Shoma Ajoy Chatterji

Shyam Benegal's Zubeidaa: memory as 'voice' Shoma Ajoy Chatterji

Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 53–71 | ISSN 2050-487X | www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk

www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk | ISSN 2050-487X | pg. 53 •

Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 53-71

Shyam Benegal's Zubeidaa: memory as 'voice' Shoma Ajoy Chatterji Freelance journalist, film scholar and writer, [email protected]

The demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992 and the Mumbai riots that followed in its wake in January 1993 motivated Shyam Benegal to respond to his feelings for the minority community. His empathy for the minority was triggered mainly by the violence he was personally witness to at the crowded streets of Tardeo where his office stands. He saw a Muslim bakery being set on fire by an angry mob. His response brought in its wake three films in quick succession – Mammo, Sardari Begum and Zubeidaa, a family trilogy relating to the stories and journeys of three women from Muslim families. All three films defined Benegal’s concern with marginalized women. The three central women characters in these films were marginalized thrice over – one because being Muslim, they were part of a minority group in India; two, as Muslim women, they were a minority-within- minority within their own communal group; and three, because they were women, per se. Within the first area of marginalization, they were targets of oppression that is the fate of Muslim women by virtue of the ideologies and philosophies of Muslim faith. Though these three areas of the oppression of Muslim women come across lucidly, subtly yet strongly in all three films, it is not the victimization that interested Benegal but rather, the strength and the power that lay hidden within these women, waiting to be tapped, drawn out and executed across the span of their respective lives. The aim of this paper on Shyam Benegal’s Zubeida is to show how the filmmaker has made imaginative, aesthetic and emotional use of ‘memory’ reconstructed from erased history as ‘voice.’ Memory reconstructed from archives like a family album, a forgotten/hidden roll of film containing a song- dance sequence, diaries written by the woman whose strident and vocal ‘voice’ has been reconstructed from the past. Oral accounts offered by the woman’s mother Faiyyazi to her grandson Riyaz, reveals Zubeidaa’s ‘voice-as-it-was’ in the present. It tries to discover how cinema as language, medium and agency, makes it possible to reconstruct erased memory of the past through the memories of people in the present and agencies of the past.

www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk | ISSN 2050-487X | pg. 54 he demolition of the Babri Masjid in tapped, drawn out and executed across the December 1992 and the Mumbai span of their respective lives. riots that followed in its wake in T The Trilogy January 1993 motivated Shyam Mammo: As one watches Mammo (1994) over Benegal to respond to his feelings for the and over again, one's faith in cinema being minority community. His empathy for the able to question the Partition and its minority was triggered mainly by the violence decimation of the Indian family in retrospect he was personally witness to at the crowded is redeemed. It is also about childhood and streets of Tardeo where his office stands. He innocence and about the alienation of a saw a Muslim bakery being set on fire by an woman when she is widowed in a land that angry mob. His response brought in its wake she can never consider her home. It is about three films in quick succession – Mammo, the reunion of sisters divided by the Partition. Sardari Begum and Zubeidaa, a family trilogy It is also about loneliness and old age and relating to the stories and journeys of three about the strong resources that are inherent in women from Muslim families. All three films a woman, resources she can draw upon when defined Benegal’s concern with marginalized she needs to. women. The three central women characters in Mammo is a different cup of tea from other these films were marginalized thrice over – middle-aged women. Her weakness is her one because being Muslim, they were part of a brutal forthrightness on the one hand and her minority group in India; two, as Muslim active involvement in other people's worries women, they were a minority-within-minority on the other. But this is also her strong point. within their own communal group; and three, She evokes the wrath of her grand-nephew by because they were women, per se. Within the springing a surprise birthday party for him but first area of marginalization, they were targets also helps out the battered domestic by beating of oppression that is the fate of Muslim up her alcoholic, wife-battering husband. She women by virtue of the ideologies and questions her affluent sister's ethics in having philosophies of Muslim faith. Though these appropriated their portion of the family three areas of the oppression of Muslim wealth. Finally, when she is dragged away women come across lucidly, subtly yet from her sister's place and put into a train strongly in all three films, it is not the chugging away to Pakistan, her anguish is victimization that interested Benegal but something we can identify with because by rather, the strength and the power that lay then, we are absolutely on her side. Since she hidden within these women, waiting to be

