The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : A moving tale of the `third gender'

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Sunday, Oct 30, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

A moving tale of the `third gender'

Navarasa (Tamil)

Director: Santosh Sivan

Cast: Shweta, Khushbu,

Bobby Darling

Navarasa isn't a look into the lives of the Aravanis (the "third-gender") through a photographer's perspective or an academic's but through the eyes of a normal middle-class citizen who encounters these people only at traffic junctions or at marriages. This is not the first time Santosh Sivan has looked at a fringe community for a subject (The Terrorist was about the heart and mind of a female terrorist), but yet again he has managed to use his skills as a `super' cinematographer to highlight an issue which has till now been a subject of only non-commercial cinema.

The film has two distinct entities — Sivan's characters, Shweta, Khushbu and Bobby Darling and the annual Koovagam festival near Villupuram. Sivan's character Shweta plays a part in the story of an individual Aravani, Gautam (Khusbhu), who then becomes a part of the larger Aravani community.

The story begins in a typical middle class setting where sex and sexuality are words for whispers. Teenager Shweta is on the verge of puberty and finds that answers to her questions on sexuality are not forthcoming.

Her life is thrown into further turmoil when she attains puberty and everyone says "she is now a woman".

This is where Khushbu comes into play as the character Gautam, who is Shweta's uncle. Gautam who has been repressed since childhood by his brother decides to take Shweta's jewels and go to Koovagam to get married to Aravan and lead a new life.

But Shweta discovers his double existence as Gautam in the day and as Gautami by night and confronts him with the question, which sums up her mental state: "Are you my uncle or auntie?"

Gautam then tells Shweta the story of Aravan and says he has to get married and disappear forever because society will not accept his new identity. And he makes the disappearance when Shweta's parents leave on a three-day trip leaving her in Gautam's charge.

Determined to not lose her uncle, Shweta follows him to Koovagam. This is where she meets Bobby Darling, who is from Mumbai. Bobby assumes the role of Shweta's protector and educator during the Koovagam. She eases the teenage girl's fears and opens her mind.

The scenes where Santosh Sivan really comes into his own are at Koovagam. The way he blends his fiction with the real life event is just sheer genius.

This is also the part where the Aravani community has been given a chance to have their say in a very unique setting.

The scene where a Aravani takes on a TV journalist for being ignorant is really moving, and Sivan has used the journalist really well to reflect on society's ignorance towards the issue of gender rights.

Sivan who is most famous for his technical skills doesn't let that side of him down in this movie. The scene where the Aravanis go back in white saris after the Koovagam is master class.

His use of light in that scene is really something that needs to be seen.

Anyone who needs questions answered must see this movie because as said above this movie is not from an academic point of view.

The movie has been screened at the prestigious Pusan International Film Festival and has won the national award for the best

Tamil film for 2005. But as one journalist at the preview remarked at the poor turnout at the cinema hall it remains to be seen whether Indian men will be able to overcome their insecurity and go watch this movie.

ANAND SANKAR

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