A Critique of Heteronormativity in Rituparno Ghosh’S Films

Home , Chiranjeet Chakraborty, Churni Ganguly, Debashree Roy, Rituparna Sengupta, Rituparno Ghosh, Unishe April

Deconstructing Desires: A Critique of Heteronormativity in Rituparno Ghosh’s Films

Omkar Bhatkar

Lecturer in Sociology, Russell Square International College University of London, Mumbai Email ID: [email protected]

Ghosh’s films are remarkably informed by the social, cultural and economic changes wrought by the economic liberalization in the lives of the Bengali middle class. Though the films signify the local Bengali culture, the narratives, the agony, the desires, the human relationships and the treatment meted to these films is highly global. The paper wrapping the argument of a path breaking cinematic journey of Ghosh in the contemporary times, which revolves around anthropological issues concerning gender, culture and the body.

Keywords: Rituparno Ghosh, Bengali Cinema, Queer in Cinema.

INTRODUCTION Rituparno Ghosh follows in the legacy of Satyajit This essay in the first section introduces Ghosh as a Ray, Shyam Benegal, Aparna Sen creating art house filmmaker who provides an agency to his characters films, many of which revolve around the concerning gender, cultural identity and the body, in complexities of relationships, gendered desires, the which he challenges the cultural norms of body and intricacies of emotion and the often silent struggles gender; thereby providing an acrid critique of that are inherent in everyday lived reality. Ghosh hetero-patriarchy, often revealing the reality behind has handled the changing perspective of the apparently happy marriages, romantic relationships ‘Gendered Identity’ by intervening sanitized spaces and familial equations. of the middleclass home with narratives of sexual desires, thereby debunking prevailing notions of In the second section the paper problematizes the compulsory heteronormativity and notions of compulsory heterosexuality and heteropatriarchy. Ideas of Art, textures of monogamy in context to Judith Butler’s notion of interpersonal relationships, the politics of the home, gender performativity the “stylized repetition of identity, liberty and sexuality continue to form the acts” (Butler, 1993) that must be performed in order premise of Ghosh’s films. Ghosh’s films attribute to for gender to be achieved. Specific corporeal acts, his female and queer protagonists an agency or which are socially constructed and continuously reflect on the lack of it and make them question their performed, conform to a morphological ideal that subordinate status. He vociferously challenges pertains to regulatory cultural models of sex and accepted dynamics of power equations between men gender. An analysis of his films time and again and women, men and men, between parents and questions a woman’s lack of agency within the children, between heterosexual and queer people. heteropatriarchal family and the nation-state at Ghosh’s films are a critique of the norms that have large. been functioning unquestioned in society, especially in the context of the middle class home and the In the third section, the essay explores the queerness dilemmas of being modern and stuck in traditional of the characters through his trilogy of Just Another thoughts. Love Story, Memories in March and Chitrangada. 97

