The Oedipus Complex In Hindi Films

The great Sigmund Freud, considered to be the father of modern psychology, had proposed a highly controversial theory called the Oedipus complex. Although he had mentioned this theory in his book The Interpretation of Dreams and in his other early works, he completely articulated his ideas about the Oedipus complex in a case study. In 1909, Freud wrote a paper Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy, where he tried to understand the fear of horses of a boy named Little Hans. He believed the boy's terror was due to feelings of anger for his parents that he had internalized. Freud's theory states that all small boys select their mother as their primary object of desire. They subconsciously wish to usurp their father and become their mother's lover. The child suspects that acting on these feelings would lead to danger, therefore, his desires are repressed, which leads to anxiety. He called it the Oedipal complex, named after the Greek tragedy play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, which is the story of the king Oedipus, who murders his father and marries his mother. Carl Jung had postulated a female equivalent, known as the Electra complex; however, the term never caught on, and the Oedipus complex is now largely used to denote the relationship between three parties (one child and two parents) where the child competes with one parent for the love and affection of the other. Although Freud believed the complex in a sexual way, over the years, some have considered that the relationship doesn’t need to be sexual to be considered Oedipal, and includes any inter-generational conflict.

Indian psychologists have also hypothesized a different version of the Oedipus complex called the Indian Oedipus complex. In this model, instead of sons desiring mothers and overcoming fathers, and daughters loving fathers and hating mothers, most often, we have fathers (or father-figures) suppressing their sons and desiring their daughters, and mothers desiring their sons and ill-treating their daughters. The structure is the same as that of the Freudian model but the relationship of desire is reverse in the Indian model.

There have been a few Hindi films that have explored the Oedipal complex, but by and large, the controversial theory is present as an understated subtext with non-sexual tones. One of the recurring themes in Hindi cinema has been the role of mother-son relationships, but not many films have dared to cross the boundary. The familial relationships are treated reverentially, and any deviation is frowned upon in the conservative Indian society. However, it is still an interesting exercise to explore where themes related to the Oedipal complex are present in Hindi cinema.

One of the earliest films where there was an Oedipal context is Mother India (1957). Directed by Mehboob Khan, the film is the story of a poverty-stricken village woman named Radha who, in the absence of her husband, struggles to raise her two sons Ram and Birju. She has to also learn to survive against a usurious moneylender. In the film, there are clear signs of Oedipal feelings between Radha and her son Birju. In National Identity In Indian Popular Cinema, 1947-1987, Sumita S. Chakravarty writes, "Birju who takes gambling, thieving, and ultimately to highway robbery, is actually indulging in a form of self-aggression, to protest what he sees as the withdrawal of his mother's affections. His nostalgia for her softer and nurturing side, as also his Oedipal longings, is expressed by his obsessive attachment to her bracelets. The film sublimates Birju's incestuous longings for the mother by presenting the motivations for Birju's actions as anger that his mother's bracelets have been pawned to the moneylender." In Filming the Gods: Religion and Indian Cinema, Rachel Dwyer notes that Radha's husband was named Shyam (a name for Krishna), and her rebellious son was named Birju (another name for Krishna) which also could be read as a symbol of an Oedipal relation. It was also the case the actors playing Radha and Birju actually got married in real life.

In Khamoshi (1969), there is actually a description of the Oedipal complex, perhaps, the first Hindi film to mention it. Directed by Asit Sen, Khamoshi is the story of a nurse Radha who works in the psychiatry ward in a hospital. She is asked to take care of Arun, a writer who lost his mind after his lover rejected him. Radha starts taking care of him and, eventually, falls in love with him. In the early moments of the film, Colonel Saab, the head doctor, explains the treatment for Arun, and he talks about the Oedipal complex. He says that in childhood, when a man opens his eyes, he moves around and becomes familiar with his surroundings. This is called the auto-erratic state. After that, he looks at himself in the mirror and feels happy and for the first time, he falls in love with himself. This is called the narcissist state. After this, he learns to love his mother or father; if it’s a girl then her father, and if it’s a guy then his mother. This is called the Oedipus or the Electra complex. When he realizes that it is not acceptable to love one’s mother then he reluctantly removes her from this place and looks for this kind of faith for the face, of this motherly affection. He, then, adds that the nurse will have to play a role so that Arun finds that his mother and his lover's face is the same. This is called establishing rapport with the patient, which will help him in being treated. Radha, after some reluctance, agrees to treat Arun. At some point in the film, the mother of Radha's ex-lover Dev, who was also treated by Radha using the same treatment, invites Radha to her place. Dev's mother tells her that she might have given him birth, but it was Radha who gave her another life, again, highlighting the Oedipal theme in the film. In his book Mad Tales from Bollywood: Portrayal of Mental Illness in Conventional Hindi Cinema, Dinesh Bhugra writes, "That Radha, as a nurse and a therapist, is a representation of the sacrificing mother, who has nurtured her sons in an erotic-nurturant manner in the Indian Oedipal complex style is clear."

 

In the 1970s, Javed Akhtar and Salim Khan wrote many scripts that had Oedipal overtones. Directed by Yash Chopra, Deewar (1975) is the story of a mother and her two sons. One of them becomes a policeman, and the other becomes a criminal. The two sons, Ravi and Vijay, follow different principles in life. At one point, the two of them compare their assets, and Ravi wins simply because he has their mother with him—Mere paas maa hai. There are Oedipal feelings in both Ravi and Vijay. In the end, Vijay dies with his head in his mother's lap. The mother had chosen Ravi over Vijay, and she is the one who hands the gun to Ravi to kill Vijay; however, in Vijay's last moments, he remembers the time when he used to sleep in his mother's arms. He says he never slept since he separated from her. This is a deeply Oedipal moment. At some other point, Vijay risks his life to meet his mother at the promised place. It is also worth noting that the film's English title was called I'll Die For Mama. In Cinema As Family Romance, Priya Joshi writes, "In this, Deewar presents a notably authoritarian—and eventually unstable—version of the Oedipal drama in which neither generation ultimately prevails. Both father and child are demolished, and power resides in absolutist fashion with a ruthless central authority that is unwilling to cede or share it." In another Oedipal reading from Ravi's viewpoint, he is the one who gets to keep his mother with him, and it is he who informs his mother of her husband's demise. He is also the one who kills her other son whom she loves, eliminating all competition, thus, demonstrating the Oedipal complex.

In Trishul (1978), which was also directed by Yash Chopra and written by Salim-Javed, the story revolves around a son Vijay who is born out of wedlock. His mother Shanti was in love with Raj Kumar who ditched her and married a rich girl as wished by his mother. Shanti leaves the town but is pregnant. She raises the child on her own. On her deathbed, she reminds her son Vijay of her father's abandonment and asks her son to never forget her life. Vijay comes to Delhi and plots the destruction of his father's business. Unlike Deewar, where the Oedipal conflict was complicated by the absence of a father, the conflict in Trishul is conventional where the child takes revenge for her mother by killing his father. In Encyclopedia of Hindi Cinema, Maithili Rao calls Trishul 'the most overtly Oedipal film in mainstream cinema, where the illegitimate son not only ruins his father's business but also alienates his legitimate children from him.' Salim-Javed wrote yet another film Shakti (1982), directed by Ramesh Sippy, that portrayed another version of the Oedipal conflict. The film revolves around yet another character named Vijay, and his animosity towards his police-officer father who was willing to let his own son die when he was kidnapped.

In the 1990s, Yash Chopra made Lamhe (1991) that became one of the first films that portrayed an Electra complex (Oedipal complex from a female point of view). Lamhe is the story of Viren Pratap Singh, a prince belonging to Marwar, He falls in love with the girl next door, Pallavi. She is elder to him in age though this does not bother him. Pallavi loves someone else and gets married to him. Unable to bear his heartbreak, Viren goes to London. Meanwhile, Pallavi dies in an accident and leaves behind a daughter Pooja, under the care of Viren's Daijaan. Viren does not see Pooja till she becomes an adult; however, she grows up to become an exact replica of her mother. This time, Pooja falls in love with Viren, who is obviously much elder to him. Viren has to decide whether he is still in love with Pallavi or is deliberately trying to stop himself from falling in love with Pooja. Viren and Pooja might not be related by blood, but Viren is a fatherly figure to Pooja, fitting the definition of the Electra complex. The film was a box office failure and was called too far ahead of its time. Perhaps, one of the reasons it did not work was the audience could not accept that Pooja, like a daughter, falling in love with a much older fatherly-figure man. Their relationship would become sexual after their wedding, and as such, it could be debated if their relationship was incestuous or not (personally, I love the film).

