IN CONVERSATION
Girded by history and myth
GOWRI RAMNARAYAN
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Girish Kasaravalli on his new film, which is about faith and resistance to socio-cultural religious decrees.
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The novel is more clear-cut and focuses more on the boy's previous birth. I deviated, added ambiguities. I created a character who cannot be slotted as black or white.
Subtle but striking imagery: A still from "Nayi Neralu". Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash
"THE film has no dog and no shadow," smiled Girish Kasaravalli, as he introduced "Nayi Neralu" (Shadow of the Dog) at the Osian's Cinefan Film Festival (July 14-23), New Delhi. The image is from the Mahabharata where Yudhishtra insists that he will not enter swarga without his faithful dog — representing the individual's good and bad deeds in life.
After appreciation from viewers Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Mani Kaul for "beautifully crafting an unusual tale", winning the Best Indian Film Award at the festival was no surprise.
Nayi Neralu has a difficult subject and one that is superficially unrelated to our globalised world. But history and myth furnish strong girders. The story is designed around three women. Bedridden Nagalakshmi gets a new lease of life when her son `returns' home as Viswa, in a new birth, 22 years after his death. Daughter-in-law Venkatalakshmi is shocked by a boy as old as her daughter in the guise of a spouse. Daughter Rajalakshmi is bewildered by the blind faith of the old, and traumatised when the mother finally cohabits with a young man who seems foxy at times and an imbecile at others.
The freedom struggle is a distant background for the bizarre happenings in a village stranded in time past. The irrational is the norm, and logic appears grotesque. Shot in 42 days, the camera (S. Ramachandra Aithal) drowns you in the piercing smells of lush woodlands and the island breezes of South Kanara. Kasaravalli presents a chiaroscuro of emotions — tumultuous, contradictory, deceptive and self-deceptive.
The opening sequence has a barber tonsuring the widow's head. We follow her routine as she moves in silence, hidden behind walls and trees. Her only source of happiness is the close bonding with daughter Raji.
Turbulence rocks this quiet pool when Viswa arrives and is presented to her as her husband. Forgotten instincts resurface and demand recognition. The initial resistance melts and she embraces her new `fate', at first with trepidation, and soon with mounting joy. But the end sees her bereft again, now a cheated wife. The only light comes from daughter Raji whose anger gives way to understanding and empathy. Venky has another responsibility now. Her newborn girl Bharati's name carries echoes of hope.
Kasaravalli's own daughter Ananya, a stage and television actor, makes her debut on the big screen as Rajalakshmi.
"Nayi Neralu" has good performances, but it is a director's film through and through. The imagery is subtle but striking. Like all Kasaravalli's films, it resonates with the unseen and the unsaid. The director's eye is compassionate. It empathises with the frailties of humankind.
What drew you to S.L. Bhyrappa's novel Nayi Neralu when the author himself didn't think much of it?
It showcases resistance offered to hidebound socio-cultural and religious decrees in a very feudal system. Intellectuals talk about subversion as a mode of protest.
The novelist Kuvempu once said that even a dullard can fool the wise with a simple trick. This sort of thing happens where you least expect it. The past was not all acceptance and submissiveness. There was vigorous protest too. Only it was offered in different paradigms, and by people you'd least expect to be radical.
Girish Kasaravalli
In your debut film "Ghatashraddha", young widow Yamuna is excommunicated when her pregnancy is discovered. In "Nayi Neralu" the widowed Venkatalakshmi gets pregnant, by a young man believed to be her husband in a previous birth. She too has to be exiled for her `sin'.
Look at the irony! The entire village unquestioningly accepts Viswa as the reborn son of Achchaniah and Nagalakshmi. But no one will accept him as the husband of Venki, with her shaven head and widow's weeds. Though initially repulsed when Achchaniah brings his `reborn' son into his household, Venki subverts the blind faith of her society to achieve an innate need to break out of cruel customs. At the end she admits to her daughter that she'd never believed in the `reincarnation' idea. But the mother-in-law forces her to `satisfy' the boy by casting away her widow's garb for `normal' wear. Her friend says its best to accept the rebirth miracle. But Venki's compliance makes things worse. She is now neither wife nor widow.
Educated daughter Rajalakshmi's reversion to orthodoxy adds another motif.
The complex web confuses Raji. She represents the irrational elements in rationalism. An unbeliever before, she now insists on performing her father's death rites to humiliate her mother and the stranger `masquerading' as her father. When Venki becomes pregnant Raji is not worried about the division of property. All she wants is the mother's unconditional love.
How do you explain Achchaniah's protective attitude towards Venki's relationship with the boy?
He brought the boy home to console his ailing wife. He accepts responsibility for the consequences of that first mistake and ensures that Venki sets up a new home in a remote island with her `husband'.
Did Bhyrappa's novel have so much ambiguity in dealing with characters? We never really know whether Viswa's game is a huge hoax to gain property. He appears stupid and cunning by turns.
No. The novel is more clear-cut and focuses more on the boy's previous birth. I deviated quite a lot, added ambiguities. Venky says that Viswa is like an animal, prompted by basic instincts. But in the courthouse, when a tribal girl is manipulated to accuse Viswa of rape, he accepts the charge because he doesn't want her to be tortured by unpleasant questions. I deliberately created a character who cannot be slotted as black or white.
What did the novelist say about such extensive changes?
He was puzzled by my interest in what he considered to be a not-so-good novel. But he was delighted with my script and film.
Widows are no longer tonsured everywhere, nor segregated as much. So how relevant is the theme today?
The film is not about widowhood, but about faith. Traditional rural societies did protest and subvert situations to their advantage. See how Venky achieves her ends.
The film is highly orchestrated. You have used stylised motifs from the Sakuntala romance, Satyavati and Brindavan myths, and turned traditional rites upside down.
Yes. The way the mother brings Venky out to meet the `groom' is marriage rituals in reverse order. Instead of going forward in saptapadi, she backtracks. Viswa's attraction to the tribal girl on the boat is a take off on the Santanu-Parashara-Satyavati tangle. There's the Harischandra incident too, where the Dalit women ask the king why he fears their touch after his eyes and ears have feasted on their music and dance. In the film's orthodox milieu, touch pollutes, sensuality is feared.
Except for "Bannada Vesha" and "Tabarane Katha", all your films have women protagonists. Why?
(Laughing) It's a subconscious thing... no apparent reasons. I'm not looking for woman-centric stories. There is no denying though that in any class of society, women are always subjugated to male dominance. And yet they don't lose their integrity or their will to survive. Gandhi says that this attitude, the ability to negotiate with their circumstances, is their greatest strength. It keeps them going under conditions difficult and deprived.
Why such a brief reference to the freedom movement? That is the only pan-Indian event in your localised, culture-specific milieu.
I wanted to suggest the awakening of villages. That's when the Brahmin stronghold began, lose its grip. Such cultural resonances may be missed even in other Indian States, not to speak of viewers abroad. But that Brahmin milieu is important to me. I know it so well that I can turn it into a metaphor.
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