Butler’s theory of drag and performativity disturbs Binodini (Aishwarya Rai) in Chokher Bali walk out the notion of gender, thereby causing discomforts to on their respective husband and suitor to discover a the traditional norms and the heteropatriarchial life beyond the restrictive boundaries of the home. gendered regime. In this context, Rituaparno’s characters shed light on the unspoken narratives of Further Ghosh’s characters are not stuck between queerness. the tradition and modernity, but they are seamlessly fluid. It is the social structuration of society tha t Ghosh’s films are remarkably informed by the finds these roles and newer identities in conflict, as it social, cultural and economic changes wrought by seems to disrupt the patriarchal model. As the the economic liberalization in the lives of the Bengali characters are fluid, their roles are subversive to the middle class. Though the films signify the local traditional model of patriarchy and therefore Bengali culture, the narratives, the agony, the through the means of these desires and identities are desires, the human relationships and the treatment exposed the gaps and vacuum in the patriarchal meted to these films is highly global. The paper structure, that lacks to make spaces for women, for concludes wrapping the argument of a path their changing roles, identities and fluidity. Like in breaking cinematic journey of Ghosh in the one scene of Chokher Bali1 , Binodini flouts by contemporary times, which revolves around dressing and adorning her body. Unknown to anthropological issues concerning gender, culture Binodini, Ashalata calls for Mahendra and Behari and the body. and when they arrive to find Binodini adorned in jewels, an awkward conversation ensues where ACRID CRITIQUE OF PATRIARCHY although Behari states that Binodini looks beautiful, The emergence of the ‘new woman’ is central to there is an air of discomfort at the forbidden but Ghosh’s films; the reason being that the modern beautiful image of Binodini still is in her widow sari Indian who is modeled on the urban educated but covered in Ashalata’s marriage jewellery. middle class career woman, is expected to be both Significantly, this act conflates sterile widowhood modern and liberated without jeopardizing national (indicated by the white sari) with the possibilities tradition. Although this may be aesthetically and passions of marriage and youthful femininity pleasing, it only becomes so by refurbishing the (the jewellery) thus blurring the boundaries between image of tradition so as to “make its values up to socially demarcated roles. Binodini’s body, the site date”, but this is a superficial engagement between of her ’lived’ experience of being a woman the two concepts of tradition and modernity, on and grappling with the norms of society, articulates her through female bodies, as it only works by conflating tradition and modernity onto women’s 1 The ensuing story of Chokher Bali is a complicated web bodies so that “there is no longer any essential of love and forbidden passions, freedom and confinement, conflict between the values they present” (Sunder, in which Binodini is firmly enmeshed, struggling to make 1993). sense of her identity as a beautiful, educated and spirited Ghosh’s films makes a mark in launching an acrid young woman that is trapped within the confines of widowhood. Binodini forms a close friendship with critique of hetero-patriarchy, often revealing the Ashalata and also Mahendra’s unmarried friend Behari, reality behind apparently happy marriages, with whom she falls in love. However, when Mahendra romantic relationships and familial equations. His realises that Binodini is better suited to him than Ashalata films time and again question a woman’s lack of and expresses his attraction towards her, Binodini gives into forbidden passion and an affair ensues. This is agency within the heteropatriarchal family and the eventually revealed to Ashalata who runs away in despair nation-state at large. His female protagonists and Binodini, ordered out of the house by Mahendra’s struggle hard to throw off the mantle of patriarchal mother, goes to see Behari, who having always been her repression, often abandoning the seeming security true love, and asks him to marry her. At first Behari refuses and Binodini leaves the village but later Behari of the home and romantic relationships. For changes his mind and after finding her, asks her to marry instance, Ramita (Rituparna Sengupta) in Dahan and him. However, the next day when he arrives to take her as his bride, Binodini has disappeared 98