Many commentators called Lamhe to be an example of the Indian Oedipal complex, a different version of the Freudian model. The Indian model has been seen in a few other films, too. In Rakesh Roshan's Karan Arjun (1995), a revengeful mother's desire for her two sons is so strong that they take another birth to meet her. In a particular song sequence, the two sons and their mother sing Yeh Bandhan Toh Pyaar Kai Bandhan. Shot in the mustard field, they sing about how their relationship will last ages, a concept usually reserved for lovers. Inspired by the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Priyadarshan made Kyon Ki (2005). The film is the story of a mental patient Anand who is kept in a mental hospital, as he lost his sanity after he accidentally kills the girl he loves. In the asylum, there is Dr. Tanvi who falls in love with Anand. When Tanvi's father Dr. Khurana finds out that she likes Anand, he is enragedEavesdropping: The Psychotherapist in Film and Television, Dinesh Bhugra and Gurvinder Kalra write that this is another symptom of the Indian Oedipal/Electra complex. They write, "When Dr. Khurana realizes that Tanvi is in love with Anand, he cannot bear it because he has given all his love to her, and cannot conceive of her leaving him. This is one reflection of the Indian Oedipal complex, where a relationship between father and daughter is close, and the father is not prepared to deal with competition." There were similar instances in Shoojit Sircar's Piku (2015) where a perennially constipated father Bhashkor Banerjee wants his daughter Piku to stay with him forever. He does not want her to get married, and he scares away Piku's potential suitors by telling them that she is not a virgin.

In Imtiaz Ali's Highway (2014), a Delhi girl Veera is kidnapped by a group of men, and taken for a ride all over the country. During her journey, she tastes freedom in her entrapment and falls in love with one of the kidnappers Mahabir. At many stages in the film, Mahabir is shown reminiscing about his mother. When he was a kid, he used to hate the way his father treated his mother. He remembers the lullaby his mother used to sing for him, and he cannot help but cry when he hears Veera singing the same lullaby. At one stage, she pats his head like his mother used to do. In the end, when they reach Kashmir, Veera almost becomes his mother. When they find a small hut, she tells him to not come inside the house till she cleans it. She cooks for him. Seeing all this, Mahabir cannot hold himself, and cries, "Amma." Veera consoles him like a child. Like in Khamoshi, the hero sees his mother in the woman he is falling in love with, underscoring the Oedipal elements in the film.

Vishal Bharadwaj made Haider (2014), inspired by Shakespeare's Hamlet. Based in politically charged Kashmir, Haider narrates the story of a Kashmiri boy Haider, who finds out that his mother was having an affair with his uncle who might have been behind the murder of his father. In Hamlet, Hamlet had subconsciously desired to kill his father and marry his mother. Similarly, in Haider, Haider's mother Gazala tells him that when he was a child he used to say that he wanted to marry her. He used to sleep between her mother and her father so that her father could not touch her. Haider, also, perhaps, is the first movie that portrayed sexual undertones between the mother and the son. In a brilliant scene, when Gazala is getting ready for her wedding to Khurram, Haider comes and kisses her neck. In the final moments of the film, Gazala kisses Haider on his lips. In an interview, Vishal Bharadwaj said that he tried to explore the Oedipal complex as much he could within the constraints of society. He said, "I have explored whatever can be within the parameters of our society. The moment you know about the [Oedipal] feeling, the feeling goes away. It is a complex as long as you are not aware of it." Like Haider's relationship with his mother Gazala, there was something special about the relationship between the police offer Parvez and his daughter Arshia. At one point, when Parvez gets to know Arshia delivered Roohdar's message to Haider, he cooks food for her and puts it in her mouth with his own fingers. There was some chilling quality about that scene as if he was trying to entice her and threaten her into submission to divulge information about Haider. His act of giving food to his daughter after licking his own fingers pointed to some kind of Electra complex. The film touched upon both the Oedipal and the Electra complex.

Heartless (2014), starring Adhyayan Suman, is a medical thriller film directed by Shekhar Suman. In the film, Adhyayan plays Aditya, who requires a heart transplant. He is caught in a mix of deceit and lies by his girlfriend and his doctor who want to kill him to make money from his insurance. Aditya's mother Gayatri sacrifices herself and commits suicide so that her heart can be used by another doctor to save Aditya. In the film's final moments, there are touches of an Oedipal complex between Aditya and his mother, like it was in Haider. In a scene where the two of them are out of the conscious real world, they talk to each other where the Oedipal touches are quite discernible.

Ajay Devgn's Shivaay (2016) is about a mountaineer Shivaay who takes his daughter to Bulgaria so that she can meet her mother. One of the supporting characters in the film is Anushka, an officer at the Indian embassy in Bulgaria. During the song Tera Naal Ishqa in the film, Anushka is in a strange dream sequence in a bathtub. She sees her father in his youth; she goes on to hug him, and the image turns into that of Shivaay. At some point, she also tells Shivaay that women who have good fathers find it difficult to find love. There was a similar setting in Shlok Sharma's Haraamkhor (2017). The film is the story of an illicit relationship between a teacher Shyam and his student Sandhya. In one of the film's scenes, Shyam is massaging Sandhya's head in front of the mirror. Sandhya chides him that he is not doing it the way her father does. At that point, Shyam is also wearing the cap of her father. It is never clear in the film if the lack of fatherly attention was one of the reasons that drove Sandhya to have a relationship with an older man. However, like it is in Shivaay, the film hints that the woman sees the father in her lover in Haraamkhor.

The Oedipal complex has been touched upon in a few Indian regional films as well. Films, such as Devi (1960), Ranganayaki (1981), Vimukhti (2008), Gandu (2010), and Elektra (2010) have explored this complex. The above instances are in no way an exhaustive source but provide few instances where the complex is present. 

In Karan Johar's Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), there is a scene in the film where an eight-year-old Anjali inadvertently tells her father Rahul that she cannot do everything for him as she is not his wife. In another scene, in the same film, when Tina's father finds out she is in love with Rahul, he tells her that even if it was someone other than Rahul, he would have felt bad. Since she is in love with another man, her love will get divided. These are pretty harmless dialogues, and nowhere does the film suggest any kind of Oedipal complex. But, somehow, this film came to my mind while exploring this topic. It will be interesting to see if a mainstream film, such as Lamhe, would work today, given that it was called 'ahead of its time', and now more than two decades have passed since its release. Indian society is largely conservative in familial aspects, and parents are often compared to godly figures. Any deviation is frowned upon. However, the fascinating thing is that one of the most common words for abuse in India suggests sexual relationships between a son and a mother. Its use is so pervasive, and somehow, we frown upon the Oedipal complex. Sigmund Freud must be smiling from heaven or, perhaps, hell. 

Dialogue of the Day:
"Tu abhi itna amir nahi hua ki apni maa ko khareed sake."
—Maa, Deewar

Kahaani 2—Of Vidya Sinha And Rajnigandha

Sujoy Ghosh's Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh is the second film in the series of women-oriented films that he plans to make, hence, the added '2' in the title. The first film Kahaani was a brilliant film that is considered to be one of the finest films in the last decade. It was about a pregnant Vidya Bagchi looking for her husband, but it is found out that she was not who she said she was. Kahaani 2 is also about another Vidya (Vidya Balan) and her daughter Minnie (Tunisha Sharma) who live in Chandan Nagar in West Bengal. Minnie cannot walk. The story takes a turn when Minnie is kidnapped, and Vidya has an accident. Inderjeet Singh (Arjun Rampal) is the policeman assigned to the case, and when he sees Vidya, he realizes she is Durga, a criminal wanted for kidnapping and murder.

