asked you to stop your work and I won't, although you are an actress. Continue, by all means, but do fewer films, choose your roles'. Being a naval officer's wife was a different experience. I hardly socialised or went for film parties. It was just work and home, before marriage. But now, we had naval ship, parties and what have you. Our socializing increased. Almost every night we'd be out.

She also, most interestingly, gives her point of view on the feud which separated her from her busy mother for all that time:

"My career has been long and extremely satisfying. I shunned gossip all throughout and even managed to succeed to an extent. Except for two incidents which really caused massive scandals and caused me great pain. One, was the rift between my mother and me, when I took her to court for mismanaging my funds. It was a very hard decision for me to take. Yes, I had expected the reaction: `How can a daughter take her mother to the court?' But that didn't make the conflict any easier to bear. Yet, I had to do it to protect the future of everyone concerned. Anyway since 1983, all is well between the two families.

The other scandal was the punishment she inflicted on an excessively arduous co-actor:

"My slapping Sanjeev Kumar became a much-talked about incident. He made a very careless, irresponsible statement about having an affair and that made me furious. I have never been linked with scandals and when he said what he did, I flew off the handle. I had to put him in his place. After I said what I had to, I cooled down and said, 'let's finish the love scene', and we did.

She's been in film with all the greats

To finish, she mentions the end of her career, and has a very mature insight about what should/could have been the future of the cinema as she valued it. Her stature as an acute analyser of her own work world is invaluable:

"I loved doing Saraswatichandra and even the South Indian films like Milan, Khandan and years later Main Tulsi Tere Angan Ki. When Saawan Kumar asked me to do Saajan Ki Saheli, after Saajan Bina Suhaagan, I agreed. It was a negative role, but what difference does it make to an actress? I've never understood that. An actor should strive for variety, that's all. Because that will ensure his growth. I remember having a long argument, which continued for several days, with Javed Akhtar, during the making of Meri Jung. I said I would love to do the role of a widow, who once her kids grow up and settle down in life, remarries. He said, the public would never accept it. I fail to see why. That's life, it happens. It's a pity that our makers are not willing to look at life as it is in reality. Films like Aakrosh, Ankur, Ardh Satya will influence the thinking of our filmmakers, our films. At the same time, people who talk about 'our good old days' and decry violence, are wrong. Films have to change. They have to reflect contemporary society. There are many issues, which would provide more material to our writers and directors, if they care to look and expand their horizons. I have been a keen observer of film techniques. I want to direct a film. That's an ardent wish. Because the film is a director's medium after all. I even suggested the idea to Jaya (Bachchan), but her response is not clear. Rajshri films have given me a clear signal, though. Times gone by always seem more rosy. But the old yields place new and there is always something good in every age. For example, I worked with Amitabh Bachchan in Saudagar and I feel he's done the negative role brilliantly. He has so much to give, if only he sheds his image. Then, there are Rishi, Shabana, Rekha, Anil, Jackie—all fine, very hard working artistes. Of course Padmini (Kolhapure) was exceptional. She was a brilliant, intelligent actress. She used to ask so many questions. She reminded me of myself thirty years ago. And now there is Madhuri. Such beauty, talent and not a hint of pride or conceit. She will go a long way."

Wow ! Doesn’t all this shed a brilliant light on both her roles as an actress and on her person ? So much for the legend of the shallow females in cinema who content themselves with securing a position thanks to inherited advantages. To finish about the website, it contains an excellent review of Nutan the actress by Subhash K. Jha. You’ll read about the way he compares the star to the other heroines of her time, how she stands out as a thinking actress and a pragmatic woman, alongside with Waheeda Rehman (I was very pleased to read this pairing – it’s exactly what I think). Here’s what the critic says about her art:

