Bhawana Somaaya

A few weeks ago we witnessed the retelling of Mahabharata against a political backdrop in Prakash Jha’s Rajneeti. This week the audience can feat their eyes on a retelling of Ramayana in Mani Ratnam’s cop- criminal story Raavan.

Some characters and circumstances bear similarity with the epic, some alter dramatically.

The legend has it that Ram and Sita first met in a temple before he officially won her hand in a swayamvar. Dev and Ragini are introduced as a well adjusted couple. He is a feared cop and she a classical dance teacher.

In the epic Ram is sent to exile due to family feud. In the film Dev is posted to a secluded tribal region Lalmati because he is the most courageous in the department.

Sita was lured by by Raavan sent golden deer. Ragini is attracted to a fluttering falcon sent by Beera.

Raavan declared war with Ram to avenge a personal grouse- he wanted justice for his sister Supanakha humiliated by Laksman. Beera challenges Dev to seek justice for his sister abused by Dev’s police department.

What is interesting are the innumerable revisions:

Mani Ratnam’s Lakshman does not stretch a boundary for his sister-in-law. Nor does Ragini drop her ornaments on her way to her captive for her consort to trail her. She is confident he will find her irrespectively.

Sanjevani alias Hanuman leads his hero to the devil’s gate. He visits Ragini as Dev’s messenger but this Sita does not demand a ring for evidence, she trusts him.

This Hanuman does not destroy the dense forests into flames. He recommends peace and Beera trusts him, sends his brother for negotiation with Dev. Unlike Ram who takes Vibhishan under his wing, Dev deceives his enemy and makes Beera further angry.

Dev Pratap Singh demands an agni pariksha out of Ragini as well- in this case interpreted as Polygraph Test- but Ragini refuses the trial by the fire and that is the high point of the film. She will not seek shelter in any ashram instead returns to Raavan to seek answers.

Ratnam’s Ramayan professes that there is a Ram in every Raavan and a Raavan in every Ram. It rewrites history and reinterprets justice and morality.

There are some films you watch for the story and the surprises they unfold and some for the treatment and the interpretations. Clearly Raavan falls into the latter. The film is a triumph of the entire technician team- Santosh Sivan’s breathtaking visuals, Shyam Kaushal’s dare-devil actions, unforgettable sound, Samir Chanda’s art design, actor Shobhana’s erotic choreography, Gulzar’s robust lyrics and AR Rahman’s haunting music.

Understandably the film has many flaws- the paper thin story line, the never ending climax, gruesome violence, low emotion quotient. Some out of place dialogue like when Vikram asks a battered assistant if he is okay. It’s obvious he isn’t. Some places Aishwarya looks over made up and some sequences like the wedding celebration appear exaggerated. But every frame is so beautiful that you forgive these indulgences. You forgive that there is little drama and conflict, little to cry and laugh.

Govinda as the acrobatic assistant is refreshing. Abhishek cleverly portrays the larger than life character with his booming voice and body language. Aishwarya Rai as Sita is fiery and passionate, reckless and irresistible. It is brave of the cast and the crew to weather such excruciating climate and locations. The final hero of the film is of course the director. Ratnam for combines so many talents and takes his audience uncomfortably close to the camera.

Raavan is Ratnam’s most difficult and demanding film to date and also most progressive.
Raavan rewrites history and introduces us to a new age Sita who is self reliant and fearless and just for that he deserves applause.

Bhawana Somaaya
www.bhawanasomaaya.com

We have just had the first showers and the city is in a mess. Once again the civic body has let down the city. All traffic has come to a stand still and there are clogged drains every where. It took me one hour drive to JW Mariott in Juhu and another hour back to Andheri.

Going to Hotel Mariott has become a nightmare. There are three levels of security checking at different gates which includes machines and dogs sniffing at you. By the time you finish with the final process and charge towards the elevator for the fourth floor lounge, there is always a mess up of messages. The reception always delays you and then apologises profusely. They do this again and again.

The Western Railway has been saying again and again that it is dangerous for commuters to travel on the rooftop but travelers don’t pay heed. Now a commuter traveling on top of a local has suffered an electric shock and hospitalized for sustaining severe burns. Hopefully this will scare other commuters and they will in future not be so reckless.

Traffic cops are always alert to catch drivers on mobile while on road but this time they missed the culprit because he was in a truck. It was a normal day for a happy family of Raghumanth Nagar. The mother had dropped her son to the school and was returning with the younger one home. Four year old Shubham was crossing the street with his mother in the afternoon when a speeding truck heading from Mulund Check Naka hit the child. The driver didn’t even realize that he had killed the child. He was busy talking on the cell phone but for an innocent family it was the end of a dream.