Kahaani 2, essentially, follows the same contours as that of Kahaani. The film has the same broad template as that of the earlier film. A woman makes up a kahaani about herself, pretends to be someone else, and manages to game the system. In both the films, her assumed new name is Vidya. She has a sympathetic cop who helps her in her mission. She is compared to Durga in both the films. In Kahaani, Vidya kills the evil man who was responsible for her husband's death on the occasion of Durga Puja, a festival that celebrates the victory of Durga over the evil Mahishasura. In Kahaani 2, her real name is Durga Rani Singh, and she is tackling the social evil of child abuse. The two films have some characters that are played by the same actors, such as the Bengali head cop. The films also have similar scene structures. For instance, in Kahaani, there was an unexpected scene where Vidya was almost killed by being pushed in front of the metro train. Here also, there is a similar scene where she comes in front of a taxi. There was an unassuming serial-killer man in Kahaani. Likewise, there is a serial-killer woman who murders people using a blade. The films have the milieu and the ambiance of Bengal. In another little detail, we saw that in Kahaani, Vidya stays at Mona Lisa lodge. The man who was the manager of the lodge becomes an assistant cop in Kahaani 2. At some point in Kahaani 2, when Inderjeet is running after Goopi, we see something related to Mona Lisa in this film as well. There are replicas of Mona Lisa which Goopi makes to sell them to others. In Kahaani, Satyaki visits a school, and he sees that the children's school shirt has a swan on it. In Kahaani 2, Mohit uses origami to make swan-like/bird-like figures. Thus, the two films are connected but not necessarily have any relation in terms of the story. 

Kahaani 2 is about Durga. She is a strong woman, who is living life on her own. She writes in her diary that she likes Arun. At some point in the film, Arun shows her a scene of Vidya Sinha from her movie Rajnigandha. Durga adopts Vidya Sinha's name as her own to escape from the Dewans. Released in 1974 and directed by Basu Chatterjee, Rajnigandha is about Deepa, played by Vidya Sinha, who is conflicted between choosing her fiancé and her old boyfriend. The important thing about the film is that it is about whom Deepa chooses. She is not dependent on anyone and makes her decision on what she feels. It was a film that advocated a woman's choice. In addition, Rajanigandha was one of the few films, at that time, that showed an ordinary middle-class woman going out for work. As Trisha Gupta writes, "Vidya Sinha made her office-going seem so natural that I have never really paused earlier to think about how remarkable it actually was. In Bombay cinema, too, the office-going women of ’70s films, from Vidya Sinha in Chatterjee’s own Rajnigandha (1974), to Zarina Wahab in Gharonda (1977), or Ranjeeta in Pati Patni Aur Woh (1978), were still a huge exception." It is in this context that Rajnigandha and Vidya Sinha are portrayed in Kahaani 2. Durga, too, has a normal office job and works as a receptionist in a school. Later, she finds a job in another office in Kolkata. Also, Durga, like Vidya Sinha's character Deepa, has to make a decision between two choices. She says, "Mujhe kisi ek ko chunana tha, aur maine Minnie ko chuna." She could have gone away to London, but she chose to stay with Minnie. She makes this decision completely of her own volition. The film shows some other aspects of a woman's choice. Kahaani 2 showed the women leading the charge in having sex. It is Durga who calls Arun to her place where they have sex. Also, it is Rashmi, Inderjeet's wife, who subtly hints to her husband for having sex. It is important to point another detail. At an early stage in the film, Inderjeet visits Vidya's house and goes through her stuff. What was particularly striking was that we could clearly see the sanitary pads in the drawer. It is an exception to see a sanitary napkin in a Hindi film, where it is still considered a taboo to talk about them. But the film does not shy away from showing these; the same scene is shown in the trailer, too. Thus, all the above points are relevant as the film tries to portray the daily life of a woman, dealing with unusual circumstances. 

In 1983, a nine-year-old kid singing Lakdi Ki Kaathi in a film called Masoom won everyone's hearts. The kid, named Rahul, was played by Jugal Hansraj. In Kahaani 2, the same Jugal Hansraj plays a creepy man Mohit Dewan who sexually abuses his niece. In casting him, the film tries to play with the audience and makes a chilling statement that someone who looks masoom can turn out to be an evil monster. In fact, at quite a few times, the film shows how people condone crimes based on appearances (shakal dekhe ke lagta hai). Child sexual abuse studies have shown that in a significantly high percentage of cases, the abuser is usually a family member or someone known to the child. There is a particularly chilling scene where Mohit makes an origami item in front of Durga, as if this crushing and manipulation of paper are what he does this to his victims, too. The film portrays child abuse in a sensitive manner, and in a way, is educating the viewer. It is important to become a child's friend, then, only she can be free to talk. It is not a good idea to impose one's choices on children, and it is better that they make their own choices. It is in patterns that children bring out their issues, and it is important to have a conversation with them about somebody touching their private parts. It is also necessary for parents to not trust anyone blindly. For instance, at a particular stage, Inderjeet kept looking at the man who used to take his daughter to school, and the man started avoiding looking into Inderjeet's eyes, as if he has a guilty conscience. Perhaps, that man was hiding something. 

Kahaani 2 gives a little quirkiness to all its characters, ranging from the hospital patient to the criminal making fake passports. Early in the film, there is a disheveled man who collects plastic waste, and we see he holds a bottle of toilet cleaner. He will be the one who will have Vidya's phone. The creepy Mohit likes to make origami items. The serial killer uses a blade to murder people. Inderjeet's wife, Rashmi, does some superstitious trick before her husband leaves the house. The board carrying the name of the clinic where Vidya is admitted is always flickering. This occurs another time when Mohit has kidnapped Minnie, and the bulb starts flickering. In addition to this quirkiness, Kahaani 2 uses old Hindi and Bengali songs throughout the film. In the first scene of the film, Yeh Raatein Nayi Purani from Julie can be heard, as if like Julie, Kahaani 2 is about an unwed single mother. At some other point, Aya Sanam Aya Deewana Tera from Bade Dil Wala can be heard when Inderjeet is riding a bike to find someone. At another stage, Chhoti Si Kahaani Se from Ijaazat plays when Rashmi is asking Inderjeet about his ex-wife, something that happened in Ijaazat, too. There are a lot of other songs, including some in Bengali. Some of them appear to have a specific context, while others give something to think about its purpose.

Kahaani 2 has a terrific first-half, where it builds a fantastic thriller narrative, with a brilliant performance by Vidya Balan. However, I was left a little underwhelmed about its ending, as it became quite predictable. There is a running gag in the film where Inderjeet is often mocked for trusting his gut feeling. He did not get a promotion because he believed in it. He always believed in it. Eventually, his gut feeling turned out to be true. I kept thinking if that was also what the film trying to do with us—to trust our gut feeling, which we are hesitant to do so. After all, our gut feeling about the suspense came about to be true. Perhaps, in life, too, we should learn to go with gut feeling, sometimes, if not always. 

Dialogue of the Day
"Koi apni Diary me jhoot kyu likhega."
—Inderjeet, Kahaani 2

Dola Re Dola—Of Radha and Meera

Dola Re Dola from Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas is one of my favorite cinematic moments from Hindi films. Set in the early 1900s, Devdas is the story of Devdas Mukherjee (Shah Rukh Khan). His wealthy family prohibits him from marrying his childhood love Paro (Aishwarya Rai). An embittered Devdas embraces alcoholism and meets a courtesan Chandramukhi (Madhuri Dixit) who falls for him. The film is the story of these three characters and is based on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's novel Devdas. The song Dola Re Dola is picturized on Paro and Chandramukhi. In the novel, there is no mention of any meeting taking place between Paro and Chandramukhi. However, Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas not only has a meeting between the two, but it extends this meeting to a full-fledged celebratory dance on the occasion of Durga Puja. Purists have questioned this aspect but, to me, the song is, fantastically, subversive as it tries to question the social hierarchies of that time. 

Before the song, Paro visits Chandramukhi and asks for mitti (soil) from her place for creating Durga's idol. It is believed that those who visit prostitutes leave their purity and virtues outside the house of the prostitutes, thereby, making the soil outside the prostitute's house pure and virtuous. This soil is used for creating Durga's idol. Paro also invites Chandramukhi to her place for Durga Puja. When Chandramukhi arrives, she introduces Chandramukhi as her friend in front of her mother-in-law. Paro convinces Chandramukhi to dance with her so that they can forget their heartache for some time. Thereafter, the song begins. In the song, Paro and Chandramukhi are dressed identically together in a red-and-white saree and adorn a lot of jewelry. This uniformity in their dressing reflected the shared love they have for the same man i.e. Devdas. And, in this uniformity lies the song's subversiveness. It treats Paro and Chandramukhi as equals with the same stature. The two women dance together not in private, but in front of society, underscoring their equal standing. Paro is married to a zamindar, and is the thakurain, a feudal term derived from Thakur which means a master, and represented the upper class of people. Chandramukhi is the tawaif, a courtesan who was shunned by all and has no respect in the eyes of society. In this context, the film treats the two of them as equals, and they are bound by the love for the same man. They sing, "Lag jaane do najariya, gir jaane do bijuriya." Let everyone stare at them, let the lightning fall. Paro and Chandramukhi are well aware of what they are doing. They know that they are disrupting societal norms. Even if the heavens strike, they do not care, because they want to dance for the man they love, and love sees no class barriers. 