dissatisfaction with the confines of her social role as between mother and daughter brings about a a widow and subverts it. The two themes of this film catharsis reconciling the two estranged individuals. are the constraining nature of social roles assigned to women and the lack of socially sanctioned space The progress of the movie helps to analyze the for the expression of feminine subjectivity outside of mother’s situation and her life. As she says herself, these roles. motherhood and marriage was not necessarily a natural progression for her. This representation of Marriage and motherhood are axiomatic in Hindu motherhood thus stands to challenge the idealistic society (Kakar, 1988) Ghosh has challenged the and universalized image of motherhood notion of Motherhood through his protagonist and perpetuated by society and it critiques the ‘one size their individual identities beyond the conventional fits all’ paradigm in which all women are assumed norm. Like In Unishey April, it takes years for Aditi to marry and slip into motherhood with relative (Debashree Roy) to come to terms with Sarojini, ease. Sangeeta Datta has described this perception of (Aparna Sen) her mother, and reconcile herself with motherhood as an ‘ideological burden’. Ghosh the truth that a mother who does not live up to the demonstrates that motherhood is not only conventional expectations of motherhood is not something that needs to be worked at but that necessarily evil. Completely under the influence of traditional expectations made of women in modern an immensely egoistic father, Aditi develops a society are unrealistic in this respect. (Datta, 1990) strong revulsion towards her mother, who has relentlessly pursued her career as a dancer and Ghosh has time and again broken stereotypes and prioritized it over her responsibility as a mother and challenged the hegemonic discourse of patriarchy. a wife. Eighteen years after her father’s demise, Also Ghosh’s women are neither modern nor Aditi is still unable to forgive her mother and traditional, but they are somewhere in between the blames her for being selfish and career-minded. both. Also, their desires, inclinations, and dreams Aditi’s complete interpellation in patriarchal move between the traditional and modern roles and discourses prevents her from fathoming her identities. Ghosh demonstrates these problems that mother’s struggle to survive as an individual, with women still face on a daily basis. For example, the an identity of her own. Through the movie the conflict between tradition and individual desire is viewer is completely engulfed by Adithi’s emotions. still very much at the fore of these women’s lives We are included in her struggle as she laments the from Unishe April as we see Adithi is not social injustice of being an educated woman but not considered a ‘proper’ wife because of her profession. a suitable wife, and being a lonely and grieving Ghosh has claimed that domestic life is about daughter excluded from her mother’s life. Aditi is adjustment and compromise in trying to “maintain eventually confronted by Sarojini on the fateful the status quo”. Good family relations grow from night as she attempts suicide after being rejected by negotiation and discussion and Unishe April is a her boyfriend. Challenging her mother about her pertinent example of this. Women may be relationship with her father and her seemingly daughters, mothers and wives but they are also indifferent attitude towards her, her mother replies individuals who have to integrate their different that Manish was angry with her, she earned more roles within a society, which is both traditional and money than he did and was highly successful which modern, where stereotypes conflict with individual seemed to be a source of tension for him. She offered needs and desires. As already described, the to leave dancing for the sake of the family but he traditional ideal woman presented in the media is in refused. She says “he felt small somehow…he many ways at odds with the lives of women today would have been happy if he had married an because the conflict of tradition and modernity is ordinary girl…I should never have married at all”. denied (Sunder, 1993). Rather than represent his In this way an emotionally charged exchange protagonist as conforming to these social traditions and thus disavowing this tension, Ghosh portrays women challenging dominant social codes. 99

Therefore, like the real contemporary Indian upon her. Her fight for freedom coincides with the woman, his protagonist too struggle with country’s freedom struggle and in her letter to belongingness, as these characters and their desires Ashalata, Binodini speaks of her own country, a are so complex that cannot be accommodated in the world “beyond the kitchen, courtyard and shutters heterosexual patriarchal structures, nor that they can and petty rules of home life”. A woman like be totally relegated to contemporary subversive Binodini, question herself, her identity, relationshi ps identities. and the nature of her whole existence finds no place for her in socially sanctioned spaces. In Tagore’s In film after film, Ghosh attributes to his female ending, in order for her to be able to return to social protagonists an agency or reflects on the lack of it life she must lose her sense of passion and thirst for and makes them question their subordinate status. life, which is perhaps what Tagore soon led to He vociferously challenges accepted dynamics of regret. But in having Binodini disappear, Ghosh is power equations between men and women, between making a statement not only about the state of parents and children, between straight and queer society in the early twentieth century but also people. Victimization and exploitation especially commenting on contemporary society. Women can through parochial conservatism and patriarchy is be independent, they can find this ‘space’ but it physical but most often even non-physical. Though means breaking free of restrictive and unitary in Last Lear, the three women spoke of their marital homogenous identities. relationship, Ivy (Divya Dutta), Shabnam (Preity Zinta) and Vandana (Shefali Shah), the most part of Traditional cultural conventions concerning women, the conversation revolves around the physical and sexuality and their place in society, in combination mental abuse experienced by Shabnam and Ivy. with nationalist appropriations of these conventions, Ghosh speaks more so of the invisible abuse than the subjected female-ness to processes of physical one. In an emotionally charged scene in “hegemonisation and homogenisation” (Uberoi, Unishey April, Aditi asks her mother, ‘Baba ki korto 1990) whereby it became fixed within the ‘pure’ tomay’ (What did my dad do to you?), to which she domestic space and in immutable pre-determined answers, ‘Kichhu korto na! Tumi ki mone koro mar categories such as wife and mother. In doing this, dhor korlei kharap hoy?’ ( Nothing! Do you think patriarchal hegemonic discourses extinguished any physical abuse is the only form of abuse?). This other facets of female identity that may have existed unseen violence meted out to women has often been outside of social stereotypes and simultaneously brought up by Ghosh, for instance, in Bariwali erased any differences that may occur between where Banalata (Kirron Kher) and Sudeshna (Rupa various women and their own individual Ganguly) are emotionally exploited by Dipankar experiences of being female in India. Moreover, (Chiranjeet Chakraborty). women lose a sense of control over their bodies as the body is not so much a body of individual but a Ghosh provides his characters with agency and ‘body-for-others’. Indeed, with regards to this power of questioning. Even in Chokher Bali, Ghosh problem Meenakshi Thapan has noted that the takes the liberty to give an alternative ending to the female body: “…becomes an instrument and a story of Binodini. In the beginning of the film Ghosh symbol for the community’s expression of caste, quotes Tagore who said: “ever since Chokher Bali class and communal honour. Chastity, virtue and has been published I have always regretted the above all, purity are extolled as great feminine ending”. Rather than have Binodini suddenly return virtues embodying the honour of the family, to the structures of social institutions and conform to community and the nation” (Thapan, 1997). cultural conventions Ghosh makes her completely disappear. This is in fact quite an emancipatory act, Ghosh through his films also problematizes notions a fleeing gesture which suits Binodini’s character- of compulsory heterosexuality and monogamy. In she is a woman who cannot and will not conform to the strictures of patriarchal conventions imposed 100