“As is typical of most celluloid greats, Nutan was at her emotive best when given, the least spoken lines. Who can forget the wordless sequence in Bandini when Kalyani mixes poison in her tormentor's tea? Or the sequence in Sujata where the Harijan girl seeks inadequate shelter during pouring rain under Gandhiji's statue? Or the long singular song sequence when Sunil Dutt sings, `Jalte hain jiske liye' to Nutan over the phone? As tears fall silently over the receiver, you can hear the sound of the breaking heart over the line. The enormous eloquence of Nutan's silences was on par with that of Meryl Streep and Katherine Hepburn. Nutan reified the cultivated charm and the muted grace of a westernised Indian woman whose values have been inculcated to the Indian ethos. »

Neither lean nor plump

One last recommendation, and for me a very interesting surprise, the two men who lived with Nutan speak about her: her husband, Rajnish Behl, and her son Mohnish. Her husband says nothing about their difficult marriage and manages not to sound too pathetic about his hunting passion, which Nutan generously tried to endorse. Like others, he witnesses to Nutan’s penchant for spirituality in her later years, something which one day I’d like to delve into in more detail. And he tells a few funny episodes. Mohnish’s account is short in comparison with the others. He doesn’t say so, but he seems to regret not having had a brother or sister, and so perhaps he suffered as an only child. In his own unobtrusive way, his account is rather moving.

The little world of The sari shop (2003) feels very familiar; Rupa Bajwa clearly belongs to it, not only because she’s from Amritsar, where the scene takes place exclusively, but also because she’s on the side of the crowds of people who mill around its streets, which one can sense immediately as soon as one opens the book. There is some drama in the story, as we shall see, and a direction, which follows its main protagonist, a little sari salesman who goes by the name of Ramchand; but all in all what makes its substance is the evocation of the town, rather desperately stuck in a rut which cannot be changed single-handedly, but also full of a life which Arun Kolatkar might have chosen to write about. It’s much better than just going there as a tourist, because when you leave its crowded alleyways, its colourful bazaars and long-gone crumbling ramparts (you can’t see them any more but the town retains the disposition which they imprinted on it), as you open the book, you are plunged into the shop, with its domineering boss (Mahajan), the oily snakelike owner who terrorizes everyone when he appears (he’s called Bhimsen), the little community of individualized salesmen: Ramchand, the frail idealist, Gokul, the pacifier, Hari the youngest of the lot, who cannot yet be trusted for anything, Chander the tall and dark one who’s often absent, and finally Shyam and Rajesh, two older employees who conspire to have more time off than the rest because they’re older employees.

Familiar again (and pleasantly so) is their daily routine, the hard work they all have to put in (except Shyam and Rajesh), the relationships between each of them with Mahajan, his swearing and moods, the little shop’s vibrant life which intensifies as soon as clients arrive, and then we notice how each one of them has chosen a speciality among the shop’s articles: the saris, the chunnis, the lehngas. Rupa Bajwa’s pen is dipped into the finest ink when she retells the conversations between the city’s ladies, as they sit down in front of their practiced sari-walah, and start bargaining each in their own way. We hear their stories, their plans for their children, and of course the most important plans of all, the weddings! Because naturally if they’re there, it’s because they need the newest and the best attire for a wedding happening in their family, of at which they’ve been invited, and they’re experts about the quality of the material, the fringes, the pallus… They know exactly (or at least they give this impression) which hue they’re after, which origin, which price bracket; they have in mind the social standard associated with the quality they need. And in front of them the little team of salesmen are like fleeting shadows who mimic their gestures, opening sari-boxes, fetching articles from the shelves, unfolding brightly coloured silks which push them even further back into the undifferentiated grey or drab of their unimportant lives. The rich customers hardly have a word for them, they hardly see them. Once a bevy of school-girls enters, led by their teacher, and the girls romp and tease her in front of everyone. It’s innocent enough, but it reasserts the salesmen’s position as menials and not professionals.