A few moments later, Chandramukhi says, "Baandh ke main ghungroo," and Paro continues, "Pehen ke main payal." It is here again the film brings out the difference and the similarity between Paro and Chandramukhi by the kind of jewelry they wear. Chandramukhi sits on the floor, and shows her ghungroo, while Paro remains standing and bends to show her payal. A payal is usually associated with a woman's beauty and grace. Ghunghroo have been traditionally worn by classical dancers for centuries; however, it gained the reputation of adorning the feet of courtesans through Indian cinema, in movies, such as Umrao Jaan, Pakeezah, and Mughal-E-Azam. Here, Paro, the upper-class woman, wears a payal, and Chandramukhi, the courtesan, wears a ghunghroo. Thus, in Dola Re Dola, the two women sing about the jewelry they wear, based on their societal status, and despite these differences, the jewelry they wear is for the same purpose of dancing for the man they madly love. 

There could also be a religious subtext to payal and ghunghroo. In many Hindu texts, it is mentioned that Krishna's lover Radha used to wear flower anklets, and during Raas-Leela, the sound of anklets was heard. On the other hand, Krishna's devotee Meera used to sing bhajans in his name with ghungroo on her feet; also popularized by the song Ke Pag Ghungroo Band Meera Nachi Thi from Namak Halaal. Earlier in Devdas, we see the song Morey Piya, in which the dance of Paro and Devdas represents the raas-leela between Radha and Krishna. Jamuna ke teer baaje mridang, kare Krishna raas Radha ke sang. On the banks of the river Yamuna, the drums are beating, and Krishna does raas with Radha. Paro and Devdas are Radha and Krishna. In the song, too, we see Paro, as Radha, wearing a payal. At a later stage, Paro visits Chandramukhi, and she sees Krishna's idol in her house. Chandramukhi says to her that she worships Dev. Main toh sirf unki pooja karti hun. She tells Paro that for her, Dev is omnipresent, and if she sees through her eyes, she will find his essence in everything related to her. If Paro is Radha, who wore payal, Chandramukhi is the Meera who dances with ghungroo. Chandramukhi refuses to take ghunghroo from Kaali Babu, and refuses to dance for him. She waits for Dev to come because, like Meera, her ghungroo are for Dev. 

Payal and ghungroo have been a repeating motif in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's films. His heroines usually wear payal. In Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, there is a point during Dhol Baaje, where Sameer picks up Nandini's payal. In Saawariya, in the last scene, Raj keeps Sakina's payal with him. In Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela, the sounds of Leela's payal are present throughout the film. In Bajirao Mastani, Kashi wears payal, and Mastani wears ghunghroo when she dances in front of Bajirao. Like Chandramukhi, Mastani refuses to wear ghunghroo when asked to dance in front of others. Like peacocks, mirrors, fountains, top shots, and the weaving motif (link), this is another pattern that is a signature trope in a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film. He has often said that his favorite director is V. Shantaram, whose films also had a lot of dance and payal, and these include films, such as Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje, and Geet Gaya Pattharonne. 

Further in Dola Re Dola, Paro and Chandramukhi continue their conversation. Paro sings, "Maathe ki bindiya mein voh hai," and Chandramukhi adds, "Palkon ki nindiya mein voh hai." Dev is in the bindi of Paro, and in the eyelashes (sleep and dreams) of Chandramukhi. It is here we notice that though Paro and Chandramukhi are dressed identically, the only difference between them is the red bindi that Paro has put, while Chandramukhi wears no bindi. I am not entirely sure why is that the case. Perhaps, it has to with a red bindi being one of the signs of a married woman. Since Paro is married, she wears a bindi, and as Chandramukhi is not, she does not wear it. In a beautiful moment later, Paro sings, "Haan maang me bhar lena sindoor." Paro gestures her hands from Chandramukhi's midline to her own midline as if putting sindoor (vermilion) on both of them. Here again, the film gives an equal footing to Chandramukhi by making her feel like a married woman for a few moments, which otherwise, her society did not allow her. Kya tawaif ko mohabbat karne ka adhikaar nahi hota. Paro does not distinguish between their love, even if the others do not recognize Chandramukhi's love. The sindoor she puts on Chadramukhi and on herself, again, represents the same man they both love.

Like the comparison between payal and ghungroo, there is another similar comparison in the song. Paro sings, "Choodi ki chhan chhan me hain," and Chandramukhi sings, "Kangan ki khan khan me hai." In some cultures, choodi and kangan represent different context. Sometimes, kangans are associated with married woman. In moments before Dola Re Dola begins, Paro gives Chandramukhi the kangans that Dev had given her. These kangans were given by Dev's grandmother to Dev so that he can give it to her bahu. In doing so, Paro gives Chandramukhi the rights of Dev's bahu. This comparison of choodi and kangan again emphasizes the difference between Paro and Chandramukhi but ultimately their similarity in loving the same man. 

In Bajirao Mastani, there is a similar treatment as Dola Re Dola. In the song Pinga, it is the two wives of Bajirao, Kashibai, and Mastani, who dance together. Kashibai and Mastani are dressed in a traditional Marathi silk saree, with a traditional necklace, a khopa hairdo, and green bangles. Both of them share a love for Bajirao. At one point, they sing, "Jo peer meri hai so peer teri hai." What I worship, you worship it, too. Like the sindoor in Dola Re Dola, they sing, "Are dono ki maang laage, sooni aadhi, aadhi laal."

Dola Re Dola is, thus, subversive in many ways. A married woman dances for the man she is in love with, but that man is not her husband. A tawaif also dances for the man she is in love with, even though society does not give her the right to love any man. Dola Re Dola also becomes a song in which both Radha and Meera dance together for their Krishna. The song might not be what the author of the novel would have thought about. But that's the beauty of cinema. It provides everyone an opportunity to reimagine and reinterpret stories in their own way, and in the process, it pushes boundaries and creates pure art that touches us all.  

Other Reading:-

1. On Bajirao Mastani (link)
2. On the weaving motif in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's films (link)

3. On Goliyon Ki Raas Leela Ram-Leela (link)

4. On Black (link)

5. On Saawariya (link)

6. On Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (link)

Dialogue of the Day

"Jo shama mehfil sajati hai, kareeb jaane par woh jala bhi sakti hai."

—Chandramukhi, Devdas

Befikre And Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge—A Tale of Two Films

Befikre is Aditya Chopra's fourth directorial venture in a career spanning more than twenty years. The film is the story of Dharam (Ranveer Singh), a Delhi boy who works as a stand-up comic in Paris, and Shyra (Vaani Kapoor), a French girl who works as a tourist guide in Paris. The film tells their story as they go through different stages in a relationship from lust to friendship to love. The film is the director's take on modern day relationships, unlike his other films that have often sided with traditional ideas of love and sexuality.

The first time that Dharam meets Shyra is at a party in Paris. Dharam often goes to parties to meet girls. In Aditya Chopra's debut film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ), the first time when Raj and Simran meet, Raj says he has seen Simran before, perhaps, at Robbie's party. Simran replies that she never goes to parties. Dharam and Raj go to parties, but Simran is not like Shyra. Dharam flirts with Shyra but she rebuffs him by saying that she does not like Indian boys. He jokes that he also does not like Indian guys because they smell of methi. In DDLJ, Simran asks Raj as to why does he call her Senorita. He does so because his ex-girlfriend was Spanish, and she left him because she did not like Indian guys. This dislike of Indian guys makes one think if Shyra is like Raj's ex-girlfriend. From these beginning moments in Befikre, till the end, the film constantly reminds one of DDLJ. Either there is a direct reference to a scene in DDLJ, or, something is changed like the role and the situation, but the context remains the same. The film becomes almost like a retelling of DDLJ. 