Antarmahal2, an important film belonging to the conventional paradigms of heteronormative second phase of his career, Ghosh unravels a structures. decadent feudal world, its leisurely extravaganza and the sordid state of its inner chambers, inhabited In Antarmahal, the elder wife Mahamaya, who does by women, childbearing machines for perpetuating not have any more sexual relations with her the bloodline. Antarmahal makes an inroad into husband as he has taken up a new younger wife as these hidden chambers to reveal the brutality well has another mistress, seeks her desire for sexual women suffer if they fail to bear male offspring. union with the new sculptor – Brijbhushan who is Revolving around an impotent zamindar’s incessant making the Durga idol. Throughout, the film, the endeavors to bring forth a son, the rightful heir to viewer comes across subtle non textual references his throne, the film completely dismantles the for the silent desires of Mahamaya for this young romance generally associated with sex to reveal the masculine Brijbhushan. She sends food for him crudity of the act. The violence of sexual intercourse through maid, takes care in her indirect ways and with no emotions involved in it becomes almost most importantly yearns for his male body. This has palpable from the very outset. The two women been time and again impressed with camera angles protagonist’s sexual desire for other men that and the portrayal of his male body, clad in a white attributes some agency to both, despite their thin dhoti, bare chested and as naked as possible. incarcerated lives under the constant gaze of a When he goes for his bath at the pond, Mahamaya repressive patriarch, also appears unsettling to gazes at him through the window and watches him many; for, women are usually imagined as sexual being drenched. Therefore, Ghosh reverses Male objects with no desire of their own. The sexual gaze into a spectacle for the female and queer desire for other man rather than the repressive desires of viewers. Also, in Chokher Bali, in the patriarch also forms the premise of Antarmahal sexual scenes, it’s not the female body but the male reversing the notion of Male gaze. Ghosh’s films one that is accentuated and sexualized. unlike the popular cinema which emphasizes on the Marriage and motherhood are axiomatic in Hindu ‘Female Body’ through Male gaze, reverses this society (Kakar, 1988) Ghosh has challenged the gaze. Ghosh’s films highlights on the lack of agency notion of Motherhood through Unishey April and for women located within the patriarchal structure Titli. In Unishey April, the protagonist finds it of oppression. Victimization is central to his difficult to follow the heterosexual paradigms of narrative, and cause of it lies in the patriarchal Patriarchial nature of society and to fit within the structures of operation. However, Ghosh takes us to role of a ‘mother’. the psyche of the woman and reveals the complex individual that exists beyond the notion of being a Ghosh’s protagonist and their identities are often ‘woman’ in the hegemonic structure. Ghosh beyond the conventional norms of being a wife and signifies through his protagonist the dreams and a mother. In the context of Titli, Ghosh goes a step desires of these women that are beyond the ahead of the mother from Unishey April who (is not only career oriented) imbibes her sexual desires. In 2 The film deals with issues of female sexuality in a Titli, we see mother and daughter working through particularly interesting way and therefore must be the new uneasy territory in their relationship mentioned. Set in the colonial era of 1878, the film is about Bhubaneswar, a wealthy yet grotesque man who because both mother and daughter love(d) the same has an obsessive desire for an heir and a greedy lust for man. What is pertinent about this film is that it power. Having been unsuccessful in fathering a child with subtly proposes the concept of the sexual mother. his first wife, Mahamaya, he marries a younger and more Therefore, Ghosh’s films more than often portray the vulnerable girl named Jasomati. Having still failed to make Jasomati pregnant, Bhubaneswar enlists the help of politics of the home, love and marital relationships. a Brahmin priest who is ordered to sit in the bedroom The women as protagonist are not ‘women’ in the chanting mantras during the act of sex itself because traditional understanding of womanhood. Ghosh’s Bhubaneswar believes it will improve the chances of women are strong characters of substance and fertilization. 101

