In Search of a Genealogy: Experimental, Avant-Garde or Prayoga?

Ashish Avikunthak

32 Deep Focus Cinema This is the text of a talk I had images in India – filmic, video and the turned video makers of early 2000 presented at the Annual Conference digital. This conference is an attempt who exploited the malleability of the of Yale Film Studies Program to explore a genealogy of the present. digital medium as a novel avenue of on 6 February 2010 titled - The genealogy of contemporary visual art production along with a motley The Avant-garde in the Indian arts nested in which is my own filmic bunch of contemporary filmmakers New Wave. practice but also that of a group of who stood firm on the onslaught of young filmmakers and video artists. digital revolution and continued to oday I speak before this To an extent, this conference is also make works on celluloid were brought audience both as a filmmaker a political project to excavate the under an indigenous framework of and a film scholar. Being an marginal practices and bring them into the ‘Cinema of Prayoga’. This term Texperimental filmmaker in India has the domain of the history of Indian coined by Amrit Gangar, attempts to not been without struggle. Working cinema, which in contemporary times establish in Indian cinema a practice for more than fifteen years to create has been fetishized and not without a body of work that does not resonate reason with the ocular spectacle of with the normative, that is antithetical Bollywood. to the conventional, is almost devoid of institutional support and most How does one start talking about importantly without a community of the avant-garde in Indian cinema or like minded practitioner, has been to the possibility of the experimental? say the least, arduous. Simultaneously, At what moment can we anchor to search for a credible genealogy the origination of this genealogy? to frame ones own artistic practice Who can we ascribe as the primeval has not only been a professional ancestor? Can we, analogous to the compulsion but also an equally artful genealogists of the Puranic formidable foray into the domain of lore affix the originary moment of the fringe. Undoubtedly, I must admit, the Indian avant-garde to its most the thematic thrust of this conference primordial father figure? Can the emerges from my own subjectivity inventive progenitor of Indian cinema as a marginal film artist struggling – Dhundiraj Govind Phalke be to justify my own idiosyncratic credited as the original experimentalist practices. This conference is a product of Indian cinema? It’s earliest avant- of my preoccupation both as a film garde practitioner? A move that was practitioner and a film scholar to consecrated during the 2006 Tate locate the epistemic, theoretical Modern exhibition in London titled and the ontological valence of the ‘Cinema of Prayoga’. This exhibition experimental and the avant-garde in ingeniously attempted to locate the the Indian cinematic modernity. The impetus of experimentation in Indian impetus of this intellectual endeavor cinema to the creative artistry of is to resuscitate if not excavate the Phalke when he sparkled the Indian preponderance of the avant-garde in cinematic imagination with the Indian cinema - to locate its almost miraculous attractions of Puranic ephemeral trajectory and historicize divinities. In a sweeping retrospective, its indubitable impression on Indian the exhibition attempted to coalesce cinema, largely invisible today. In heterogeneous practices of filmmaking Etcetera (1997) by Ashish Avikunthak - 16 mm recent years, especially with the spread over a century from 1913– film Strip prominence of video works in the 2006 under the conceptual hubris exploding art world of India, the of the “experimental”. The divine of robust experimentation whose necessity to historicize avant-garde confabulations of Phalke made at the genealogy he locates in indigenity of filmic practices has become both a birth of Indian narrative cinema, the Indian philosophy rather than the historical and a pragmatic exigency. subversive dexterity of filmmakers of derivative mimesis of Western avant- To locate the impetus of a filmic Films Division who in the 1960s-70s garde. Although numerous important avant-garde in Indian cinema has at the height of statist propaganda figures of the Indian cinematic become imperative to comprehend produced evocative works that avant-garde – Mani Kaul, Kumar the prevalence of its idiomatic ruptured the bureaucratic realism of Shahani, Aravindan and others imagination in all forms of moving the state, and contemporary artists were missing, the exhibition was

