Cinema of Girish Kasaravalli: Matter, Mood, Poetry and Enlightenment story

Share

Gulabi Talkies, Girish Kasaravalli's most recent outing narrates a present-day experience of a happy-go-lucky, hapless woman in a form that increasingly comes to resemble a fable; Kasaravalli has adapted a short story by the well-known writer Vaidehi with customary confidence combined with a deeply-felt concern for the dregs of society.

Gulabi, a childless Muslim woman living in the midst of a largely Hindu community in a coastal village, is madly in love with the moving image that also talks. Her visits to the mainland theatres every evening is, presumably, to fill the empty spaces in her life with cinematic dreams, romance and diverse adventures. Back in her village, she lives alone, having been set aside by her husband in preference to another woman by whom he has a son. Quite conveniently, however, the man has not given her talaaq, thereby adding to the vulnerability of the woman. It is a tragic irony that Gulabi, who sustains herself by serving as a part-time midwife, should routinely deliver other people's children but fail to be a mother herself.

In the absence of a family of her own, Gulabi has befriended the whole village. Her life, such as it is, rests on the twin pivots of compassion for people and an intense passion for 'talkies'. But, in the end, neither her positive approach to her neighbours cutting along religious lines nor the fact of her humble hut becoming the centre of attraction for the village womenfolk after the installation of a colour television set and a huge dish antenna, thanks to the generosity of a well-off patron, can prevent her eviction from her dwelling when political riff-rafts start calling the shots Gulabi becomes a telling metaphor for the futility of synthetic dreams, as also for the undying relevance of the human search for love, dignity and fulfillment of a higher order. As is his artistic habit, Kasaravalli shows us quietly and effectively the pluck and plight of a lonely, lovely human being at a time of increasing pressure for people of her ilk.

Kasaravalli (58) caught the attention of film-lovers with his very first film, Ghatashraddha (The Ritual, 1977), which he directed soon after leaving the Pune Film Institute (FTII). One can recall many films which after making an initial impact, have faded from the public consciousness over a period of time - but not Ghatashraddha. If anything, the film's stature has grown over the years since that fateful day three decades ago when it came to be awarded the President's Gold Medal for the best Indian film of the year

Speaking of another day, I still remember the thrill that I experienced on learning that Ghatashraddha was to be screened at Paris as one of a hundred films from all over the world in observance of the centenary of cinema. The joy and satisfaction was all the more considering the mindless fashion in which this quiet and unassuming artist has been neglected by the film establishment, particularly in his home State of Karnataka. But such is the nature of the man that nothing can rob him of his composure, his grace, his uncultivated poise. It would not be wrong to say that he is like the best of his films -- unselfconscious, leisurely in pace, intent and deep.

While Kannada cinema is certainly not without a past, clarity of thought, conviction in the choice of subject, and control over varying modes of expression came to it rather late in the day. In fact, it was not till the '70s that Kannada cinema came into its own, thanks to the likes of Pattabhirama Reddy (whose mother-tongue was Telugu), Girish Kasaravalli, Girish Karnad, B V. Karanth and others. Significantly, today, almost a quarter century after the so-called Kannada New Wave has exhausted itself as a movement, only Kasaravalli holds aloft the banner of the bold ideas and shining ideals which epitomised that movement in its heyday, garnering viewers and awards with equal confidence. The others have either died, retired from film-making, gone back to the theatre world to which they originally belonged, or resigned themselves to churning out potboilers assured of box-office returns.

Those who rightly go into raptures when describing or deconstructing the riches of New Malayalam Cinema (notably Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Govindan Aravindan, John Abraham), would do well not to forget that this upwards movement was preceded by the equally important corpus that was the New Kannada Cinema. Many of the films that made up the latter body of work dwelt on individual traumas and tragedies and the occasional triumph high personal cost to determined dissenters -- against a backdrop of social abuse and economic disparities, often engineered by the Brahmin priestly class in connivance with the landed gentry.

If Samskara (Funeral Rites, 1970), based on a U. R. Ananthamurthy story and directed by Pattabhirama Reddy, or Ghatashraddha, made from another Ananthamurthy story, are most enthusiastically spoken of in any discussion on New Kannada Cinema, it is because they are among the best-made films of the period and greatly helped in placing Kannada cinema among the leading regional cinemas of the country. Contrary to the periodic fulminations of big and influential Brahmin organisations in Karnataka, these two films and others like them were produced with the best of intentions, combining thematic thrust with artistic excellence in a vigorous neo-realist style.