courage (possessing some form of agency), who in particular, Entwistle conceptualizes clothing as an struggle to find their place in the social spaces embodied “fleshy practice involving the body” sanctioned to them in the hegemonic discourse of (Entwistle & Wilson, 2001) lying at the margins of patriarchy. the body, marking the boundary between self and other, individual and society and she believes that Butlers understanding of Performativity and clothing actively mediates these boundaries by Identity formation holds strong importance in providing a visual metaphor of individual identity understanding the journey of Ghosh’s protagonist. as well as image of social norms. The saree has the ‘Identifications are never fully and finally made; power inscribed in it to hide and accentuate the they are incessantly constituted and, as such, are woman’s body and desires. In Antarmahal, subject to the volatile logic of iterability. They are Although Jasomati- the young wife is extremely that which is constantly marshaled, consolidated, uncomfortable and unhappy about the situation retrenched, contested and on occasion compelled to where the priest is reciting the mantras watching give away (Butler, 1993). Ghosh’s characters are not over husband and wife engaged in sexual act, permanent fixed identities or categories rather they Bhubaneswar forces her to have sex with him. In an are characters in flux. The characters mask and act of defiance against this Mahamaya- the elder unmask themselves, through the creative acts of wife sneaks into the bedroom and, sitting in front of performance. These acts are intelligently thought for the priest, she starts to titillate him. Lifting up the as Identification is not a state of being. It is a bottom of her sari to quickly flash her knee, she perennial struggle to adopt and incorporate one’s smiles and laughs as the priest starts to stammer way of life that is never achieved in its totality. The over his words. After repeating this a few times and perennial struggle is expressed through bodily acts, with the priest increasingly distracted, she starts to clothing and performances. Saree being the central pull her sari off her shoulder and play with it element in Ghosh’s films have worked as a symbol slowly. The viewer, watching this scene from behind of womanhood concealing and expressing her Mahamaya, suddenly sees her pull her sari right desires. Banerjee & Miller do describe the sari as a down, revealing her bare back to the audience but ‘lived’ garment, claiming it is the main medium her bare breasts to the priest. The priest astonished, operating between a woman’s sense of her body and stops reciting abruptly, but Mahamaya just throws the external world and claim that the way a woman her pallu back round her body, gets up and leaves may manipulate her sari and respond to its the room laughing. The central point of interest here movements “expresses not only her personal is Mahamaya’s sexual use of her body and sari to aesthetic and style but also her ideals about what it challenge male power and dominance. Just as is to be a woman in contemporary India (Banerjee Binodini and Urmila do a type of bodywork in and Miller, 2003). They comment that the sari is negotiating social values, Mahamaya strategically inherently ambiguous in that it has the “flexibility to uses her body and sari in a sexualized manner that accentuate, moderate or hide features of the body”. ridicules and undermines the domination and For example the pallu can be exploited and exploitation of Jasomati by Bhubaneswar. manipulated by women to present themselves as Furthermore this scene is symptomatic of the issues coy by covering their faces when a lover passes by, that pervade society at large. Bhubaneswar and the as erotic by letting it fall away to reveal and priest symbolize patriarchal society and religion and accentuate the curvature of their breast, or using it to Mahamaya’s body, in an ironic move, is transformed keep purdah by covering their heads in traditional into a site of resistance in which she uses the very domestic contexts as well as becoming an extension medium that women are subjugated by, her body, of maternal love by being a comforting presence in a and arguably her sari, the traditional symbol of woman’s child’s life. Thinking about the body, chastity and virtue, to confront and criticise rigid clothing and identity in this way acknowledges the dominant moral values of society. significant role of clothing as expressing the self and