Rupa Bajwa

Ramchand is the “hero” of The sari shop, and even if this title seems sadly lacking in lustre, we’ll see that in fact he’s that, at his own level. The author pictures him in his little room, which needs a repaint and a brighter bulb. He’s the tenant of a family next door, among which Sudha, the young and lissom mother, who goes about her house chores in front of Ramchand’s window, and he fantasizes as he watches her come and go. We are told about Ramchand’s youth, how he became an orphan at six, how he idolized his parents and the subsequent life he’s led among other people of his family, until the day when he’s asked to fend for himself. His experience of an exile from his family, and as a stranger in the foster family later on are going to develop in him a sense of a duplicated self: on the one hand the Ramchand who lives in the real world, and then like a shadow another Ramchand who dreams of a world of harmony and quiet peace, like the peace he once used to feel when he was sent to his grandmother near the river, because his uncle couldn’t take him on holiday with the rest of the children. This poetic and dreamy side of his seemed reflected in his name.

Little by little we witness him uneasy and dissatisfied at work; when the story starts, he’s been working at the sari shop for 11 years, and apart from little excursions to Lakhan’s dhaba nearby, he seemed locked in a daily, monthly and even yearly routine of wake, work, sleep - wake, work, sleep. Only the occasional outing to see a movie breaks the spell, or rather makes it liveable. Increasingly worried and inwardly pestering against a life he hasn’t chosen, he knows there’s something wrong. So one day, remembering some books somebody had lent him, he figures he could start learning English. His parents had boasted before their death that they would send him to a school which would guarantee him this social sesame. It’s very nice to see him bargain for the books - a dictionary (which he will actually read, starting with A), a children’s reader, and later, a learner’s “scientific experiments” - and bring them back home on his grimy table which, because of the occasion, will receive its once in a lifetime cleanup! Ramchand discovers thanks to his naive perusals that “there’s two sides to every coin” – and whereas to every cultivated student of life this proverbial statement means nothing in terms of involvement, to him it’s like a revelation: unencumbered by scholarly-taught relativism, he’s made to look at social and moral truth anew, and suffers henceforth for it like only pure souls will.

While Ramchand begins working with a passion, having found a new meaning and purpose in life, he’s also sent to deliver some saris at a wealthy villa, belonging to a Kapoor clan member. It’s a great opportunity to watch his elation as he cycles there, is made to enter and to observe everything around him. Such luxury and grandeur is of course eons from his own life, but it’s fun examining the lives of the local rich through his eyes. Typically, the little sari-wallah is invisible, as in Ralph Ellison’s novel; what he sees or hears isn’t anybody’s concern, and the assumption is that even if he heard anything worth repeating, nobody would weigh his word as equal as that of the powerful family whose secrets he might have discerned. The second opportunity for him to enter the magical world of the R&F is when, informed of the date of the wedding, he wants to walk past the function that night, and is caught by the guards near the premises. Confused, he mumbles that he’s been invited by the bride! The guards thus escort him to Rina Kapoor, and she most surprisingly lets him stay. Unknown to him, she’s an aspiring writer: she’s felt there could be something to write about in this little character. Some time after the wedding, Ramchand is visited at the shop by the young lady-author: she’s come to know a little about his life, and gather information for her book! Naturally he’s very frightened at first, thinking that she’s come to denounce him for having trespassed at her wedding, and he answers very badly. He cannot fathom what she really wants. 

Anyway this is a rather good trick on Rupa Bajwa’s part: ironically, she’s making her character the hero of another book-in-the-book story, thus somehow cancelling the impact that any aspect of Ramchand’s fight (as we are about to see) might have had. Whatever he’s done, it’s only the subject for a novel, it will never be played in the harsh social or political reality of today’s India… Even his attempts to learn how to read and write are caught in the trap of words, as opposed to the real world of action. What enables people to weigh on the destiny of the country isn’t learning, but influence, caste and rank. Now of course, this has an implication for the author Rupa Bajwa herself: can she hope change things in India through her writings? Apparently, her first book (this one) brought her prizes and praise, but her second (Tell Me a Story) stirred up a lot of controversy. What makes the difference between “useful” books and escapist ones? How can one stir readers to act and change things if the main function of books (and entertainment in general) is recognized as pleasant pastime?