Deep Focus Cinema 33 successful in bringing diverse radical formally and metaphysically. This is but today in this presentation I inflections in Indian cinema under a cinema that invokes music, poetry, argue, analogous to Gangar that a conceptual rubric of Cinema of myth and performance to examine the conceptual hubris of such Prayoga. Subsequently Amrit Gangar the relationship between their status western derivatives do not do justice attempted to cover this gap in another as filmic texts and the ‘fictions-in- to the erudite almost recondite retrospective screening held over six progress’ of their subjects unlike filmmaking practices of Mani Kaul, months at the National Council of similar invocation seen in mainstream Kumar Shahani, John Abraham, Performing Arts, Bombay, in 2008, cinematic formulation. For Gangar, Aravindan and few others who have which included the works of Mani the ontological efficacy of prayoga been often classified as the Indian Kaul and Kumar Shahani. as a theory of practice represents cinematic avant-garde. Their oeuvre an epistemological alternative both creatively oscillates between a range Through ‘Cinema of Prayoga’, Gangar to the conceptual hubris of the of idiosyncratic filmic strategies and effectively reconfigures the notion experimental and the avant-garde characteristic stylistics located in the of the experimental and the avant- and it challenges other forms of film effervescent confines of postcolonial garde in Indian cinema by almost practice in India. He persuasively modernity and traditional Indian conjuring the term prayoga from argues that the terms like avant- cultural practices. Especially in the case of Kaul and Shahani, it includes a formidable theory of practice and a determined aesthetic orientation within the framework of artistic politics that challenges the hegemonic representation of Indian cinematic modernity. These practices for instances not only adroitly mediate the formal empirics of Bressonian cinema, with its deep Jansenist theological imperatives, the Marxist- materialism of D.D.Kosambi’s revisionist historiography of ancient India but their cinematic oeuvre also invokes the elliptical non-linearity of Indian classical music intertwined with deep metaphysical impetus of Indian philosophy. Although the Still from Uski Roti definological grasp of avant-garde comes closest in comprehending the effervescent confines of Indian garde, experimental or underground the cinematic intransigence of these philosophy. Etymologically, prayoga are ineffective to comprehend films, however, it’s essentializing in Sanskrit, he suggests, refers to a the complexities occurring at the Euro-American epistemological theory of practice that emphasizes radical margins of Indian cinematic ambit struggles to explain adequately the excessive possibility of any form modernity exemplified by some of their cinematic acuity, which of contemplation – ritualistic, poetic, the works that we are watching in this orchestrates a modern practice but mystic, aesthetic, magical, mythical, conference. inhabits epistemological strategies physical or alchemical. It can be firmly rooted in a pre-modern defined as an intensive process of Cinema of Prayoga is a radical Indian substratum. I argue in this ‘fore-action’ of any act. In cinema, gesture in the history of Indian presentation that Cinema of Prayoga he argues that it is a practice of filmic cinema. For the first time a cogent provides refreshingly interpretative interrogation that is devised as a exegesis located in the Sanskritic framework that has the possibility quest toward a continuing process in intellectual universe is articulated of locating the radical move of their time and space. Here representation to explicate a distinctive cinematic filmic practices not just as mimetic usurps reality. Cinema of Prayoga, form of postcolonial modernity. This outcome of western derivatives but Gangar argues thus has the quality cinematic representation might be locates their vanguard practices in of being intuitive and congenial, classified as experimental or avant- continuous tradition of innovation capable of achieving a certain unity garde as has been, for a lack of a in Indian cultural and philosophical of emotions that is profound – both better epistemological configuration, traditions. However as a cautionary

34 Deep Focus Cinema note, I must state that Cinema of Amitabh Chakrabarty’s formidable are more comfortable employing Prayoga is not a romantic gesture to contemplation on morbidity in Kaal the transcendental philosophy of delineate an unproblematic genealogy Abhirati, took the project initiated European thinkers than traditional of contemporary cinematic practices by Kaul and Shahani firmly into Indian thought in our critical arsenal. with pre-modern Indian traditions, the domain of Tantric and Buddhist Although this statement is true to a as a matter fact its critical impetus is philosophical epistemology. The films great degree, however I would like to the opposite. It provides an of Cinema of Prayoga are esoteric show that in the works of filmmakers of interpretative framework of a film and even mystical contemplation that Cinema of Prayoga, there is disciplined theory that untangles the relationship necessitates an equally robust critical maneuver of premodern Indian between the Euro-American tradition to comprehend their meaning epistemological thought to critique the modernity with Indian premodern making mechanism. For nearly thirty postcolonial condition. These films are tradition that has fused in postcolonial years these films along with few others a consequence of a cultural modernity modernity. made by Vishnu Mathur, Nirad that is unquestionably located in the Mahapatra, Sanjiv Shah, Fareeda postcolonial moment but unlike other For Cinema of Prayoga its genealogy Mehta have at best been categorized as filmic works are in conversation with originates with Phalke and his religious an aberrant avant-garde and at worst Indian epistemic traditions, or to put proclivity towards the devotional allure of the Epic and the Puranic theology at the infancy of cinematic modernity – a form of filmic Bhakti, with its reverential darshanic gaze. With Ritwik Ghatak, there is a astute assertion of the folkloric, informed by subaltern consciousness as an alternative discursive injunction to the post-partition nationalistic hegemony and its Marxist/Maoist hostility. For Ghatak his invocation of premodern sensibility was a form of an epistemic rupture in Indian cinematic modernity. The subaltern ontology as explicit in films likes Ajantrik or Subarnarekha works as an epistemological disruption that interrupts the teleology of modernity that overwhelms Indian Ritwik Ghatak cinema. This politics is an astringent critique of neo-realist hegemony that an abstruse confabulations. This acrid in Ghatak’s words, these films engage had taken root through the successes of reception of the films, I argue is more in Jukti (reason), Tarkho (debate) Satyajit Ray. It gave birth to a discursive a refection of an inadequate critical and Gappo (gossip) with Indian cinema that excavated the empirics of framework rather than the inherent epistemological traditions. premodern consciousness to embody impenetrability of these films, as has an iconoclastic imagination that was been often argued. For instance, I would argue that any both a critique of the nation and neo- interpretation of the films, for instance, realism as its favored representation Dipesh Chakrabarty in his Khayal Gatha and Siddeshwari within idiom. In the wake of the Indian programmatic ‘Provincializing the epistemological confines of Western New Wave, Ghatak’s students Mani Europe’ bemoans the break brought critical thought as solely a product of Kaul and Kumar Shahani ingeniously about by European coloniality on modernity or even avant–garde will moved away from the conventional pre-modern Indian epistemology. He not sufficiently be able to uncover the cinematic form and produced emphatically notes that categories cultural and historical complexity that radical cinema that was a critique of that were ones subject to rigorous these filmic works explore. Cinema of postcolonial modernity. They eruditely theoretical contemplation do not see Prayoga proposes that we have to take located their theoretical roots in Indian similar deliberations. He contends the recourse to Indian pre-modern philosophy and culture. Taking a step that we as social and cultural critics philosophical traditions to fully forward, Kamal Swaroop’s idiosyncratic have lost the genealogy of Indian unearth the complex universe that and ebullient Om Dar Badar, and epistemological traditions and today these cinematic narratives, meandering