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Binodini is crossing the demarcated spaces of social not created space, then at least he has brought the identity via the strategic use of clothing and silent queer identities into films where they could adornment. In doing this she expresses elements of speak, and made a platform where the voices would her own self that is not ruled by social convention. be heard. This is emphasised by Binodini’s assertion- “I have three identities- I am a young woman, educated and Memories in March, Just Another Love Story (Arekti a widow but all have eclipsed my real identity… I Premer Golpo ) and Chitrangada, at times am also flesh and blood”. Although Binodini is a considered as trilogy (though it is not in its literal widow she is also a young woman, she has passion sense) sheds lights on varied angles of desires, love for life and lustful desires yet she also desires a and its complexity in context of same-sex. Also, family and motherhood and it is this intermingling these films are almost a reflection of society, of all of all conflicting aspects of femininity that stands to those who inhabit the silenced spaces and live their question the ‘purity’ and homogeneity of the female silent struggles. Through this three films, Ghosh is ideal. Through her ‘body work’ Ghosh shows not sympathisizing with the characters, nor is his Binodini actually engaging with and challenging the being over dramatic, he stays as far as possible real moral and sexual social codes that repress her and and aesthetic even if it means to make the audience thus establishes Binodini as a complex and little uncomfortable. With reference to Chitrangada, rebellious character who is struggling to transgress Ghosh does bring about this uncomfortable what Ghosh has described as the “shackles of the sequence of uncomforting Gender like Butler, and norm” in her search for freedom and for life. Her giving space for a creation of a new identity. This body, as we have seen, is not maintaining the new identity is a struggle of the protagonist (Rudra). ‘correct body’ of society, it is not “in the service of The central conflict is not between Rudra and any ‘docility’ and gender normalization” (Jaggar and other external force; rather, it is a confounded Bordo, 1989), rather her ‘body work’, her conflict within him. The apparent problem with the manipulation of her clothing and jewellery allows origin of the wish (here, the wish to become a her to negotiate these values and express herself. woman) is that it has no credible history. It’s born Therefore, Binodini is enmeshed with the power for one fine morning when Rudra discovers Partha’s subversive ideas which she brings out with masking (Jishu Sengupta) fondness for children. and unmasking of the body. The body in context of Consequently, he descends into sentimental Binodini and Mahamaya is not exactly a passive musings about how Partha would never be happy recipient of cultural indoctrination but the same with him, for he would never be able to bear him body becomes a political artifice, where identities children. are negotiated. Gender in this sense can be masked, Two male parents cannot adopt a child in India. In unmasked, performed, underperformed, done and order to sustain the relationship, Rudra decides to undone in the process of identification. Therefore, undergo a gender reassignment surgery. And, in no identity is a phantastismic staging or performance time, the desire becomes so overwhelming that he and nothing in Identity is fixed, it changes through actually consults a doctor, and goes in for breast time and from place to place. Ghosh, through the implant. The struggle of Rudra is inherit in himself discourse of performativity gives meaning to the and not from any external source of conflict. Partha characters trying to break away from orthodox has never desired Rudra to go for a sex assignment shackles of patriarchy, subverting desires, dreams surgery, and it is here where he remarks if it’s about and destination, especially in the context of sexual organs then he might as well be with a Chitrangada. woman. At this juncture the film sharply talks about QUEERINGnDESIRES the complicated and not so spoken queer desires in Ghosh with his last three films has created a space to an Indian film. In such a way the film recognizes the discuss queer identities in the middle class homes. If multiplicity of desires, unwittingly or knowingly; but, the film does not ponder over the sudden 103