There’s another important character in the book: Kamla, Chander’s wife. We’ve seen that Chander works at the sari shop, but is often silent or absent. Once Ramchand is sent by Majajan to tell him he has to be back at work, and he meets his wife, a seemingly vulgar, violent, boisterous individual who shoves him aside with a glare. He’s been told that she’s responsible for Chander’s distress, that she’s the cause of all his worries. Chander beats her and tries to bang some sense in her head, nothing works! She’s just a bad lot, and has resorted to drinking, the worst thing that can happen to a woman in the prejudice-filled understanding of feminine duties. But we learn that she’s been the victim of ruthless economic measures when her husband was working for a wealthy consortium of which the aforementioned Kapoor household was partner. Unemployment, shock and subsequent loss of child have afflicted her. Then another time Ramchand meets Kamla close, Chander being away. She’s just back from the police station, almost dying from the brutal treatment received there. I won’t disclose what she’s done, but we’re suddenly plunged in Rohinton Mistry’s universe (see here) and you’ll also have to read the book to discover what Ramchand’s reaction will be: it’s full of the idealism and anger which has grown through out the book, and even if it’s doomed, because Ramchand is a nobody, he’s the only one to stand up and “do the right thing”.

To finish, let’s listen to one of Rupa Bajwa’s characters whom I take as a mouthpiece for a number of potential readers who would prefer to continue reading books as a source of entertainment only, and disregard whatever “other side” the shining coin might display, if you happen to turn it over:

“She glared at him. ‘How dare you’ she in a low, angry hiss, her voice trembling’. ‘How dare you, a mere shop assistant, bring me here to this corner and tell me filthy stories about the kind of women you seem to know…. The Guptas are respectable people. They happen to be friends of the Kapoors. Do you know what you are saying? And why are you telling me? What have I to do with this dirty business? ... She said speaking through clenched teeth… I don’t want to listen to all that vulgar rubbish again, that too in Hindi. Why are you bothering me about all this? It is of no concern to me… There have been some horrible, filthy things going on, and now respectable people are to be dragged into it.”

I wasn’t sure I would have the patience to sit for 2 hours and a half and watch a “Bollywood” movie once again…But somehow the old passion revived, and the magic was still there: Rab ne bana di jadoo! Let’s say, to start with, that what caught me by the sleeve and gently made me sit down was the main guy’s reappearance in front of me: Shahrukh Khan as Surinder with his flattened hair, his glasses and his strip of a moustache: something in me said: lemme have a look! Lemme see what he’s going to do with this character… I’d seen him before in a similar guise (Paheli) and he normally works his way through rather well. So off I went, and then another charming feature came along: not Anushka Sharma yet, but Amritsar, its purani galiyon, its noise and crowds, and even if we don’t see much of it really, the distinct Northern Indian atmosphere was a strong pull. I could almost smell the whiff of each open dukaan (and when you look inside the friendly grins and head movements), feel the bumps of the streets, hear the calls of the far-off muezzins, and all the honks and hoots of the traffic were immediately there, inside.

Intellectually I would probably have preferred Suri to have been the owner of a smaller and more modest house, but I told myself, ah well, perhaps it’s an old family place, he’s inherited it from a wealthier ancestor – but in fact I didn’t care, knowing some the filmi conventions. I loved his office though, and the way he makes himself smile in order to say the company slogan: “lighting up your life” – that’s what Bollywood aims at doing, I thought. This cinema may well be branded as escapist, cheesy and predictable – if it brings light in my life, well, what more do I need? Light is the same, whether it comes from a cheap bulb or an elaborate appliance. Another charm operated on me: Shreya Ghoshal, whose voice I had left aside recently: she sings in tujhe mein Rab dekhta hai, here’s a video of herself singing – oh, and I loved Anushka Sharma’s dress in Roopkumar Rathod’s version.