www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk | ISSN 2050-487X | pg. 55 is packed off cruelly to a country that is still period film set against the backdrop of 'foreign' to her because she has overstayed her Rajasthan around 1950-52 when India had just term of stay, Mammo arrives many years later been declared a Democratic Republic with and this time round, legalizes her stay by 550 princely states and a large Muslim having the strapping young grand-nephew population. The country was preparing for the register a certificate of her 'death' in India. first general elections and the princely states They cannot send her off ever again. were clearly headed to a grand decline, a Sardari Begum (1996) shows Shyam fascinating period both from political and Benegal raising questions about Sardari’s social points of view (Datta 2003: 200). brutal repression of her daughter’s love life. Khalid Mohamed collaborated on the project He does not make any attempt to whitewash by writing the script based on the real-life her character as that of an ideal woman, much story of his own mother. less the ideal mother. As a mother, Sardari is Aim fleshed out as a very selfish woman who The aim of this paper on Shyam Benegal’s imposes her own ambitions on her ordinary Zubeida is to show how the filmmaker has and unwilling daughter, denying her thereby, made imaginative, aesthetic and emotional use the life of love and marriage she so painfully of ‘memory’ reconstructed from erased history desires. Sardari is loud, open and brash, as ‘voice.’ Memory reconstructed from defining her assertiveness, arrogance and archives like a family album, a forgotten or confidence, much of which she uses to veil her hidden reel of film containing a song-dance diffidence and her emotional insecurity with. sequence, diaries written by the woman whose Sakina's softness and submissive demeanour strident and vocal ‘voice’ has been balances the mother's arrogance. On hindsight, reconstructed from the past. Oral accounts Sardari’s total domination of her daughter offered by the woman’s mother Faiyyazi to could be interpreted as her way of ‘balancing her grandson Riyaz, reveals Zubeidaa’s out’ the oppression and exploitation she ‘voice-as-it-was’ in the present. It tries to suffered at her husband’s hands. And we are discover how cinema as language, medium also made to realise that Sakina’s giving up and agency, makes it possible to reconstruct her dreams of love and marriage was more erased memory of the past through the because she loved her mother, than because memories of people in the present and she was afraid of her. agencies of the past. Zubeidaa is the third of the family trilogy presenting three woman-centric stories. It is a

www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk | ISSN 2050-487X | pg. 56 The Background memory and from official history. Zubeidaa is The Maharaja of Jodhpur, Prince Hukam the celluloid resurrection of this woman’s life. Singh, brought with him an aspiring starlet She lived life on her own terms but lost, also and established her as his second ‘wife’ in a on her own terms. For Mohamed, the mansion built for her to keep her distanced autobiographical journey was a process of from his main family consisting of his wife, self-discovery in a certain sense of moving two little children and his brother. The back into his mother’s life; for Benegal, it Maharaja and this woman died together in an offered the trappings of a grand romance with air crash soon after the two-seater craft took a tragic end (Datta 2003: 201). The historical off on an election campaign. When he comes element of the story offered the director an to solve the mystery that shrouded the life and extra-aesthetic authority as stated by Lionel death of a mother he has never known, the Trilling (1985) who says- “In the existence of now-adult son Riyaz discovers that the very every work of literature of the past, its existence of this second woman in Hukam historicity, its pastness is a factor of great Singh’s life has been erased completely from importance. In certain cultures, the pastness of the official history of the royal family and a work of art gives it an extra-aesthetic from the memories of those within it. authority which is incorporated into its aesthetic power”(260). It is said that Khalid Mohamed’s mother was a starlet in the 1950s. She married Prince Zubeidaa is said to be Benegal’s costliest Hukam Singh of Jodhpur. Mohamed was film before his most recent Netaji – The Lost brought up by his maternal grandmother in Hero. It was made at a cost of Rs.4 crores Bombay. He had been told that his mother had ($825,000.) It was difficult to find a producer died in an accident. He was very small when willing to fund the film despite its twin he lost his mother and knew about her from mainstream attractions of Karisma Kapoor, fragments of information, mainly heard from one of the reigning stars of Hindi cinema first-person memories narrated by his playing the title role and A.R. Rahman scoring grandmother. The oral histories triggered the music for the first time for a Benegal film. within him the desire to learn more about her, Mohamed and Benegal finally persuaded as a son and as an objective observer of a Farokh Ratonsey to produce the film. Karisma woman who dreamt of making it big in Kapoor agreed to sign for a price much lower mainstream films but left everything for love than her normal market price. The place that took her life instead. In return, she was setting on location for Zubeidaa was Ram rewarded with complete erasure both from Niwas Mahal in Jaipur for the Jodhpur