change in Rudra’s decision on the day of the final called ‘Just Another Love Story’. In the climax of the surgery. Apart from that one semiotic message film, (Rituparno Ghosh) Roop asks (Indraneil (‘why do you call a BUILDING a building even Sengupta) Basu if they are invited to appear at the when it is complete?’), that recognizes the fact that Habitat together at the same time when his pregnant the body is into a perennial process of change, there wife Rani (Churni Ganguly) wishes to go out for is no elucidation. Chitrangada at times seems like a biriyani at Karim’s, who is he going to choose. Basu visual essay of Butler’s notion of Destabilizing sex does not have an answer; in fact, he cannot have. and gender, Sex, Gender and Identity fluctuate in For, both Roop and Rani are equally important and Chitrangada as if they are doings and undoings of indispensable to him. Kaushik Ganguly captures the matrix of sex and gender, “there is no ‘being’ with subtlety the tragedy of the bisexual man who behind doing, acting, becoming; ‘the doer’ is merely oscillates and exhausts himself in maintaining the a fiction imposed on the doing—the doing itself is balancing act between his wife and boyfriend. While everything” (Nietzsche & Smith, 1996) Rudra the whole world has labeled Aar Ekti Premer Golpo as abandons as abruptly as he had plunged into the first Bengali ‘gay’ feature film, and in its review exercising his desire. Is it because of a realization seems to tilt more towards delineating the that a desire to enter a compulsive heteronormative vulnerability of the films two gay characters − Roop, structure (by becoming a woman) is redundant for it the film director and Chapal Bhaduri, the veteran ‘dis-empowers’ him by taking away from him the folk theatre actor, the vulnerability of Basu, the gender fluidity he has so far embodied. Rudra does bisexual cinematographer is almost elided, as if he not undergo the final surgery, and decides to return did not exist. What is remarkable is that the film to his original self. The abandonment of the quest is does not stereotype Roop’s lover as exploitative or not affected by some sense of guilt, but he no longer manipulative, but sensitively handles his character feels the necessity of a cosmetic transmogrification. which, commendably enough, does not verge on the Now, this is what Rudra feels; this is his crowning perverse. wish. Ghosh, in this way portrays that the body, goes through a process of doing and undoing’s of Basu’s tragedy is that he is caught between two gender, as if treating the body like an artifice or a relationships, one, socially approved, the other not; blank slate that could be imprinted with norms and but the emotional quotient involved in both is equal. regulations. In such a way the body, gender and The last scene where Roop and Basu kiss and cry identity is constantly in the process of making and before they separate the reality of this in-between- stabilizing, however never stabilized. ness and the very impossibility of finding a remedy to it becomes all the more conspicuous; and perhaps, Chitrangada, destabilizes sex, gender and identity. it is here the film scores the most, notwithstanding However Arekti Premer Golpo3, speaks more so its sensitive handling of the homosexual men as about love and most importantly how a love story well. between two men is not so much different from any other love story, therefore the title is also aptly Ghosh, also seeks to bring about the complexities and forms of love. Love that cannot be labeled and are beyond the boundaries of definition , may be 3 In Arekti Premer Golpo, Abhiroop is an outsider and is also because these forms of love are complex to be in kolkatta to shoot a documentary of a legendary Jatra captured into heteronormative structures. Roop and actor. He is pitted against the world — the media link Basu’s story also hungs somewhere in between the his work to his personal life, the crowd disallows the shoot in Chapal’s house, the villagers stop the final total acceptance or rejection, but just in between the shoot of Chapal in his attire of a female goddess. His both. Like Derrida, Ghosh finds binaries restrictive alternative sexuality has placed him in a tortuous enough to explain the complexities and shades of relationship. This makes him vulnerable, but, as an life. Though Ghosh, has been criticized by some artist, he is uncompromising, and the search for the truth is effectively an inward journey from femininity communities for feminizing the identity of gay to androgyny. individual. It is not exactly so, portrayed by the roles 104