Rab ne bana di jodi’s story has been told and retold since it came out in 2008; I’m not going to do that again (check here). Unlike some, I had loved DDLJ, whose 1000^th week of continuous playing we have recently celebrated (check here), and I started watching RNBDJ without realizing Aditya Chopra was at the wheel once again. Some people don’t like him, I don’t know why: jealousy? I certainly won’t say Mohabbatein was such a great movie, but let’s put it that way, with Rab, he’s learned to avoid some of the pitfalls which were present in the other two productions. The sentimentality is tuned down, for example, and that’s a relief. Taani’s character is in some ways more credible than the other ladies’ ones (even if nothing will beat Simran’s totally crazy and utterly charming role which Kajol impersonated in Dilwale). And Bobby, the buffoon’s role, played by Vinay Pathak, is somewhat less painful to watch than was Johnny Lever (who played with SRK in Baazigar, KKHH and KKKG). There are some pleasant exchanges with Suri, especially the one dealing with the “macho” persona which Bobby insists his friend should adopt if he wants to secure his beloved Taani.

Macho nahin

Here and there on the blogs I found an oversized quibble about the film’s supposed flaw in that Taani should have recognized Suri behind Raj… A wife should recognize her husband… There’s a guy on IMDb who suggests what could have been “the perfect twist” because, he says: “We are told that Taani is a loyal and decent wife. Yet it is completely out of character for her to think about running away with another man.” So this is what he comes up with: “A perfect twist to the film would be for Taani to have known all along - it would have been a nice way of showing that Taani did recognise his heart from the start but she also wanted to see how far Suri could go.” A nice idea, don’t you think? Well, only if one forgets the basic principle of all fiction – that it’s fiction. As fiction, movies play on another plane than reality, namely that of fantasy, desire and dreams.

As in Paheli, the main character plays two facets of himself, and each of these two facets has a specific relationship with the character’s love interest. One must also keep in mind the strictures of traditional Indian customs as regards man-woman relationships, which can be pretty oppressive, or at least are seen like that by many. I read recently that 97% of all cases of sexual violence in India are cases of marital violence, which still goes uncondemned. So escaping these excesses by going to the movies would be a good way of easing the pressure. Better than cheating on your spouse! So why would one like to watch a plain-looking guy, who works in a boring office and can’t hope to attract the attention of beautiful girls, because he’s shy and intimidated? Well, because many, many guys are like him! And why would one want to watch him morph into an easy-going, sexy, and self-assured prankster who might be ridiculous at first but at least who isn’t afraid to chat up the girls? Because that’s what these retiring guys are dreaming they could do! But they wouldn’t want to be recognized, would they? The great thing is if they could do this, have fun, and then fall back into their everyday life afterwards.

This works also, if not more, for when you’re married: let’s say marriage means that you should reap the pleasures of marital happiness. Alas, it happens only very rarely. For men (if we focus on men first), once their wife starts having the kids, she’s more tired, and then later she’s not ready to go back and start the fun again. What’s the man to do? Go to the movies, where he’s given the possibility to dream about what it would be like if he could get rid of the ingrained customs and habits which guide (in fact constrict) husbands and wives’ roles. So such movies as Rab ne bana have in fact a very urgent social role, in a way. This fantasy of being someone else with the person you live with, especially someone who would be your exact opposite, is, I believe, quite widespread. And the fantasy of watching unobserved (ie in real life, not telling your partner) what would happen in such a case also appeals to the imagination: suppose it works (ie, you find satisfaction in such fantasizing), then it’s interesting to “see” how far it works, and if it doesn’t, you can simply retreat safely in your own conscience. I suppose many men (and perhaps even more women) imagine what it would be like to make love (or more generally engage in an affair) to a stranger in the shape of their real partner, because this way they don’t fully cheat on him/her, and at the same time they can let their frustrations express themselves.

Mera pet dard hai

So Suri’s split personality isn’t for me very strange at all: it’s exactly what many men and women do regularly when they look at their partner and wish he/she could be someone else for a change/while. And the film enables them to visualize this. So if this is understood, it’s pretty futile to bicker about whether Taani should or shouldn’t have recognized Suri under his Raj disguise… and therefore decide on the value of the film on this ground. What’s really happening is not Suri pretending to be Raj and Taani not recognizing him, it’s Aditya Chopra cleverly manipulating an audience he knows well, into fantasizing and dreaming that such love-games might exist, for marital life to be less boring or even sordid.