www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk | ISSN 2050-487X | pg. 57 segment in 1999. The walls of the original loved life, were spirited and strong-willed. palace were re-worked to give them a touch of Each of them has her individual destiny historical authenticity. The walls had been crossed by larger political forces. Collectively, decorated and painted with intricate motifs, they serve to remind the viewer that in many old sepia-tinted photographs of royal hunts films of Benegal, the female point of view were put up on the walls, and a portrait of the shapes the response of the audience (Datta prince (the actor Manoj Bajpai who played the 2003: 128). Yashraj Films distributed prince in the film) dominated one end of the Zubeidaa. It was released simultaneously in room. India, the U.K. and other international Benegal was attracted to the theme for two territories. It ran for 12 weeks in U.K. alone reasons: one, the sentimental ethos where it grossed around 175,000 British spontaneously generated by the subject Pounds. It has been screened widely at several through the search of a son for the memories film festivals and is marketed in VHS and of his mother; two, the challenge of recreating DVD format internationally. Zubeidaa was an era which Benegal had already handled in shot within the incredibly short span of 50 his earlier film Bhumika and the historical days, on location in Pune and Jaipur with series Bharat Ek Khoj made for television. Rajan Kothari contributing to the lavish and These two are intertwined and merge so beautiful cinematography. completely that at the end of it all, the The Film audience finds itself participating in the son’s The narrative unfolds in bits and starts, journey to fill in the missing gaps in his through long flashbacks, gathered by Riyaz mother’s life and death as much as it gets the through Zubeidaa’s diary that Fayyazi had opportunity of looking back at Hindi cinema kept hidden from him for all these years. The as it existed in and around the 1950s through images form of collage through several slices of Zubeidaa’s growth from adolescence agencies: (a) oral reminiscences of the dance to womanhood. director who knew Zubeida as a child and With Zubeidaa, Benegal returned to the directed her for her first and last dance theme of the public and private faces of a number for the film Banjaran that never saw woman protagonist he had examined in the light of day; (b) the album of photographs Bhumika. The film offers frequent echoes of and the film reel of the picturised dance gifted some of his earlier heroines – Usha in to Riyaz as an afterthought by an aged Bhumika, Sardari in Sardari Begum and Mandira; (c) Mandira herself who fondly Zeenat in Mandi. All of them are women who

www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk | ISSN 2050-487X | pg. 58 recalls the early days when Zubeidaa filled the from the smaller narratives that come to him. palace ambience with her joyful spirit of As character, he is more of a listener, a camaraderie; (d) Rose Davenport who knew documentarist, a recordist, an observer and at and understood Zubeida more closely and times, a commentator who finally discovers much better than her own mother did. that at the end of it all, he has not been able to Shocking revelations come from two sources: fathom the mystique of his mother. Towards (i) the royal aide who is now caretaker of the the end of the film, a much-tried and baffled royal palace that has been converted into a son asks his grandmother a crucial question – hotel, and (ii) the prince’s alcoholic brother aakhir ammi chahti kyat hi? (After all, what who oversees it. The royal aide tells Riyaz that did Ammi want?) which perhaps, is a Zubeidaa was a concubine who drove the psychological and emotional extension of the prince to his death. The prince’s brother Freudian question – “what does a woman denies that there ever was a younger princess, want?” pointing to the complete erasure of Zubeidaa The structure of the film is an echo of a from the pages of royal history. similar line Benegal adopted for Sardari Zubeidaa offers a beautifully structured Begum. But there are differences. In Sardari narrative that is neither linear not circular but Begum, the narrator did not even exist in rather, a collage of sound, music, voice, Sardari’s life. Though Tehzeeb, the young photographs, image, visual, a film reel, journalist is related to Sardari, she learns of interviews and dialogue interspersed with long the relationship only when she steps into flashbacks actualizing the information that is Sardari’s house as the latter’s funeral being gleaned by Riyaz about his mother. procession is being readied. Tehzeeb’s There are two narrative structures at work narrator-role is more or less like the narration here: one, the structure of the present with that would fit into any investigative Riyaz undertaking his journey into his journalist’s daily line of work. She is in no mother’s past; and two, the past that consists way emotionally involved in her search into of events and incidents that the ‘present’ Sardari’s past. Secondly, Tehzeeb sources her unfolds. Riyaz functions as narrator and information only through interviews and character at the same time, his life in the film Sardari Begum – both the character and the spanning from being an infant to the time film, do not permit for multiple narratives and when he sits back and watches the only film agencies the way Zubeidaa does. There is an reel his young and beautiful mother shot for. element of distancing in Sardari though it As narrator, he describes his mother’s past begins to narrow down as Tehzeeb begins to