A few weeks ago before the IPL when Shashi Tharoor announced his engagement to Bangalore’s socialite Pushkar, he broke many hearts. The marriage was to be sometime this season but now apparently there is a change in plans. This is great news for Tharoor lovers. He was recently visiting his mother in Kerala and talking about eating onion chutneys with aapams in an interview. He said there was no time for leisure in his life unlike olden days when he read a hundred books a year. I think it is time Tharoor gets ready to read a film script. His friend Pritish Nandy whose book he released recently should offer him a role in films. He will make a perfect father for Aishwarya Rai since both have the same colour of eyes. If Amar Singh can be in films why not a good looking Tharoor!

British author Jeffery Archer is in the news again and for all the right reasons. Technology may have taken over the world but Archer still writes his novels by long hand. He says it makes him feel that he has done a thorough job of his craft. His secretary punches the copy for him on computer. Rumours have it many filmmakers are considering his books for a Hindi film but Archer is not unduly excited. He feels that filmmakers exclude authors who have conceived the book in the creative process which is not the right way to do it.

A struggling writer in films died in his rented home in the suburbs. He was addicted to alcohol and in a habit of falling asleep with a cigarette in his hand. The house erupted with smoke and the door had to be broken by the neighbors. It is a sad story of innumerable strugglers who come to the city in search of a dream. Most of them don’t make it and are ashamed to return home so carry on with a struggle that carries on sometimes for a lifetime. They live alone and some like in this case die alone.

Three decades ago a super hit film Aashiqui introduced a newcomer Anu Agarwal to Hindi cinema. She was sensational and then one day she just disappeared. Now suddenly 15 years later she has come back to tell her story. Anu met with a fatal car accident which broke every limb, bone and joint in her body. She was comatose for 29 days and when she woke up half paralyzed she had lost all memory. She has said in an interview that she did not understand words, could not understand language or even the fact that she was a woman.

When we read such things in a book or watch it in films we call it an exaggeration but life is stranger than fiction!

Bhawana Somaaya
www.bhawanasomaaya.com

A few months ago I met a friend for coffee and she suggested that we gather like minded people and start a book club. It was not difficult, we spoke to our friends and within no time we had put together a group of enthusiasts. We would decide a book that all of us would read and agreed to meet for discussion the following month over a weekend. We take turns in playing the hostess and in reviewing the book. The evening begins with snacks and small talks after which we get down to serious business. Every body gets a chance to speak their mind on the plot and the characters. Some of us sometimes hate the book and some of us sometimes hate the characters still we adhere to our commitment and seriously read and make notes.

We started with The Last Lecture, a lot of us found it too heavy and dragging in parts, then Zoya Factor-I felt it was too flighty and disapproved of the excess use of Hinglish even though it is an accepted form of language today. I had problems with the message of the book because however inadvertently it supports superstition. It was an ordeal to complete the book and I seriously suggested that members consider reading separate books and share the experiences at the meeting.

Everybody disagreed and confirmed Disgrace for the next meeting and I was assigned the task of the review. I first watched the film, then read the book and finally researched details of the author background. Presenting all three:

Disgrace the film
Like most books turned into films this one too pales in comparison but still manages to capture the stillness and the sadness of the prevailing circumstances. To be fair the husband-wife team of director Steve Jacobs and screenwriter Anna-Maria Monticelli are faithful to the narrative. John Malcovich portrays David as a character who is not merely the sacrificial white lamb of black revenge. Haines as Lucy incarnates the spirit of white reconciliation in the new South Africa.

If the writer scores with his intricate descriptions in the book, the cinematographer more than makes up with his picturesque frames of the city and the countryside. The book is more layered and comprehensive, the film leaves a lot unsaid but is still an impelling watch of a South Africa in transition and the shift of power.

Book Review
Disgrace is Nobel Laureate Coetzee’s first book to deal explicitly with post-apartheid South Africa.

What makes the book interesting is the contrast between the urban life of an older-generation white male in Cape Town and the rural life where suffering, death and brutality are daily occurrences. The book epitomizes South Africa today and comments on gender and racial discrimination.

It tells the story of an English professor David Lurie, who seduces a confused interracial student. On the surface it seems like a story about his relationships with women, but in fact Disgrace is a story about what these relationships reveal about the man.

The opening sentence of the book describes Lurie as 52, divorced and somebody who has solved the problem of sex rather well. Lurie obtains satisfaction from weekly visits to the same prostitute, a woman he knows as Soraya, but it’s an arrangement that soon falls apart. Just another whore will not do for him, so he seduces a reluctant student, Melanie Isaacs. It is an awkward relationship as Melanie appears unsure of what she wants. She is unequipped to deal with the professor’s advances and not entirely adverse to the flattering attention but she is a reluctant participant, as was Soraya.

Lurie fails to judge the parameters of the permissible in a relationship probably because all he only knows to ask rather demand sex, even though what he really craves from the relationships is compassion. He is a man of extreme logic and confidence and when charged with sexual harassment chooses not to defend himself. He pleads guilty but expresses no remorse. Lurie forces them to impose the harshest punishment on him and, leaves the university in utter disgrace.