In the film there’s a more noble intention to Suri’s double-dealing: he wants to make his suffering wife happy – find love once again, and the only way he thinks of is to become somebody else for her. Psychologically, and practically, this is totally unrealistic, and so in order to accept the plot, I think the only solution is to put yourself on the level of the fantasizing function as described above. But it also shows an important fact about marriage as an institution: the necessity of inventiveness. Because even if actually lying to your partner about your having impersonated somebody else for her to fall in love with yourself is almost impossible in real life, what is possible is to refuse to remain in a blocked situation where frustrations and ill-will might evolve into violence and hatred. Anything in the form of surprising your partner out of the daily routine, even if it’s at the cost of shocking him or her a little at first, could be a good idea. And it isn’t just a question of routine, it’s who one is for our partner. I think many couples are unhappy because they take their partner for granted and don’t or won’t invent anything to break the role or the picture in which they have solidified. Okay, well, enough counselling!

Now of course, there’s the ending, where Taani does recognize him in the Golden Temple scene… Some spectators were angered because she seems to have forgotten that she really loves Raj and she falls back, via an exasperating religious trick, on the hackneyed convention of “a woman’s husband is her God”. Okay. First, this scene, as I understand it, is for the film-maker to reunite his audience with reality, marriage in India is a religious thing, something serious. Even if there is a lot of frustration and suffering involved in the institution, it’s nevertheless regarded as an essential part of Indian culture, and I suppose A. Chopra wants to assert this. It’s all very well to let your fancy wander and day-dream for a while about your partner being other than she/he really is, but one has to face the reality and make the most of it. And, says A. Chopra hopefully, doing so perhaps you will actually recognize in him/her more than what he or she appears to be. Perhaps you will actually “see God” in the partner who was chosen for you, or that you have started drifting away from. 

The age-old truism that loving somebody makes you turn him or her into a divine object can be very boring indeed. And it’s very easy for Raj to declare that he loves Taani without any suffering, just because he’s seen God in her and it makes him happy, whereas she cannot but see the unhappy implications of allowing herself to love him. I admit that A. Chopra’s use of the association of faith and love (loving somebody is a confirmation of God’s existence) to bolster the institution of marriage contains a flaw: all marital contracts aren’t made in heaven, and many should be undone if you want people to live more happily. Divorce is clearly a reasonable solution sometimes! (didn’t know this review was going to make me push so many open doors :-). But what the film-maker is suggesting still holds somewhat: if one believes in God only from an outsider’s point of view, if one primarily has a ritualistic relationship to God, and you can separate the people you live with and the religion you practice, then the film’s insistence on “God inside” is essential. I realize this is a teaching which India can direct to the West more than the other way round, BTW. I think over here we have a tendency to see God as a perfect spirit living his eternal life somewhere “up” there. We have a tradition of recognizing Him as “further inside us than our most intimate self” (saint Augustine), but it’s a minority tradition, in spite of the doctrine of Incarnation which shows the divine actually becoming human. In Rab ne bana di jodi, I see this reality once again formulated: the divine is right there, in front of you, and inside you: as soon as one loves, divinity blooms and transforms our darkness into Punjab Power.

As usual, here are some film fans’ opinions which you might like to check: Beth (-), Memsaab (+), The bollywoodfan (-), Pessimesissimo (+) and there’s a very long-winded review at Octoberzine (?).