www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk | ISSN 2050-487X | pg. 59 uncover and put together layers of little- bygone era and the effort is praiseworthy. known facts and events of Sardari’s life. In Despite the flashbacks, the narrative sustains Zubeidaa, Riyaz’s entire quest into his our interest and attention till the film comes to mother’s past is grounded in the very premise an end. that Zubeidaa is his mother and as her son, he The story of her life is put together in a knows nothing about her life or about her collage of events where the past telescopes death, a secret fiercely guarded by her mother into the present, fusing the two time-periods, and his grandmother Fayyazi. A close relative from people who knew her as a young woman distanced from her subject through age, and from diaries she had kept. The metaphor culture, environment and profession played of the red scarf floating across an azure blue out in Sardari Begum is defined by a distance sky sets the tone of the film. There are strong and a sense of alienation structurally denied to influences of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane a son gleaning things about his own mother, where the true character of Kane is unfolded never mind that she died when he was a little only after his death. With Zubeidaa, Benegal boy. succeeds in bridging the gap between the What attracted Benegal to the story, by his mainstream audience and his own niche own admission, was the search of a young audience because the film fulfils the demand man for his mother through the people who of a greedy audience and also sustains the knew her and the belongings she left behind... aesthetic beauty of storytelling through But what is fascinating about her is that none cinema. The close bonding between the of those who knew her could actually give a grandmother and grandson is understated till it complete picture of her...she remained an reaches the climactic end of the film. As they enigma whose memories couldn't quite be watch the same film clip – the only one – of a grasped completely. There is always a piece dance number performed for Banjaran by missing from the big puzzle, or a segment that Zubeidaa, a film which never saw the light of slips out of one’s grasp just when it seems day, the grandson reacts by laughing away at within reach. What unfolds is an intriguing his naïve mother while the grandmother and multi-layered personality built bit by bit cannot stop her tears from flowing freely. yet never building up into a cohesive and During the unfolding of the story of complete whole. But this incomplete, Zubeidaa, Benegal seamlessly weaves in the fragmented enigma is precisely what fragility the film industry and of the people Zubeidaa’s mystique is all about. Benegal has working in it in the 1940s and 1950s when the taken utmost care in recreating the look of the industry lacked the corporate backing, the

www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk | ISSN 2050-487X | pg. 60 selling of music rights and the lavish walks away with her prince charming. Is it promotional campaigns through the mass perhaps, a foreshadowing of the complete media it now has access to. The once- obliteration of his daughter from the pages of flamboyant dance director has fallen on bad the official history of the Fatehpur royal days – a brilliant cameo by the normally family? One does not know because the film stereotyped Shakti Kapoor. He is now reduced does not offer any answers. This is something to a bizarre slum dweller. Yet he willingly one would not expect Benegal to refrain from helps Riyaz out with his memories of the elaboration, at least through suggestion if not talented girl he once knew. through articulation. Rose Davenport, an actress in her youth The four female characters in the film offer who enjoyed the favours of Zubeidaa’s father an insight into Benegal’s mastery in handling Suleiman Seth as his mistress, now lives alone the woman psyche from every angle, in a ramshackle flat, set up typically like the transcending barriers of communal identity, home of a lonely, ageing Anglo-Indian age, background and education. Apart from woman. Gone is the elite and snobbish Zubeida, there is Fayyazi, Zubeidaa’s mother networking she once enjoyed. At one point we who is Muslim and does not seem to be very see the glamour and beauty of Rose as a educated. She never raises her voice against successful film actress, while in the very next her domineering and abusive husband, even scene we see an elderly, lonely alcoholic who when he openly flaunts his woman in public. passes her time talking to her cats. All she But she takes a critical decision when Karisma lives for now is the bottle she is addicted to, decided to marry the Hindu prince. Rose and memories of days gone by. The studio Davenport is an actress, a keep of Suleiman system appears to have been in slow but sure Seth and is Anglo-Indian. White-skinned and fade-out during the time-frame of Zubeidaa’s English speaking, Rose finds access to elitist childhood with the star system just beginning social clubs, parties and polo matches graced to get a stranglehold that continues till today. by royalty smooth and easy. She is almost as The song lip-synched by Zubeidaa in the free spirit as Zubeidaa is but not as much, flashbacks for the dance sequence, echoes the since she accepts the position of ‘keep’ to her lyrics and music of the Hindi film song of the employer Seth, in whose B-Grade films she period. performs. It is like a pre-condition of her work For some mysterious reason, the towering in his films. When Riyaz comes to meet her, persona of Suleiman Seth disappears she is a ghost of her former self, without work completely from the narrative after Zubeidaa or identity because post-Independence, the

www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk | ISSN 2050-487X | pg. 61 Anglo-Indian was gradually falling out of Mandira offers a lucid and telling counterpoint favour of the newly formed Indian to Karisma. But at the core of it all, the three government. women irrespective of their communal Mandira is Hindu and she is also the identity, age, and socio-cultural backdrop, are patrani, or the senior princess officially objects of humiliation, oppression and abuse acknowledged by the royal family, by her by patriarchy. husband and by their subjects in Fatehpur. She Who is Zubeida? speaks impeccable English, though is always Who is Zubeida? Is she for real? Or is she a bejeweled and costumed elaborately like any fictitious character created within the Indian princess of her time. Her name has imaginative fantasies of a man who would like been abbreviated to the British-sounding to believe that she is his mother who died Mandy, probably motivated by the when he was three? Is she a spirited young girl sycophantic allegiance Indian royalty is said who is fascinated by the world of films her to have had towards our former rulers. She father belongs to and would have liked to use holds herself with dignity and this is reflected it as her platform to demonstrate her dancing in how her subjects respond to her. She has skills? Or is she the only child of a Muslim easy access to Western sports, fashion and family typified by a feudal and dictatorial education. But she must remain confined father and a submissive mother who suffocate within the four walls of the huge palace unless her in their separate ways instead of trying to her husband wishes her to step into public understand and appreciate her emotional space, that too, in his company. With all the needs? She is the dutiful wife to a husband she dignity she assumes, a personality she invests has been forced to marry against her wishes with regal bearing, Mandira has no voice and she is also the distraught wife who is when it comes to her husband choosing and forced to listen to the triple talaaq pronounced getting for himself a second wife, much by a spineless husband when she is just younger than herself, from a film family and a learning to love him. She is mother – albeit Muslim to boot. Does she like this sudden briefly – to the little Riyaz who she gives up imposition of a co-wife on her after several when asked to, in favour of going away to years of marriage to the prince? No one knows Fatehpur with the man who gives her life new because no female member of royalty is meaning following the divorce. allowed to voice her feelings. She is there to obey, acquiesce and comply with the rules and She is the empathetic daughter who hates to the wishes of the prince and his family. follow in the footsteps of her mother Fayyazi,