Later, Dharam and Shyra hook up for the night, and she leaves him in the morning saying she is not looking for a relationship. When she is about to leave, Dharam jokes that, "Ek Hindustani hi dusre Hindustani ke kaam aata hai." In DDLJ, this was the exact same dialogue that Raj uses to trick Simran's father when he came to purchase beer at his store. Dharam and Shyra start dating each other. In Ude Dil Befikre, we see them getting drunk and snogging all the time. There is a point in the song, when Shyra and Dharam see a mannequin wearing a red Playboy underwear. Shyra steals that underwear and gives it to Dharam. In DDLJ, after Simran gets drunk, she serenades on Zara Sa Jhoom Loon Main. In that song, too, Simran sees a red sexy dress in a shop on a mannequin, and she wears it, like Dharam does in Befikre. There is also a moment when Dharam and Shyra do the steps of ballroom dance, quite reminiscent of Raj and Simran dancing the same in Tujhe Dekha Toh Yeh Jaana Sanam. 

At some stage in Befikre, Dharam gets caught by the police for driving under influence, and he calls Shyra to help him as his wallet was stolen. Shyra pays his fine, and speaks to the officer in French to get Dharam released. In DDLJ, there was a similar situation when Simran lost her passport as she missed her train. She was planning to hitchhike a ride but she is questioned by the police for her identity papers. It is Raj who comes and saves her from getting arrested by the police officers. Raj and Dharam even have the same color car.

In her book Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Anupama Chopra writes, "Rebellion is a part of Bollywood's formula for cinematic romance. Every decade has a defining love story in which the lovers confront their parents (Mughal-E-Azam, Bobby, Love Story, Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, Dil). In DDLJ, Raj's dissent is unique. He rebels by refusing to do so. In a poignant scene, Lajjo gives Simran her jewelery—the only thing she owns—and tells them to leave. But Raj refuses. There are always two roads, he tells Lajjo, the right one and the wrong one. And though the wrong route is seductive in its ease, he will take the more difficult, correct path. Because, he says, he does not want to snatch or steal Simran. He wants to marry her with the approval of the family. He believes that their love will conquer all opposition." Raj wants to marry Simran with the explicit approval of her father. There is an exalted status of Simran's bauji as if his decision is the supreme and is all that matters. Parents play a critical part in DDLJ. Even for a month-long European trip, Simran had to literally pray to the gods. However, in Befikre, parents are mostly absent, or play a minimal supporting role at best. Dharam and Shyra casually tell her parents that they are going to be living together, out of wedlock, something impossible in the case of Raj and Simran. The conflict that the characters face in the film is not external, but driven by their own self, and their choices. In a moving scene in DDLJ, Lajjo tells Simran her life story, and begs her to forget the love of her life Raj and instead marry Kuljeet. She says, "Aaj main, teri maa tujhse teri khushiyaan maange aayi hun." In a similar setting in Befikre, Shyra's mother and Shyra bond over an aloo ka paratha. Unlike Lajjo, Juhi does not ask her daughter to forget happiness, but she tells her to find her own happiness, and hints her to not marry Anay. One mother is telling her daughter to not marry her lover, while the other mother is telling her daughter to marry her lover. While Lajjo reminded Simran of the shambolic state of the rights of Indian women, Juhi reminds Shyra of taking advantage of her being French. Apne French hone ka kuch toh fayda utha. 

Aditya Chopra's films have often portayed a conflict between tradition and modernity. It is quite interesting to see the film based on modern relationships names its lead character as Dharam, meaning religion. In Befikre, Dharam has a mother in Delhi, while his father is no more. It was the opposite case in DDLJ, where Raj was the son of a single father, while his mother had passed away. Raj's father Dharam Veer shares his name with Dharam. While Raj's father turns up to help his son, Dharam's mother never shows up, even at his only son's wedding. It is Raj who comes to India from Europe in DDLJ; it is Dharam who travels from India to Europe in DDLJ. Raj has a geeky friend Rocky, who looks a lot like Dharam's friend Mehra. There was a shot of Raj running with a ball in DDLJ; a similar shot is seen where Dharam runs with a ball in Befikre. Dharam keeps doing pairi-paina to Shyra's parents, like Raj used to do. At some point, Dharam sings, "Mere corn flakes me jo aaye," like Simran sang, "Mere khwaabon me jo aaye." The conversation between Dharam and Shyra often take place on a bridge; the important conversation between Raj and Simran during the palat scene happens on a bridge.

After a night out with Raj, Simran thinks she committed the ultimate sin of sleeping with a man before getting married. Raj says to her that he is not that kind of guy. He knows, "Ek Hindustani ladki ki izzat kya hoti hai." While DDLJ reminds us of the Indianness of Simran even though she has been brought up in London, Befikre emphasizes the Frenchness of Shyra. She does not identify herself as Indian at all. She believes she is French. She has no qualms in having pre-marital sex, and does not shy away from looking for casual hookups, which prompts Dharam to call her a slut (for which he later apologizes). Simran is embarrassed by Raj finding her bra in her luggage. Later, Raj sees her bra when he accidentally rips a piece from Simran's kurta, Shyra shows no shyness and readily takes off her shirt, showing her bra. Of course, Dharam and Shyra were a couple at that time, but it reinforces the film's idea of liberal sexual values of French women. The original script of DDLJ had Raj coming to bauji's shop to ask for a pack of condoms; it was later changed to beer as it was felt it was too much of a transgression; in Befikre, the lead character strips down giving the audience a glimpse of his derrière showing no inhibitions.

In Befikre, there is Anay, who is Shyra's other love interest. He calls himself an old-fashioned boy, and in his own words, he is a cliché but classic. This love for tradition reflects in his life choices, as he is an Oxford-educated investment banker, working in a hundred-year-old firm.He gets engaged to Shyra. In this context, Anay was much like Kuljeet from DDLJ, but a much nicer person than Kuljeet. Anay and Dharam become good friends, like Raj and Kuljeet. At some stage, Shyra sees Anay walking to his apartment. Dharam remarks that he is not going to turn. Shyra remarks, "Palatne ka wait to 90s me karte the," She was just checking out his ass. In DDLJ, this was the iconic scene where Raj looks at Simran walking back to the train, and says to himself if Simran loves him, she will turn back. Agar yeh tujhse pyaar karti hai toh palat ke dekhegi. A few moments later in Befikre, Dharam and Shyra are walking on the streets. Dharam hears a few dogs barking and gets scared. Again, quite like the way Kuljeet got scared after hearing the imaginary growling of lions in the jungle. Then, in a latter scene, Anay takes Shyra to an opera, which casts one's mind back to the opera singer in Ruk Ja O Dil Deewane in DDLJ. We see Shyra wondering if she is the kind of girl with whom someone can spend his entire life. Raj also remarked to Simran that she is going to spend her entire life with somone whom she has not seen. There is quite a similarity in the lines they speak.

My favorite scene in Befikre is the exact moment when Dharam realizes he is in love with Shyra. This happens when Shyra calls him to meet her. She informs him that Anay had proposed to her, and she wanted reassurance from someone she knew that she is making the correct decision. Dharam sees her walk by, and then, something strikes him. He realizes that he is in love. Then, we see imaginary Dharam and Shyra, singing Je T'aime and walking along with Dharam. They sing, "Ne dis jamais je t'aime. Kehna na yaar pyaar hai." Never say I love you. If one recalls, this is also the same way when Simran realizes she is in love. Raj and Simran say goodbye at the train station, and Raj tells her that he is not going to come to her wedding. Raj walks away, and then, something struck Simran that she is in love. Ho Gaya Hai Tujhko Toh Pyaar begins in which Simran imagines Raj to be everywhere. Dharam and Shyra sing to never say I love you but deep inside Dharam is in love; in a contrast, Simran and Raj sing that even if you refute a million times, you are in love. The lyrics are contrasting the two situations. One is saying to not fall in love, while the other is saying that you are falling in love.

When Shyra decides to get married to Anay, Dharam gets engaged to Christine because he also wants to get married, though he does not love her. Dharam and Shyra like each other; however, they are getting married to different people. Like in DDLJ, Raj agrees to marry Preeti, when Simran was getting married to Kuljeet. At Shyra's engagement party, Dharam plays the tune of Mehendi Laga Ke Rakhna on his saxophone, as Raj sang the same song at Simran's engagement. In the climax of Befikre, Shyra asks Dharam to break her wedding. On the wedding day, Dharam tries to break her wedding, and gets beaten up by Anay, and Christine's brothers. Somehow, Dharam and Shyra manage to escape from the wedding. Likewise, in DDLJ, Raj's whole purpose of coming to Punjab was to break Simran's wedding. A night before the wedding Simran asks Raj to elope. The next day, everyone is the family finds out that Raj is Simran's lover. Raj gets beaten by Kuljeet and his friends, and somehow, Raj and Simran manage to get together. While the climax of Befikre tries to be comical, the climax of DDLJ is more serious; however, both have the same things going on. The tag line of DDLJ was Come Fall In Love, and in Befikre, Dharam and Shyra literally fall in love in the end, and compare love to bungee jumping.