Ghatashraddha, which won for Kasaravalli the first of his four President's Gold Medals, gave memorable expression to a form of excommunication noted for its unbelievable cruelty wherein death rites are performed for a living person to indicate his or her ostracism from society. One cannot fail to notice that this extreme ritual, symbolised by the shattering of an earthen pot, is far more vicious than what it is intended to punish. The film relates the story of Yamunakka, a child widow, who grows up within the rigid confines of a system that denies her the right to live a normal life. But the emotions and desires that she is heir to, get the better of her. Following an affair with the village schoolteacher, Yamunakka gets pregnant, her lover arranges for an abortion that fails to happen, and disappears from the village. When the village elders discover the woman's secret they ask for the customary punishment for such a transgression Yamunakka's father performs the ghatashraddha, the ritual of retribution. In an ending laden with cruel irony, the director takes on a social system that condemns a young woman in such a heartless fashion, yet accepts without a murmur the re-marriage of her old father to a girl young enough to be his daughter.

Significantly, the only one to see through the inhumanity of the system is a small boy who befriends Yamunakka in her worst ordeal. The boy is many personae rolled into one: more an observer than a commentator, the silent but troubled conscience of a social system withering away for want of self­-examination; the brother or, may be, the son that the unfortunate woman wants but does not have It is as if the boy sums up within himself the director's quiet, scathing condemnation of Brahmanical orthodoxy, especially in matters of sex, food, touch and the like.

If the cruelty and cowardice inherent in orthodox Brahmanical society was the staple of Ghatashraddha, Tabarane Kathe (Tabara's Tale, 1987) grew around the nucleus of indifference of the bureaucratic system in independent India to the common man's problems and difficulties. This is a tale of individual tragedy coupled with the larger story of the erosion of faith in the "paper" world of officials and clerks. Tabara Shetty, a middle-aged peon in a municipality (played with remarkable feeling and authenticity by the Tamil actor Charuhasan), is overjoyed to be appointed a revenue collector, but his happiness is short-lived as he runs into difficulties doing his job honestly and well. In course of his duties he makes powerful enemies who see to it that, on his retirement, he is made to run from pillar to post to get his pension.

Tabara's wife's untimely and painful death combines with their adopted son's desertion to fill his cup of woes. His disillusionment and his cynicism with life and life's wayward creatures are expressed in a striking ending showing him giving away his pension money to his office fund, in other words, to the same people who mocked at his principles and made life a living hell for him. This story of modern India hinted at the death of Gandhian idealism which at one time had inspired to some degree or the other, subalterns and lowly-placed people like Tabara Shetty in hordes. Reflecting callousness towards the poor and powerless that had become the trademark of our much-vaunted democratic governance, Tabarane Kathe was a fresh triumph in mood and matter, in style and treatment, for Kasaravalli who has, however, learnt to live with the unenviable status of being the most neglected of the handful of truly distinguished filmmakers this country has produced in the post Ray-Ghatak era. Indeed, it speaks volumes about the institutionalization of mediocrity in the realm of so-called meaningful and relevant cinema that an artist of Kasaravalli's substance appears to have no place in the hearts of film administrators even in his native Karnataka, what to speak of Delhi or Bombay where film mandarins hold court to whose advantage they know best. One has only to hear any spokesman of the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce to measure the extent of hostility that the commercial film lobby has for Kasaravalli. Why? As far as one can make out, it is for his firm refusal to dilute, let alone desert, the artistic and intellectual ideals with which he started on his career. It is a measure of both the man and the artist in Kasaravalli that the more he has been opposed by advocates of the formula film, or the so-called 'art' film gone haywire, the more he has strengthened his resolve not to surrender to the philistinism and mediocrity of either stream of film­making. Needless to emphasize, there is an important lesson here for everyone active in some avatar or the other in the country's other regional cinemas.

Tabarane Kathe was followed by Mane (The House, 1988), about which critical evaluation is divided. There were some voices of admiration for this film which were opposed by others who thought that, despite several sequences of absorbing drama in an urban wasteland where a young couple try their best to find and recognise each other, it did precious little to further the director's reputation. One reason why some viewers were not enthused by Mane could be the performances of the lead players who seemed to be all at sea, despite being seasoned performers, whilst trying to bring to life the peculiarities of the middle-class Kannada way of life. Even Kasaravalli's deft scripting could do little, with the actors being unable to deliver the culture-specific cargo demanded by their roles. Be that as it may, Mane was followed by a film that should have received greater appreciation than it actually got from viewers or critics