www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk | ISSN 2050-487X | pg. 62 who quietly accepts the humiliation of her and voicing her regret for this transgression, husband flaunting his mistress Rose Zubeida storms out of the palace in a huff, Davenport in public. Yet, she is not averse to reasserting her desire for freedom, for a life striking a strange and close bonding with the lived on her own terms. She is a woman in same Rose when the latter stretches a hand of love - passionate, selfishly possessive, jealous, friendship in an attempt to put the shattered demanding the love and attention of her pieces of Zubeidaa’s life together when the husband at all times. She does not shy away young girl wallows in grief following her from displaying her anger, her hurt, her sense divorce. Rose offers the magic potion in the of betrayal to make a point, disturbing the shape and style of Vijayendra yet adds a note equanimity of the prince. She combines within of caution as Zubeidaa gets embroiled herself the qualities of beauty, sensuousness, helplessly in a relationship with the married charm, youth, naïveté, vulnerability, prince who is Hindu. As princess and co-wife, aggressiveness and pride. These qualities her happiness is short-lived because she soon increase her enigma, her effervescence, her realises that Vijayendra’s priorities are diverse elusiveness shaping her into the ultimate and are not really as focussed on her as she woman who thinks she wants freedom above thought they were. He gets involved in the everything else but does not really know what first general elections of independent India she wants. and chooses to take his first wife Mandira The Many Worlds of Zubeidaa along for his electoral campaigns. Is this ignorance bordering on social and emotional If one looked a bit closely, one would be able humiliation rooted in Zubeidaa’s Muslim to read into the several small worlds contained identity?1 in the film both reflective of and representing post-Independent India in their own distinct Unlike the senior princess Mandira, she is ways. Each of these worlds are inescapably the co-wife who refuses to abide by the laws and intricately linked to Zubeidaa while to the pertaining to women in royalty and thinks audience, it throws up slices of an India it has nothing of joining in a commoners’ group perhaps read in history books and seen in dance during a festival, only to be rebuked by documentary films through a time and space the senior princess. Instead of feeling sorry that remains trapped in the pages of history. Zubeidaa presents a composite persona of all 1 The script is silent about whether any religious conversion took place to convert Zubeidaa into these small worlds. But she defines a Hinduism so one gauges that she retained her communal identity even after she got married to her departure from these worlds because there are Hindu prince.

www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk | ISSN 2050-487X | pg. 63 gaps in this persona and she is timeless and with Independence, his princedom may well universal, uncompromising and unwilling to be axed by the aggressive encroachment of a imprison herself within the dated and time- democratic republic. So, anxious to retain his bound archives of India’s post-colonial status and affluence, he does what any history. intelligent man in his position would do – he The first is the world of the Seth family, a decides to file his papers for the country’s first typical upper-middle-class Muslim family general elections. seemingly unaffected by the Partition of India There is a fourth world too, larger than followed by its political independence. these small worlds – it is the world of a newly ‘Seemingly’ because soon after Seth marries Independent India with its pluralistic political his daughter off to his friend’s son, the friend and social identity, trying to grope and come decides that his business is insecure in India to terms with its Independence after 200 years because he is a Muslim and migrates to of British rule. Zubeidaa is a microcosm and Pakistan, writing a finis to the marriage and an extension of this newly acquired throwing the Seth family into complete Independence. She truly represents the disarray. The second world is the world of the independent spirit of a free woman, not film studio owned by Seth who is also a knowing that not only does the country’s producer of B-grade films. The studio political independence exclude her from its environment offers a microcosm of the new identity, but also that it staunchly refuses synthetic world of films that is as unstable and to either accept or acknowledge her free spirit. as fragile as life itself. Vijayendra’s entry into politics slowly and The third world is the world of prince surely marks the exit of Zubeidaa from his Vijayendra, comprising his status as prince of world and underlines the growing importance the princely state of Fatehpur, as husband to of Mandira who he chooses to share public Mandira and Zubeidaa, as one sufficiently space with. And this is something Zubeidaa is enamoured and influenced by the British way not willing to compromise on. Why does of life, his name having been changed to Vijayendra act the way he does? Is it because ‘Victor’ and Mandira’s to ‘Mandy’ for the Zubeidaa is Muslim? Or is it because she is benefit of his elitist social circle. He plays his second wife who his subjects probably do polo and woos Zubeidaa in the manner and not know of, having accepted and style of a British-Indian rather than that of a acknowledged the presence and identity of Rajput prince. He is also an intelligent and Mandira as princess already? Or is it because politically conscious man. He realises that his infatuation for the young and beautiful girl