If all the above situations were not enough, there is one more reference. The poster of DDLJ has the film's title with a cap, and in another poster, there is Raj wearing that cap. There is a cap in Befikre, too, in the film's poster. In a reversal of roles, instead of the Dharam, it is Vani, who wears the cap in this one with the words Who Cares Mon Amour written on it, giving another throwback to the director's iconic first film. All the above points and situations appear to be repetitive but it is important to bring them out in detail, because Befikre is not only referring DDLJ, but in many ways, it is retelling the same story from a different perspective. DDLJ is the leitmotif of Befikre.

Befikre refers other films, too, including some popular ones, and some belonging to Aditya Chopra's own production house. Most notably, the name of restaurant that Shyra's parents own is called Indian Summer. This was also the English title of Yash Chopra's Lamhe. There is an early moment in Befikre when there is a chicken wings eating competition. There was something similar in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi where Taani and Raj had a competition of eating gol gappe. There is a dance between Shyra and Dharam, again, similar to the one in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. In Band Baaja Baaraat, Shruti and Bittoo promise to not fall in love while eating bread-pakoras. Jiske saath vyaapar karo, usse kabhi na pyaar karo. The break-pakoras are replaced by crêpes in Befikre when Dharam and Shyra say they will not fall in love. This celebration of break-ups, an Imtiaz Ali concept, is now getting as common as Nirupa Roy playing mother roles. Befikre is the third film of 2016 to celebrate a break-up after Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, and Dear Zindagi. Shyra keeps saying that she is tired and wants to stay put. Bas theherna chahti hun, ek jagah rukna chahti hun. In Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, Bunny faced a similar tiredness but he refused to admit it. Main udna chahta hun, daudna chahta hun, girna bhi chahta hun, bus rukna nahi chahta. There is another similar scene in Befikre and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani where the two protagonists in the two movies put their feet in water when they are confused about their life choices.

At one point in the film, it is seen that Shyra has an open copy of Chetan Bhagat's Half Girlfriend by her bedside. In Chetan Bhagat's own words,  "Half girlfriend, to me, is a unique Indian phenomenon, where boys and girls are not clear about their relationship status with each other. A boy may think he is more than friends with the girl, but the girl is still not his girlfriend. Hence, I thought we needed a term like half girlfriend." It would be too simplistic to relate this to the film's stroyline but there is a similar conflict between Dharam and Shyra to give a name to relationship. She was his girlfriend, and now is his friend. He is still jealous when he sees her with a man. They are something in between a couple and friends, like she is his half-girlfriend.

Half Girlfriend

In the opening song of the film, Labon Ka Karobar, there are multiple couples kissing each other. Some of these couples belong to different races, and some belong to the same sex. However, the theatrical version of the song does not have the gay kisses because the moral policing body led by Mr. Nihalani felt it would not be acceptable to the audience to see two men kiss. Besides the actions of the film certification board, one would expect a film on modern relationships to show a little sensitivity to homosexuality. However, the film caricatures it, like any other typical film. Dharam makes casual remarks stereotyping the gay community.

Befikre is a watchable film, with some great performances by its actors, especially Ranveer Singh, but by no means it is a film with revolutionary ideas. A lot of things that it wants to show have been done before. It is a revolutionary and a daring film for its filmmaker, whose films have always veered towards tradition. He is trying to make a point that he, too, can make a film based on modern relationships. In my other favorite scene of the film, Shyra explains the significance of the love locks bridge in Paris. Thousands of padlocks, tied by lovers, on the bridge were taken down as it made the bridge unstable. Shyra remarks that even the most romantic city in the world realized that no one can bear the weight of love. It is the same predicament faced by its filmmaker trying to make something different, but he is bogged down by the love for his own first film.

It was interesting that Befikre at many places calls Dharam as Dharma, which is also the production banner of Aditya Chopra's famous cousin Karan Johar. And, it also evokes Sooraj Barjatya's family drama Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! The holy trinity—Aditya Chopra, Karan Johar, and Sooraj Barjatya—are known for their films seeped in Indian values. Last year, two of these filmmakers, Aditya and Karan, made a film on what they feel are contemporary relationships. The last pantheon of the trinity still more or less stands (though he tried an experiment in Main Prem Ki Deewani Hoon). The icons of tradition are moving towards modernity. Their ideas of it are a little derivative but as they say, if one does not move with the times, there is a danger of one being left too far behind, which no filmmaker would ever like.

Dialogue of the Day:
"Pyar mein padna is like investing in mutual funds. Hum sabko lagta hai baad mein jab mature hoga na, tab return degaa. Joh hum nahi sochte hai woh yeh hai, ki investing in mutual funds is subject to market risk."
—Dharam, Befikre

Arrival—Palindrome and Purpose

Arrival, directed by Denis Villeneuve, is the story of Louise Banks (Amy Adams), a linguistics professor at a university. Adapted from a short story called Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang, Arrival begins when an alien spacecraft lands in Montana. The extraterrestrial beings in the spaceship are called heptapods because of their seven legs. Louise is called by US Army Colonel Weber (Forest Witaker) to help establish contact with the heptapods, and decipher their language, as in the past, she had helped them translate Farsi. Louise is joined by physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), and together, they work to find the heptapods' purpose for coming to earth. In Gravity, a mother was dealing with overpowering grief of her daughter's death. In Arrival, too, we see flashbacks of Louise's daughter who succumbed to a disease, but when the film ends, we realize that her story is far too complicated to follow a linear pattern. 

Linguistics and language is the core theme of Arrival. The film is based on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis—the theory that the structure of a language shapes or limits how a speaker forms conceptions of the world. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is widely disputed among linguists. Still, of late, there is empirical evidence that supports a weaker version of the theory, which states that language can have a small effect on cognition. When Louise interacts with the heptapods, she starts dreaming in their language. We believe that, perhaps, she is overworked, which is why she is seeing flashbacks from her past. But what happened was that Louise's brain got rewired so that she was able to communicate with the heptapods without any help. Like the time when she goes onto the spaceship after the blast, she communicates with Costello without using any computing devices. She understands what they are saying. The flashbacks were actually flashforwards, which made her perceive time like the heptapods. While this is the central theory in the film, Louise also shares interesting anecdotes and science about the language. She tells us that Portuguese originated in the kingdom of Galicia, and it sounds different from other Romance languages. In the Middle Ages, language was seen as an expression of art. Avatar depicted a new language Na'vi. Likewise, a language based on logograms was created for Arrival. 

At some point towards the final moments in Arrival, Louise's daughter asks her that why she was named 'Hannah'. Louise replies that her name is very special as it is a palindrome; it reads the same forward and backward. A few moments later, the film's twist is revealed when it is shown that conversing with the heptapods gave special powers to Louise with which she could see the future. In many ways, the whole premise of Arrival is also based on a palindrome. At first instance, it might not seem so, but if evaluated on the lines of the twist, the concept of the movie being a palindrome holds true. A palindrome is a word, a verse, a sentence, or a number that reads the same backward or forward. The most prominent indicator of the movie's palindromic subtext is the film's ending, or should it be called the beginning. The story of Louise, as seen in the movie, does not follow a normal linear trajectory. Initially, we see scenes of Louise having a daughter who dies due to cancer. Then, it appears that Louise takes us on a flashback. We believe them to be Louise's past. Ultimately, it is revealed that all these scenes were not in the past but are actually part of her future time. In the initial moments of the film, Louise says, "I used to think this was the beginning of your story. Memory is a strange thing. It doesn't work like I thought it did. We are so bound by time, its order. I remember moments in the middle. And this was the end. But I am not sure I believe in beginnings and endings." Likewise, the movie has no clear ending or beginning. If the order of its scenes was reversed, it would still make a perfectly fine story.  