Shyam Benegal explores the forces which can endanger or wreak human communities, and what happens to individuals in the process. The result is often pitiless. Hopes are crushed, and ties bruised. Instincts are hypocritically presented as virtues and the cruelest calculations take the place of relationships. In Kondura (1978), called also “The boon” or “The sage from the sea”, the 1934 born pioneer of Alternate Cinema investigates the world of sacredness and religion, whose laws are just as ruthless. The story takes place somewhere along the coast of India, in a village where we focus on a Brahmin family composed of two couples, one of which is dependent on the other. At the beginning of the film, we attend to a row, and we see the younger brother of the two (Parshuram, played by an excellent Anant Nag) leave the house in a huff, walk through countryside towards the beach, swearing that he will never come back, that his wife makes his life impossible, and that he’s better off on his own. Then all of a sudden, he’s called by an apparition, a Neptune-like figure standing on a cliff, with a long staff in hand and white hair. It’s Kondura, the local divinity, who gives him a twisted root, asks him to go back home and everything will be alright. But he must remain celibate.

After his return he wants to verify if the divine message wasn’t an illusion. He makes sure about Kondura by asking his mother, and there’s another person from the village who has received a gift, this time for locating water, and so he’ll test it to know if his gift is authentic. He asks him to come to his house, and among jeers and taunts from neighbours (especially the village teacher, who derides his stubborness) and family (his brother believes he’s gone mad), he pays villagers to dig a well at the spot where the water-finder has said (thanks to his gift) it would be found. After a long dig, and the use of dynamite to break a stone at the bottom, water emerges. But he’s infuriated, and to everybody’s surprise, doesn’t want to use the well!

Then he starts hearing bells in the middle of the night; he walks through the empty countryside and reaches the temple where the local priest finds him asleep one morning. Again he’s derided by his family, who has also started noticing his abstinence. His wife Anusuya is a village belle of sorts (Shyam Benegam hasn’t chosen her too beautiful, a good point), and is clearly in awe of him. She speaks little. One day, as he’s again in the temple, he has another visitation, but this time it’s the Devi herself, and she looks exactly like his wife! First Parshuram thinks it’s her, but she explains she can take any form she wants in order to appear to mortals. Her message is that sins are increasing, and that he has to rebuild the temple. For this he needs funds, and so he goes to the local zamindar, who’s a tyrant and a womanizer. He’s living with his dimwit nephew and the orphaned young woman (Parvati, played by Smita Patil) from an impoverished family, whom he’s married away to his nephew in the hope of having a descendant which his wife can’t give him. One or two signs make us wonder if there won’t be a fateful attraction between the young Brahmin and Parvati: she’s seen in a lascivious dream-like situation, which recurs as soon as Parshuram thinks of her. There is also this frequent close-up of a stuffed tiger with fiery eyes and teeth, which stands at the entrance of the mansion…

Anyway, the formidable land-owner submits easily to the request, much to the surprise of his attendants who had been asking for the temple to be rebuilt these last twenty years. The restoration starts, and Parshuram enrols villagers to pray for the sins the Devi has been complaining about. Now the place is awash in all day long chanting. Parshuram’s brother, along with the bespectacled teacher, come up the steps one day and tell him how foolish all this is, that the money could have been spent for the well-being of the villagers, or for the children’s school. But Parshuram cannot go along with these reasons. His mission is to do what the Goddess has urgently asked him to do. She now visits him pretty often, an each time it’s a more solemn warning: the sins are increasing! Parshuram is at a loss, what more can he do? But she doesn’t give him an answer.

By now he has become a venerated figure in the village and his former enemies have abandoned all cause for derision. The temple priest, his family, all the village, everyone excluding perhaps the teacher, see in him a genuine guru and he’s visited as a counsel and a guide. Rich pilgrims shower him with fine gifts. The landowner’s family comes to the temple to receive his blessing, so he has an opportunity to lay his eyes on the sumptuous Parvati. But I should say open his eyes, because we are shown him shutting them in an attitude of indifference to the world, and conspicuously quickly opening them as she passes. So more possibility of drama here, especially since between him and his wife, the abstinence issue is now a big deal: they are publicly encouraged to remain chaste as a way to further Parsuram’s mission as a healer and provider of spiritual blessings. And we start wondering if Anusuya’s appearances as the Devi aren’t part of a diabolical plan she’s rigging because it gives her a whiff of “divine” power too…