Lurie visits his daughter Lucy, who has a plot of land in the countryside and lives by selling flowers at a local market and boarding dogs. Like Lurie she has not been successful in relationships. Her lover Helen has moved out, leaving her all alone. She has a turbulent relationship with her father but the two come closer when three hoodlums attack their home and rape Lucy. The violation is not about sex but subjection and subjugation. She chooses not to admit to the police that she was raped for she has little faith in the system as she explains to Lurie, “What happened to me is a purely private matter. In another time, in another place it might be held to be a public matter. But in this place, at this time, it is not. It is my business, mine alone.”
Disgrace is a book about South Africa, the race, history and politics. Lurie and his daughter are white, their attackers black. The situation becomes complex because Lucy has a black hand, Petrus, who asserts his independence. Power shifts throughout the novel, steadily from Lucy to Petrus when we discover that the oppressor is a relative of his, a disturbed boy who later moves in as Lucy’s neighbour.

The book reflects little patience or respect for authorities or procedures. The police inform they have located Lurie’s stolen truck, so Lurie drives to the Vehicle Theft Unit and is shown a car that’s obviously not his. To add injury to insult, the culprits caught with the stolen vehicle are released on bail. When Lurie returns to Cape Town, he discovers his home ransacked but he doesn’t bother calling the police for he knows it is futile.

All the characters live in a world uncomfortably in transition. Aging Lurie, who can now expect no better than to bed the woman who puts animals to sleep feels sorry for himself when he says, “Let me not forget this day…After the sweet young flesh of Melanie Isaacs, this is what I have come to. This is what I will have to get used to, this and even less’

Lucy’s situation becomes more precarious, but she won’t accept Lurie’s offers of escape. He’s willing to send her to Holland, but she’s not ready to abandon her small piece of land and what life she has here, despite the compromises she will have to make. She has not gotten over the rape, but is determined to become a good mother and a good person.

David Lurie who has been a failure in love all his life chooses to for once support a woman in his life, his daughter. It is evident that he is changing too. On the last page of the book, David helps a dog into nothingness. The blankness ascribed by the colonial regimes to the land and cultures of Africa is now inverted, absorbed by an individual who is an ancestor of those regimes. It is a profoundly moving ending, and its emotional power is all the more impressive for being attached to a protagonist who has, until that point, seldom evoked empathy from the reader.

The father and daughter are strong-willed but misguided, unwilling to do the obvious or simple. When Lurie in search of peace, submits his dog to the boarder and confirms “Yes, I am giving him up” we are allowed a catharsis—a catharsis of the protagonist and his disgrace, a catharsis that signals a difficult future, but an end to suffering and oppression. We are left with no illusion that the rest of David’s life will be comfortable or easy, but we are given a way to envision a dignity within it.

Coetzee’s writing is powerful and compelling though not always a productive read. The voices (there is a lot of dialogue) and descriptions sharp and true. The book moves forward somewhat uncertainly, but this mirrors the hero’s current mind frame. The author does not impose an easy resolution, and the uncertainty is a part of the attraction. Disgrace is a troubling work, of troubled people in troubled times that are ill-equipped and unwilling to face the new realities of post-apartheid South Africa.

The Booker Prize
Coetzee won the 1999 Booker Prize for this novel, a chronicle of one man’s passion and abuse. The book offers no solutions for post-apartheid South African white men who build security fences or for solitary women who are brutalized. It is the story of David Lurie who falls from grace time and again. It is a story of self-redemption and optimism that if David who represents the upper educated class of old South Africa—can find meaning in life again, then perhaps, the disgrace of apartheid can evolve into something better as well.

About the author
JMCoetzee was born in Cape Town, South Africa on 9 February 1940 to Afrikener parents. His father was an occasional lawyer, government employee and a sheep farmer, and his mother a schoolteacher. The family spoke English at home, but Coetzee spoke Afrikaans with other relatives. The family was descended from early Dutch settlers dating to the 17th century.
Coetzee spent most of his early life in Cape Town as recounted in his fictionalized memoir, Boyhood (1997). The family moved to Worcester when Coetzee was eight after his father lost his government job due to disagreements over the state’s apartheid policy. He attended St. Joseph’s College, a Catholic school in the Cape Town and later studied mathematics and English at the University of Cape Town, receiving his Bachelor of Arts with Honours in English in 1960 and his Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Mathematics in 1961.

He is known as reclusive and avoids publicity to an extent that he did not collect either of his two Booker Prizes in person. Author Rian Malan has remarked Coetzee is a man of monkish discipline and dedication. He does not drink, smoke or eat meat and cycles long distance daily to keep fit. He spends an hour at his writing-desk every morning, seven days a week. A colleague who has worked with him for more than a decade claims to have seen him laugh just once. An acquaintance has attended several dinner parties where Coetzee has not uttered a single word all through the evening.

He migrated to Australia unable to accept the lawlessness in his land of birth and is now a bonafide citizen of it.

Bhawana Somaaya
www.bhawanasomaaya.com