www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk | ISSN 2050-487X | pg. 64 has faded away? Perhaps it could be because freely in the air, to reflect at the same time (a) he is surprised by her fiery aggression and her the emotional crisis within Zubeidaa’s assertiveness, qualities he had never bargained character, and (b) the emotional questions they for in his princess and having recognized create within Riyaz as he explores these them, is not prepared to accept what mark a agencies and ‘voices’ from the past to recreate radical departure from his value system? his mother to fit into the scheme of his private Benegal does not offer answers. Because all and present world. The role these concrete questions lead to the final question raised by ‘agencies’ play to try and put together the bits Riyaz – “what did Ammi really want?” and pieces of memories together, harking back to an unknown past, is briefly underlined Memory as ‘Voice’ below. In cinema, it is not uncommon to experience involuntary memory. It can happen when we The scarf are suddenly and unexpectedly seized, in the The scarf is a visual metaphor that recreates midst of the most mundane film, by an the spirit of the woman it belonged to – overwhelming sensation of sensuous Zubeidaa. It is flame orange in colour, reminiscences (Stern 1995: 39). Memories symbolizing the brightness and the liveliness unfold through the series of photographs in the of her passion and her spirit, her courage in album Riyaz is gifted by Mandira. Memory defying norms, be it for dance as a young girl, reflected through the diaries of Zubeidaa or later, for Hukam Singh, the man she falls in Riyaz ‘steals’ from his grandmother’s love with. The texture of the scarf, styled out cupboard finds a realization of Walter of some gossamer material like chiffon or Benjamin’s comments on memory. “If it is georgette, stands for lightness so that it can flit fantasy which presents the correspondences to and float freely and easily across the blue sky memory, it is thinking which dedicates much like its owner did when she was alive. It allegories to it. Memory brings the two flits and floats from the past into the present, together” (1985: 40). In place of Benjamin’s from the mother, who is long dead, to the son reference to ‘thinking’ one might use the who is alive, trying to piece together the life phrase ‘experiencing through the audiovisual of a mother he has begun to understand a bit impact created on celluloid’ to illustrate how only through fragmented memories. The scarf Benegal effectively uses the diary, the film has no definite shape; it is not shaped or styled reel, the reminiscences and remarks of the into any definite or predetermined design, thus people Riyaz speaks to, the red scarf floating representing the spirit of freedom its owner

www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk | ISSN 2050-487X | pg. 65 stood for, refusing to be bound by mandatory both Mandira’s and Riyaz’s fondness for rules of style or form. memories. Mandira’s because she has fond The scarf serves as a unifying factor, a memories of the young Zubeidaa and that is ‘bridge’ so to say, between the past and the why she held on to the album for so long. present because it is timeless and eternal. It is Riyaz’s because the album offers him a a blend of the real and the illusionary since it glimpse into parts of a story the photographs was real in the past and the filmmaker repeats spell out. They bring to mind John Berger’s it in the present like a metaphor for the benefit comments on and his distinction between of the audience to create an illusion in the public and private photography. The private present. The characters within the film’s preserves context and continuity unlike the present time, Riyaaz specially, do not really public photograph, which is “torn out of see it, but the audience does. The presence of context”, a “dead object” lending “itself to any the scarf in the film is backed by a signature arbitrary use” (1980: 56-63). For Berger, like tune, a blend of pathos, mystery and history, Andre Bazin, photographs are relics, traces of written beautifully by A.R.Rahman on lyrics what happened. To become part of the past, penned by Javed Akhtar that spell out a part of making history, they “require a living moving elegy on the young woman. The tune context” (Ibid). This memory “would is the signature tune both of the film and its encompass an image of the past, however central character present only through tragic…within its own continuity” (Ibid). flashbacks into the past. Yet, the scarf is there Photography then becomes “the prophesy of a even when she is not. The flame orange scarf human memory yet to be socially and that once belonged to Zubeidaa when she was politically achieved” (Mellencamp 1995: 51). alive is now detached from its owner. It has The hint of the story to come “replaces the assumed an identity of its own, and often photograph in time – not in its own original functions as both signifier and signified. It time for that is impossible – but in narrative becomes a character unto itself, embodying as time” (Ibid: 52). Narrated time becomes it does, the spirit of freedom, the sense of historic time that respects memory (Ibid). For abandonment its owner lived and died for and both Mandira and Riyaz, the album and the the timelessness of memory. photographs therein hold both nostalgic and sentimental value. While Mandira is a bit The Family Album reluctant to let go of it, Riyaz wants to get it The presence of Zubeidaa’s photographs in and hold on to it desperately. The photographs the album Mandira hands over to Riyaz shows in the album offer a glimpse into the only