of Uday in Just another love story or Siddarth in inclinations, desires, dreams and destinations. Often Memories in March. One of the most enduring these dreams are not of the conventional norms, nor scenes in Just Another Love Story is when Abhiroop are these desires sanctified spaces of societal norms, and Uday sit in front of the Gauranga temple. It is and nor is the destination a limited to marriage and dusk, the priest has finished his arati and Uday is motherhood. Rather, Ghosh’s characters go beyond asking Roop to visit him in France. A new these limited roles and socialized spaces sanctioned relationship starts — the kirtan refrain builds up full- for women via hegemonic ideas. The characters bodied as Roop is iconized with a peacock feather in seek to find their identities and a space for his hand, briefly becoming Krishna to whom the themselves, in the struggle to exist. Their destination song is addressed: “Banamali hey, porojonomey is about the journey of knowing oneself and hoyo Radha.” Ghosh also feels here it’s not important discovering the unknown, therefore the characters to make emotions or feelings explicit, but left to the are in a process-ual form which is not complete and audience to interpret through the polysemic visual always in the making. text. Uday’s love or feelings are captured in such a Further, Gender socialization traps the individual way, that also the literal text may be insufficient to within the cage of cultural norms, but soon the bring this emotion at a dialogue (verbal) level; rather impossibility of living by these socio-culturally it is the state of mind of Uday that has been norms are realized and therefore begins the journey portrayed. of knowing the reality. The reality therefore is not a binary one, but one that is complicated, and requires Also, Uday’s orientation is kept ambiguous or rather confrontation and courage to face this complexity. unclear. It comes across as Ghosh’s intention to keep it unclear, so as to explain the fact that body and Ghosh shows female subjectivity as operating within bodily language don’t really exhibit latent desires, or the social structures and situations that constrain stereotyped notions. Neither are desires so simple them. The moral and social codes of the ‘female that they can be manifested through visual ideal’ exist in varying social processes, practices, personality of the character. Also, in Memories in situations and contexts and the ways in which March the lover (Siddarth) of Arnob (Ghosh) is women respond to these situations on a day to day treated absent in the film as he is dead. The absence basis should also be thought of as suitably complex. of Siddarth, itself from the film does not give any What we find in Ghosh’s films is women both space or cues to think about his physical appeal, his submitting to and resisting hegemonic conventions mannerisms, his personality, his effeminacy or as Niranjana has rightly suggested, women are masculinity or anything of that sort. constantly involved in “shifting deployments of and engagements with the moral discourses, where Yet, Ghosh treats his absence with a presence of his women speak from both within the dominant consciousness and desires in the film. However, the discourse and from outside it.” (Niranjana, 1999) viewer can imagine then what must Siddarth be like! Therefore, Perceiving Indian women as ideologically Therefore, if Ghosh has feminized his characters, ‘fixed’ within pure and homogenous categories of they also he has emasculated them and beyond them mother and wife severely compromises women’s he has left them in between and at times even status as complex subjects. However, if we start treated devoid of any cultural gendered traits and from a model of “mutation, metamorphosis and identity. Diaspora” (Haraway, 1991) women can be re- CONCLUSION conceptualized as complex agents participating in multiple contexts and evading rigid social Ghosh’s journey of cinema has also been the journey categorisation to express their individual subjective of middle class men and women, coming to terms to voice. reality, and understanding themselves within that process. The Women in Ghosh’s movie dare to look Ghosh with his protagonist brings out the voices within themselves and discover their likings, from the hidden chambers, bedrooms and kitchen 105

into discussion through his films. Ghosh’s films seek desires that are often repressed and the dreams that so as to speak about the struggle to being modern are often curtailed find their liberated manifestation and yet grappling with traditions. Ghosh, also in his films. Further, Ghosh provides an acrid destabilizes sex, gender and identity and brings out critique of patriarchy and discomforts the world of the complex milieu of desires and dreams. The binaries and heteronormativity.

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