Related to the palindromic context, there is a certain lack of defined direction in the film. At one later stage in the film, Ian explains the research that he and his team had done on heptapods. Unlike all human languages, the writing of the heptapods is semasiographic. It conveys meaning, but it does not represent sound. The heptapods communicate using logograms—a circular form of writing that resembles ink blots. The logograms, unlike speech, are free of time. The sense that one has to know the full sentence before writing a logogram, whereas, in human language, this need not be true. The logograms have no forward or backward direction, and linguists call it a form of non-linear orthography. Like their language, the bodies of the heptapods and even their ship have no forward or backward. They think non-linearly and perceive time non-linearly. Thus, there is a palindromic subtext not only in the film's story but also in heptapods, with no easily identifiable beginning or end. There is non-linearity, or circularity, whatever we may prefer to call it, underscored dominantly in the film. There is a moment in the film when after the death of her daughter, Louise is walking all by herself in the corridor of the hospital, which is designed in a circular way, providing another hint at the film's circular motif.

 

When the film ends, it forces us to go back to all the other signs that were present in the film about time being non-linear, like the way we read a palindrome backward to make sure it reads the same. At one stage during the film's middle portion, Louise's daughter plays with clay and makes a few animals. One of the clay animals she makes is a heptapod. If her daughter was in the past, she could not have made a heptapod. There are other color drawings that her daughter makes. In one of them, she draws a man, a woman, and a bird, and she says, "Mommy and daddy talk to animals." This was compared to when Louise and Ian talked to the heptapods, and they used to always take a bird in a cage when they went to communicate with the heptapods, which is what Hannah drew. 

The heptapods landed their spaceships at twelve places on earth, including Pakistan. The scientists in the film are not able to find any decipherable reason for their landing at those twelve specific places. While explaining heptapods and logograms, Ian specifically thanks 'our friends in Pakistan.' I think Pakistan is put because of its connection with the Indus Valley Civilization. The Harappan script remains undeciphered but similar to the logograms, it is assumed to have elements of non-phonetic symbols. Perhaps, that was the reason for including Pakistan, and also the map shows the heptapods landed in Punjab, Pakistan, where, in fact, the Indus Valley Civilization was based.

When Louise and Ian are able to establish communication with the heptapods, they name them Abbott and Costello. In Ted Chiang’s story, the aliens are called Flapper and Raspberry, so I was a little curious if there was any rationale behind choosing those specific names. One of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies is named Abbott, so maybe there was something related to it. But some researchers have pointed out that naming the heptapods as Abbott and Costello is a reference to the comedy duo with the same name, whose most famous routine Who’s On First is based on language and miscommunication, much like the film's linguist theme. 

There is a beautiful moment in the film when Ian tells Louise that she treats language like a mathematician. He did not realize that there could be a lot more complexity in language, and he jokes that he is single because he does not get communication. Unlike science-fiction films, such as Interstellar, where sometimes, the physics got a little overwhelming in places, Arrival focuses more on linguistics. It is not a coincidence that even Interstellar had a linguistic connection where at some stage, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) hacks a drone of the Indian Air Force where he used Sanskrit as the coding language. There is a Sanskrit connection in Arrival, too, which would later point to one of the biggest flash points in the film. Early in the film, Colonel Weber asks Louise to translate an audio recording of the language of the mysterious creatures who have arrived on earth. Louise says that unless she sees and interacts with them, she cannot understand them. The colonel thinks she is lying and trying to join their mission, and he says he is going to the next candidate at Berkeley. When he is about to leave, Louise tells him that before he commits to the next candidate, he should ask him the Sanskrit word for war and its translation. Colonel decides to come back and tells her that the Berkeley candidate believed that the Sanskrit word for war is Gavisti, which means an argument. Louise says that it means a desire for more cows. It is a fascinating scene. From my limited knowledge of learning Sanskrit in school, I always thought Yuddham was the word for war in Sanskrit. At another stage, Louise tells Weber a story, which is still believed to be true, of how kangaroos were so named. When James Cook landed in Australia, a sailor asked the Aborigines what the hopping animals with pouches were called. One of the Aboriginal people replied that it was a kangaroo, which meant 'I don't know' but was misinterpreted as the animal's name. The larger point these scenes make is that there can be different interpretations of the same word. Later in the film, this point again comes back. After Louise and Ian are able to communicate with the heptapods, they ask them about their purpose for coming to earth. The heptapods respond and Louise interprets it as 'offer weapon', which makes the defence establishment think that the heptapods were here for creating a war-like situation among the different countries. Louise defends the heptapods as she thinks language, like culture, is messy, and sometimes, one word can have two meanings. Scientists from other countries also believe that hepatapods meant 'use weapon.' It is only after Louise really learns the heptapods' language she figures out that the heptapods did not mean weapon, instead they talked about a gift. The weapon is a gift. 

The gift that the heptapods talked about carries a profound meaning, especially in times when the world is moving towards more isolationism. At some point, Colonel Weber reminds Louise of what happened to the Aborigines; a more advanced race nearly wiped them out. Later, Costello tells Louise that their purpose is to help humanity, and they are offering her and the others a gift, as, in three thousand years, they will need humanity's help. The larger point that the film makes is that if the human race is to survive, we need to talk to each other and collaborate with each other. We need to speak and learn each other's language, because in some point in the future, humanity will be under threat, and a more advanced race (or a natural disaster such as climate change) can wipe out humanity. Instead, the nations are indulging in their own specific narrow interest and fighting with each other. Hence, the film focuses on the criticality of non-zero-sum games. 

In game theory, a zero-sum game is a situation in which each participant's gain or loss of a utility is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the utility of the other participants. If the total gains of the participants are added up, and the total losses are subtracted, they will sum to zero. In contrast, a non-zero-sum describes a situation in which the interacting parties' aggregate gains and losses can be less than or more than zero. In Arrival, all the twelve different countries where heptapods landed were indulging in zero-sum games. For instance, in the film, Russia killed its own scientist when it found out that he sent a message to other sites. The Chinese spoke to the heptapods using mahjong, a game like chess where every idea expressed is in terms of victory or defeat, like a zero-sum game. Agent Halpern (Michael Stuhlbarg) also advises keeping their research to themselves without sharing it with their 'enemies'. He gave examples from history that talked about the divide-and-rule policy that the British used in India and the Germans used in Rwanda to make different factions fight among themselves so that only one prevails. He says, "We are a world with no single leader." All these are zero-sum games, while Louise and Ian advocated that the purpose of the heptapods is related to non-zero-sum games. The heptapods landed at twelve sites, and the one in Montana was only one of twelve. Similarly, different countries are also a part of the larger human race. We need to help each other instead of fighting among ourselves. Many need to become one to work for a win-win situation. We need to trade information with each other (as the world moves towards more protectionism). Louise is able to stop the war by telling the Chinese leader General Shang his wife's dying words, "In war there are no winners, only widows." Likewise, we are fighting a war with each other in which there are no winners. And, for that, we need to speak and communicate with each other. It is only then we will learn to stop misinterpreting things that are not actually meant. Hence, language is a critical part of the film's theme. The Russian scientist sends the message that the heptapods told him we have all been given weapons. The weapons are misinterpreted. What the heptapods meant is that we all have been gifts. These gifts are the ability to speak and communicate with each other to come together because there is no time. In her future, Louise writes a book on her conversation with the heptapods. The book is titled Universal Language, again, underscoring the importance of humanity speaking a universal language. In her thesis, Louise had written, "Language is the foundation of the civilization. It is the glue that holds the people together. It is the first weapon drawn in a conflict." Ian disagreed with her as he believed that the cornerstone of any civilization is not a language, but science. Louise eventually proved him wrong, and this statement was also the profundity of Arrival.

In the film's final moments, when we try to make sense of Louise's life, she tells us, "If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things? Despite knowing the journey where it leads, I embrace it, and I welcome every moment of it." It is a thought-provoking question. Although we all have a limited time on earth and will die at some point, we are so afraid of embracing the vagaries of life that we avoid living life to its fullest. In the film, Louise asks the heptapods, "What is your purpose?" Perhaps, it is also a question that we all should ask ourselves. As Mark Twain once wrote, "The two most important days in life are the day you born and the day you discover the reason why."

Dialogue of the Day:

"If you could see your whole life laid out in front of you, would you change things?"