The news are spread that Parvati is expecting a child and Anusuya is invited to the mansion for the celebration in honour of the announcement. But there she’s noticed by the ever greedy Zamindar who bluntly tells her she’s good-looking and asks her to come up with him. She refuses and runs away, and soon enough Devi Ma appears to Parshuram with the information that the sins are identified: the zamindar is the cause! Blinded by his desire for Parvati, Parshuram thinks the zamindar’s crime is to have inseminated Parvati. Her weakling husband can’t have done it, so he’s the only possibility. He decides to make her drink a potion to cause an abortion and uses Kondura’s root to prepare it. At the mansion, he uses the pretext of wanting to cure her husband’s infirmity and she drinks the potion. But he’s stopped upon leaving by the zamindar, who inadvertently makes it clear that he wasn’t responsible for the pregnancy! Running back home in a panic, he meets his wife, tells her of his “sin” and it dawns upon him to

and make love to her in spite of her paralysed trauma that he’s breaking his vow of purity:

The next morning she’s found dead, having apparently thrown herself in a well which looks very much like the one Parshuram has dug at the beginning of the film.

Rather disappointingly, Benegal doesn’t take advantage of the possibility of transgression of religious order which he had been loading the story with, for nothing happens between Parshuram and Parvati. In the same way, Bhairavmurty (the zamindar) admits his guilt and his sins, but no sanction or punishment crashes down on him. So perhaps this disappointment in the unwinding of the story can be counted towards an appreciation of the film as a denunciation of superstition, as some people say, because a more symbolically charged, more eventful ending might have meant the film’s story was to be interpreted on the fictional level of religious symbols, and therefore within the sphere of faith. On the other hand, apart from the last apparition of the Goddess, which seems linked with the events at the mansion between Parshuram’s wife and the zamindar, nothing is clearly hinted as to indicate that the film is taking position for or against religious beliefs in a transcendent world which would influence men. And perhaps one should not be as clear-cut: it’s quite probable that Shyam Benegal isn’t up and against religion or the belief in God: if he’s targeting something, it’s only an excess of gullibility in divine manifestations, to the point that they can manipulate human lives and make men the fools of themselves.

Yet what he suggests about the forces of the sacred turns the film into a kind of documentary on popular religion: left to their own resources, uneducated human passions run the risk of transforming themselves into forces whose violence is justified by divine purpose and order: and the ensuing havoc, because it is seen as resulting from divine realities, is passively accepted. Now clearly this can happen too when one believes in the divine forces as real. The human being can be seen as the seat of the divine, and his passions the expressions of God’s presence. Or the existence of tensions can be encouraged by faith in God if these tensions are judged too strong to be dealt with through human means. Likewise, a low level of science and knowledge will leave men unprotected if natural forces within them assail them to the point where they will be supplied with unchecked interpretations coming from the divine world of superhuman dimensions.

One way or another, Kondura belongs to the harsh series of religious analysis, alongside with Satyajit Ray’s Devi and Ganashatru, both very critical of superstitious religiosity. One can also remember what Vijay Anand had done in Guide, RK Narayan’s filmed novel. There seems to be an intellectual stance that popular religion is a waste of time and money, and that, even though one realizes it’s as enduring as the country folk itself, these people want it and need it like the air they breathe and the water they drink. And so perhaps recognizing this more than Ray had done, Shyam Benegal has left room for a certain positivity of the religious customs: his Parshuram is never seen as taking advantage of what the power laid into his hands; one can look upon him as manipulated, true, but also he can be seen as a mystic, an authentic mediator of divine intervention. The zamindar quite flatly admits his sinfulness in front of him, whereas the movie could have easily used a little irony there. And when in the end Parshuram realizes he’s been wrong in his construing of the Parvati situation, and his wife is dead, of course we must think he has been deluded in a way, but not that he had really other choices. So all in all, a well balanced account of the importance of popular religion, with its complexities and inescapability, but also its need for enlightened understanding.

An interesting commentary (seen from a lawyer’s perspective!) can be read here, another one here, and the movie can be watched here.