www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk | ISSN 2050-487X | pg. 66 period in life Zubeidaa was truly happy and effect, Wollen de-emphasizes the idea of a thrilled in the fresh flush of love and marriage. code that assumes a system of explicit It is the only private record of her brief life as cinematic conventions. co-wife of Vijayendra Singh. Because as it In Zubeidaa, the image of the old film reel gradually transpires, even with a perfectly has all three values – indexical, iconic and legitimate relationship, Zubeidaa’s second symbolic. It is iconic because it designates marriage gives her the position of nothing antiquity. It is indexical because it hints at more than that a royal concubine would enjoy. something that cannot be forgotten and is The prince’s bigamous marriage on the other carved in memory, something that has hand, is viewed as a royal and male transcended the boundaries of time. It is prerogative. symbolic because it represents both the passing of an age and nostalgia for it (Valicha The reel of Black-and-White film with Ibid.) Zubeidaa’s song-dance number The film reel serves as a reminder of an age Film image is iconic because it is gone by – an age, which, in its sentimental photographic. It is also symbolic, as Christian self-articulation, was one during which films Metz and Roland Barthes have pointed out. It were made with a completely different can also be indexical. French filmologist mindset. The film world then was known for Andre Bazin implicitly recognized the women of questionable morals inhabiting it. It indexical character of the film image when he was a world of ostracisation that precluded the spoke of fidelity to nature, of presenting entry of girls from respectable families things as they are, and of reducing fiction to a participating in it. It was a world where young minimum (Valicha 1980). Metz and Barthes girls obeyed their dictatorial fathers without stress the symbolic signification of the film questioning the propriety of their dictation; a image. Metz is impressed by the linguistic world that spelt total and absolute insecurity analogy and sees cinematic signs as coded for its workers in the future. It suggests a information. Peter Wollen (1972) highlights nostalgic yearning for the past. Its changed the iconic aspect of the image and its liable positioning in the two settings – Mandira’s properties. The icon is the image itself, the custody and Riyaz’s screening the film in a primary dimension of film and the focus of the private theatre for an audience of two – his filmmaker’s attention. It is what the film deals grandmother and himself - offer a perception with. It is also, according to Wollen, shifting of a changing reality in which the old and the and elusive, defying capture by the critic. In new have become irreconcilable.

www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk | ISSN 2050-487X | pg. 67 The film reel is a beautiful image that The lyrics of the song for the dance number captures an age that in some sense is still with that Zubeidaa performs in front of the movie us. Paradoxically, it has lost its function in an camera for the film-that-never-was offer yet era of sophisticated music systems and another telling glimpse into the wild and free television and has therefore, become an spirit Zubeidaa was. The lyrics begin with the ‘outsider.’ At the same time, looked at from line – main albeli, ghoomoon akeli. ,…pagli another angle, it is an ‘insider’ in that it offers hoon main (I am wild, I wander alone, I am a telling comment on human callousness and one crazy woman) shedding light on all that indignity towards things that are of no Zubeidaa is and was. practical use except as a lost slice of life found Zubeidaa’s diary at last by the grown son of a mother he never knew. The diary that Zubeida wrote plays an important role in the film. It is kept secret The film is titled Banjaran, meaning right through Riyaz’s growth from childhood ‘gypsy woman’ a female member of a rootless to boyhood to adulthood by his grandmother tribe that wanders from one place to another, Fayyazi who does not wish to let go of it as a rootless, its identity defined by this very fragmented piece of nostalgia of the daughter nature of wandering and its refusal to dig roots she once had. When Riyaz asks her for the and settle down in one place. In some strange diary, she stubbornly refuses to hand it over to and distant way, this would perhaps fit into a him and keeps it under lock and key. The definition of the persona of Zubeidaa who secrecy is rationalized because she does not kept wandering – from her father’s home to wish the son to know certain details about his her first husband’s home to Fatehpur, trying to mother. In Fayyazi’s value system, some mould herself into the different casts shaped secrets of a mother are best left so for a son, for her for people other than herself, yet especially when the mother is no longer failing to ‘belong’ to any of these worlds. The around to protect her privacy. One night, film, like Zubeidaa’s life, is left incomplete, Riyaz steals it stealthily and when the cut short, unfinished. It is also totally grandmother finds out, she is hurt and angry at obliterated from the history of Indian cinema, his betrayal of the trust that forms the basis of much like Zubeidaa’s very existence that has the relationship. But the anger fades away as been obliterated from official history and from she learns to accept his quest for his dead royal memory except from the memories of mother. Mandira.