—Louise Banks, Arrival

Notes On Some Hindi Movie Songs

A few years ago, songs from Manish Jha's Anwar were quite a rage. Maula Mere Maula and Tose Naina Laage continued to play on the radio channels many months after the film's release. Both the songs are masterpieces of their own. Anwar is the story of Anwar (Siddharth Koirala), a Muslim man, who researches on Hindu temples. Due to some circumstances, he is caught in a temple with some drawings. The police and the villagers believe he is a terrorist, who wants to bomb the temples. He is trapped in the temple, and there is no easy way out except a near certain death. While he is in the temple, he reflects on his life, when he was in love with Mehru (Nauheed Cyrusi) who committed suicide due to his impulsive behavior. 

Krishna-Meera

Tose Naina Laage has not been picturized in the film, but has an attached video with some scenes from the film. It is a very interesting video in the sense that it tries to challenge some conventional notions. There is a point in the film when Anwar's friend tells him the story of Meera and Krishna. He advises him that one should love like the way Meera used to love Krishna, and vice versa. Their love had truth, sacrifice, and trust. Meera's love was so strong that she melted and immersed herself in Krishna, and he did the same, too. Jahan pyaar me do log ek ho jaaye, balki yeh kahein ke ek or do ke paar ho jaayein. When two people unite in love, or rather, they cross all boundaries when they are in love. This forms the basis of the picturization of Tose Naina Laage. There is Anwar dressed as Krishna, playing his flute with an imambara in the background. He sees a woman dressed in a saffron saree, and runs towards her. She keeps running away from him, and then, mysteriously disappears. The subversion here is that, traditionally, it is Meera who is a devotee of Krishna and it is she who wants to see him. But here, it is Krishna who runs after Meera. The positions of the god and the disciple have been reversed. In the beginning few moments of Maula Mere Maula, we see Mehru, dressed in a burkha, is playing the flute, while Anwar is looking at her from the ground. She is Meera (how similar are the names Meera and Mehru) who plays the flute, while it is Krishna who comes towards her, like the Gopis who used to watch Krishna playing his flute while perched on a tree. The fact that the role of Krishna and Meera, being played by Muslim charaters, along with the stature of the god and the disciple being reversed challenges the stereotypical portrayal of Krishna and Meera. It is also noteworthy that the film does not even talk about Radha. The love between Meera and Krishna is portrayed as the purest form of love, and the film goes to the extent of saying that no other story, be it Heer-Ranjha or Romeo-Juliet, can compare with Meera-Krishna.

The lyrics say that mohabbat toh ek jaaveda zindagi hai. It means that love has an eternal life. There is another fantastic passage in the song. It means why would anyone wish to die when there is love. If one has love, even after death, his story lasts forever. Love has an eternal life. Then, we see many interesting shots in the song. We see an ant on a flute, a few fishes, and a lotus getting immersed in water. I am not entirely sure what do these symbolize. It could mean different things. Perhaps, something to do with life not ending with death, if one has love. All these creatures represent different forms of life. A fish cannot survive without water; a lotus blossoms only in water; and, an ant cannot survive alone. Or, it could be something related to Krishna and Meera, as there is a popular bhajan talking about Krishna's lotus feet and Meera's life as a fish. 

Shama ko pighalne ka, armaan kyun hai

Patangge ko jalne ka, armaan kyun hai

Isii shauq ka, imtihaan zindagi hai

Mohabbat jisse, baksh de zindagani

Nahee maut par, khatam usaki kahani

Why does a flame, wish to melt,

Why does a moth, desire to burn,

Life is just a test of these desires,

Love which gives someone life,

Beyond death, his tale lasts.

Whenever I read about Meera, I am reminded of Kiran Nagarkar's splendid Cuckold. At some point in the book, Meera's husband says, "We were that rarest of couples. Even after years of marriage we were madly in love. I with her and she with somebody else."  If only history acknowledged his love, too.

Song Credits:

Lyrics: Hasan Kamal, Sayeed Quadri

Music: Mithoon

Singer(s): Kshitij Tarey, Shilpa Rao

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Radha Kaise Na Jale from Ashutosh Gowariker's Lagaan is a beautiful song. The song's lyrics are based on the story of Radha and Krishna, and talk about Radha's jealousy when she sees Krishna flirting with the other women in the garden. Moments before the song begins, Bhuvan (Aamir Khan), Gauri (Gracy Singh), and Elizabeth (Rachel Shelley) are standing in the temple of Radha-Krishna in their village. Bhuvan explains to Elizabeth about the immense love between Krishna and Radha. He tells her that Krishna was married to Rukmini, and Radha was married to Anay, but the two of them had this pure love between them that became an ideal for love. Even after eons, they are worshipped together. Their love was like a dew drop on a lotus leaf. Neither united nor separated. Kamal ke patte pe shabnam ki boond jaisa. Ek bhi nahi hue, aur alag bhi nahi. It is such a sublime comparison. While he explains this to Elizabeth, Gauri feels jealous of the attention that Bhuvan gives to Elizabeth. 

A few moments later, Gauri and Bhuvan start dancing on Radha Kaise Na Jale. Bhuvan is Krishna. He carries a flute, and wears a peacock feather, as Krishna used to do it. Gauri talks about the jealousy of Radha, which gives the impression that she is Radha. But the interesting thing is that the film hints that it is Elizabeth who is Radha. There is a particular point in the song when the expressions of Elizabeth give the feeling that she is jealous of Gauri. When the song finishes, she compliments Gauri as if trying to make up for her jealousy. The fact that Bhuvan's mother has the same name as Krishna's mother Yashodamai is another indicator that Bhuvan is Krishna. During the final scenes in the film, the voiceover tells us that Elizabeth went back to England. She never married, and became Bhuvan's Radha. The film explicitly points out that she was Radha. As Radha and Krishna did not get together, Bhuvan and Elizabeth were also not meant to be together. The differences in race and economic status between Elizabeth and Bhuvan posed a huge barrier at that point in time. Even though they could not be together, they still had this love that transcended time and space. At an earlier point, Elizabeth told Bhuvan that she was falling in love with him, but as Bhuvan did not know English, he did not understand what she was saying. Krishna was married to Rukmini; in the film, Bhuvan got married to Gauri, so Gauri was Rukmini. Though Elizabeth is more like Krishna's another famous devotee Meera, the film compares her with Radha, while Gauri, displaying shades of Radha, is more like Rukmini. During the song, we see that Elizabeth is dressed in white, Gauri is dressed in yellow, and Bhuvan wears both these colors—yellow and white—a lot like the two different kinds of love that he received from the two women in his life.

Song Credits:

Lyrics: Javed Akhtar

Music: A.R. Rahman

Singer(s): Udit Narayan, Asha Bhosle, Vaisali and Chorus

It is interesting that Anwar talks about Meera, and ignores Radha, while Lagaan talks about Radha and ignores Meera, when both of them could have replaced the other one in context in the two films. 

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Tujhme Rab Dikhta Hai from Aditya Chopra's Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is truly a secular song. During the song, Raj (Shah Rukh Khan) and Taani (Anushka Sharma) visit a temple (Hindu), a church (Christians), and a dargah (Muslims). In the female version of the song, they complete the quartet by visiting the Golden temple (Sikhs). Actually, the young boys in the male version of the song are Sikhs, so the first song has all the four principal religions of India. What is interesting is that we see only kids at these places of worship. They say that children are like god. Bachche bhagwaan ka roop hote hain. Maybe that is why we see only kids at those places in a song about seeing god in a lover. He sees god in the temple, in children, and in his lover. 

Song Credits:

Lyrics: Jaideep Sahni
Music: Salim Sulaiman

Singer(s): Roop Kumar Rathod, Shreya Ghoshal

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The other day, I was listening to Sau Aasman from Nitya Mehra's Baar Baar Dekho. The song says, "Sau aasmaano ko aur do jahano ko, chhod ke aayi tere paas." A hundred skies, and two worlds, I have left to come to you. In Saat Samundar Paar from Vishwatma, the singer says, "Saat samundar paar main tere peechhe peechhe aa gayi, zulmi meri jaan." Crossing the seven seas, I came after you. Are they not quite similar in meaning except that the distance has increased subtantially in the second one? :) 

Sau Aasman

Song Credits:

Lyrics: Kumaar
Music: Abhijit Vaghani,Amaal Mallik

Singer(s): Armaan Malik, Neeti Mohan

Saat Samundar Paar

Song Credits:

Lyrics: Anand Bakshi
Music: Viju Shah

Singer(s): Sadhna Sargam

Dialouge of the Day:

"Mujhe koi bhi aisa nasha pasand nahin jo waqt ke saath utar jaaye. I love life."

—Harry, Mausam