Deep Focus Cinema 35 between modern, medieval and cinematic representation that cannot today have been an essential basis pre-modern histories attempt to be critically interpreted without for Indian cultural practices. This negotiate. This move, I must note, is recourse to Indian epistemological theoretical framework builds upon on not a regurgitation of Indian aesthetic practices. Although, Dipesh a new breed of Indian philosophers theories epitomized by application Chakrabarty correctly points that the who since the second half of the of rasa theory or the epic traditions pre-modern tradition of the Sanskritic twentieth century, in stark contrast to make an uncomplicated mimetic epistemological saw the greatest to those of the Indological school, connection between past traditions rupture with the rise of European initiated a programmatic project of a and a contemporary representation colonial modernity in India, however conversation between Indian epistemic practice. Neither is this project a naive the core of the philosophical and the tradition and Western philosophy. romantic nostalgia of a valorized pre- critical knowledge were retained in The key architects of this program - modern past and neither indeed, a numerous forms - not just confined Bimal Matilal and J.N.Mohanty along sophisticated version of Hindutva to the dominant classical Indian art, with their students- Purushottama revivalism. As a matter of fact Cinema dance, music, architecture, but also Bilimoria, Jonardon Ganeri, of Prayoga as a theoretical apparatus is a in folk articulation of art, craft and Arindam Chakravorty and J.L.Shaw critical response to cinematic practices culture. It is exactly these forms of have consistently demonstrated that that Kaul and Shahani evolve. It is knowledge that Kaul and Shahani the rational and discursive veracity of pre-modern Indian epistemic tradition was at par with Western thought. Rather than an exposition, their project is to provide a synthesis of Indian philosophical thought, but maintaining the heterogeneity of the complex philosophical world of Indian thought. They have been able to show that a productive dialogue is possible between Indian epistemic traditions and post- structuralism as articulated within phenomenology and hermeneutics. Taking their work as a substratum, Kumar Sahani, Pt. Birju Maharaj and Rajat Kapoor shooting Khayal Gatha Cinema of Prayoga creates a theoretical apparatus that employs an epistemological echo to a cultural deploy in the making of their cinematic the cognitive framework of Indian practice. It is a hermeneutical move - a modernity and are indebted to both philosophy to negotiate the complex theory that has emerged as a response Phalke and Ghatak. The first such meaning making enterprise that to a practice to interpretatively cinematic narratives were produced Kaul and Shahani have initiated. expound the nuances of that very same by Kaul and Shahani in Uski Roti Employing the logical epistemology practice. And I make this claim not and Maya Darpan respectively. These of Nyaya-Vaisesika and Navya just of the basis of the cinematic works were most importantly critique of Nyaya, Jainism and Tantric school, that these filmmakers created but also postcolonial cinematic representations especially in conjunction with the on what they have widely written and epitomized by narratives that were phenomenological approach of spoken about. products of nineteenth century Husserl through Deleuze, Cinema novelistic traditions that heavily of Prayoga provides an interpretative The project is fundamentally a concerted relied on the tropes of realist and framework that does not discard attempt at the deployment of classical neo-realist ideologies. the critical tradition of Western Indian epistemology in conjunction philosophy but provides a discursive with post-structural critical thought of Prayoga proposes a theory of film edge to it by summoning Indian to elucidate the postcolonial forms of for Indian cinematic modernity epistemic traditions to grasp complex cinematic representations. It argues that attempts to provide a robust texts of postcolonial cinematic that postcolonial cinematic modernity alternative to the interpretative rubric modernity that not only challenge inaugurated by Mani Kaul and Kumar of Western critical and philosophical the hegemony of prevailing modes of Shahani within the political and thought. It puts forward a framework representation but are radical enough historical context of the Indian New that deploys theoretical concepts that to create a new mode of postcolonial Wave gave birth to a complex form of although not in common parlance cinematic modernity.

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