www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk | ISSN 2050-487X | pg. 68 For Riyaz, it brings his mother back to life again supported by recalling moments of because it is the only agent that defines her sweet nostalgia by Mandira juxtaposed against ‘voice.’ It points out that his mother was not the negative point-of-view expositions by just a whimsical and beautiful woman who Vijayendra’s good-for-nothing brother and the was impulsive and a bit wild, but was a old family aide. The red scarf, with it thinking woman who articulated her thoughts symbolic omnipresence, covers all of this and through a diary. The diary represents the more, since it extends itself to transcend the fulfilment of Zubeidaa’s desire to speak with past and step into the present, embracing herself. It shows that she reflected upon and Riyaz within itself. introspected about the events in her life. The Conclusion diary represents Zubeida’s life till the point that ends her life with her parents because she In Zubeidaa, Benegal uses multiple leaves it behind when she goes to Fatehpur perspectives along with the ‘voice’ of his with Vijayendra. The diary sheds light on subject through the pages of her diary long Zubeidaa’s identity from a first-person point after she is dead. Through point-of-view of view, unlike the other agencies of the film visual, music and sound images from agencies reel, the album of photographs and the like the album, the film reel, the interviews Riyaz takes of the people who reminiscences, comments and opinions of knew her when she was alive. It shapes her third parties, Benegal puts together different identity in a way different from the other pieces of Zubeidaa’s life by the dis- secondary agencies offer. embodying her from her ‘body’ which has ceased to be, leaving these other perspectives The film reel, the diary and the album of to do the ‘talking’. This liberates Zubeidaa photographs offer fragments of information from the stereotype of the celluloid woman about Zubeida during different phases of her character from the captivity of her ‘body’ kept brief life. The reel of film pertains to her in control only in flashbacks. Thus, the beauty girlhood days when she dreamt of making it of her face and figure is designedly kept away big as a film star. This is complemented with from offering any voyeuristic pleasure or Riyaz’s interaction with the dance director and titillation to the audience, save for the beauty with Rose Davenport. The diary comes after of the star Karishma Kapoor chosen to the reel of film in chronological sequence, the portray the character and does it like none gaps here being partly filled by Fayyazi. The other could possibly have done. album is the access to Zubeidaa’s life at Fatehpur after her marriage to Vijayendra,

www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk | ISSN 2050-487X | pg. 69 Zubeidaa is a beautiful film where elements He also uses music to accentuate the ambience of postmodern cinema are smoothly blended and reflect the moral and emotional crises of into the modern to form a harmonious and his characters. As is his wont, Benegal never lyrical whole. Essential qualities of allows anything to grow larger than life and postmodernism such as – fusing the past and despite a compromise here and there for the the present, pastiche, intertextuality, the box office, Zubeidaa sustains an aura of feeling of a perpetual present, and nostalgia realism. You seem to be watching real people subtly come across the narrative and reacting to each other in authentic human cinematographic space of the film. Add to this situations. the electrifying performance of mainstream actress Karisma Kapoor in the title role and you easily have Benegal’s best after his Sooraj Dr. Shoma A. Chatterji is a freelance Ka Satvan Ghoda. It is a poignant story of a journalist, film scholar and author based in fascinating woman whose life is pieced India. She has authored 17 books on cinema, together by her son who did not know her gender issues, urban history and short fiction. because she had died in an air-crash when he She has won the National Award for Best Writing on Cinema twice, in 1991 and in was very small. 2003. She was research fellow of National From Mammo to Sardari Begum to Hari Film Archive, Pune for one year and won a Senior Research Fellowship from PSBT, Bhari and Zubeidaa, Shyam Benegal shows a Delhi. She has recently finished her post- remarkable range and astonishing depth of doctoral fellowship under the Indian Council understanding a Muslim family's turbulent of Social Science Research, Delhi, on the representation of post-colonial working life. He never misses a telling detail, be it a women in Bengali cinema. forced nikaah or a shattering talaaq (divorce).

www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk | ISSN 2050-487X | pg. 70 Cited References Stern, Lesley, 1995, The Scorsese Connection, BFI and Indiana University Press, London. Benjamin, Walter, 1985, “Central Park”, New Trilling, Lionel, 1985, ‘The Sense of the Past’, German Critique, No. 34, Winter, 32-58. in B.Das and J.N. Mohanty ed. Literary Berger, John, 1980, Uses of Photography, On Criticism: A Reading, OUP, Calcutta. Looking, Pantheon, New York. Valicha, Kishore, 1980, The Moving Image: A Datta, Sangeeta, 2003, Shyam Benegal, Lotus Study of Indian Cinema, Hyderabad: Collections, Roli Books, Delhi. Orient Blackswan Mellencamp, Patricia, 1995, ‘Five Ages of Wollen, Peter, 1972, Signs and Meaning in the Film Feminism’, in Kiss Me Deadly – Cinema, Indiana University Press, Feminism and Cinema for the Moment, Bloomington. edited by Laleen Jayamanne, Power Publications, Sydney.