Kraurya (The Tale of a Story-Teller, 1995) is about an old woman whose status as an individual in the social order is determined more than anything else by the times in which that order evolves. The old woman is mother, mother-in-law, grandmother; she is of no consequence in any of these roles save the last one. Even as her grown-up sons and their wives tolerate her, at best, she wins the love and trust of her small grandchildren, for she excels as a story-teller. It is as if she has a bagful of the most interesting stories of kings and commoners, uncommon animals and wild ghosts, demons and deities, and she dips into this bag every time one of the small ones asks to be regaled. In return for keeping the children happy and out of harm's way, the old woman is given two meals a day and a corner of the house to sleep in. But one day she discovers that she has run out of stock, her supply of stories is exhausted. She has, in fact, run out of luck which had sustained her for so long in the face of numerous odds.

On the face of it, Kraurya, literally meaning cruelty, might seem like another sob story- but it isn't. There are many layers and dimensions to the old woman's persona that make for both engaging drama and incisive social scrutiny. For one thing, the woman realizes that in a world of fast-changing values, she must use her brains - if need be, cunning - to survive; and so it is that she uses her skills at story-telling to ingratiate herself with the tender-aged, impressionable members of the family. It is almost as if she uses the children as protective armour against the daily onslaughts of their parents who would like nothing more than to rid of her. This is an emblematic story of a weak and vulnerable member of a family caught in the contemporary storm of crumbling convictions, of decay at both individual and collective levels, of self-gain at any cost.

Awards are frequently an unreliable barometer to measure the worth of an artist's work. But sometimes, as it has happened more than once in the case of Kasaravalli, juries have indeed managed to give an honourable account of themselves. Apart from Ghatashraddha and Tabarane Kathe, the Swarna Kamal (Golden Lotus) for the country's best fiction film has come to Kasaravalli for Thayi Saheba (1997), which describes with conviction the transformation of a cloistered woman in a conservative milieu into an emancipated soul with an identity of her own, and for Dweepa (Island, 2002), which narrates the triumph of a lone woman's courage and wisdom at a time of grave crisis for her and her family. Something to note here is that in at least three of these films, a beleaguered woman is at the centre of the director's agenda of concern and compassion. If one of the three women meekly submits to the organised tyranny of the elders in an insufferable patriarchal society, it only goes to show Kasaravalli's aversion to holding aloft a false banner of crusade for women at a disadvantage or in danger. Not for him any of those fashionable statements or neat resolutions of women's trials that are the staple for many of his peers, male or female. He would rather relate his art honestly and realistically to life as he understands it, rich and worth living, partly on account of its complexities and contradictions.

In a career spanning more than thirty years, Kasaravalli has made 12 films. At a time when most Indian directors seem to be playing it safe with grey and listless forays into forced eroticism and/or exoticism, or mindless sound-and-spectacle extravaganzas (witness Lagaan, Devdas and the like) with some vigorous prodding from the cultural mandarins of New Delhi or the uncrowned moghuls of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Kasaravalli is not afraid of standing aside and letting the caravan of showmen and fakes pass. He is indeed a precious little master whose sense and sensibility uncannily combine to allow him to take a slow, detailed, understanding look at the longings and loneliness of estranged individuals in the backdrop of collective aberrations. That those lonely individuals are often women of little means but strong character, like the protagonists of his most recent films (Nagi in Dweepa, Hasina in the film of that name, or Gulabi) is, if anything, a pointer to the director's social philosophy; to his politics of enlightenment fleshed out more in delicate nuances, in sighs and glances or in pregnant silences, than in obtrusive gestures or spoken statements. Indeed, at many points in Kasaravalli's filmography, his films impress one as his quiet reaction to the deadweight of the patriarchal set-up of which he himself is a product.

There is a lingering belief in some circles that Ghatashraddha is Kasaravalli's most important work to date. It is difficult to say whether that impression has anything to do with Satyajit Ray's certificate that it was difficult to believe that such a film could be made by someone in his mid-twenties. Whatever be the case, it is this writer's considered view that Kasaravalli has covered quite a distance since Ghatashraddha. Although the film is nothing short of a revelation, especially when one remembers it as a debut feature by a young man just out of film school, it would be apt to appreciate that Kasaravalli has achieved greater depth and density, perfected his formal and visual qualities, and honed both his artistry and aestheticism remarkably in the years since that inaugural exercise. For instance, in Dweepa -- a film difficult to conceive of, and even more difficult to realise -- Kasaravalli took on successfully such formidable challenges in narrative, technique and treatment that it amazed even his most ardent supporters. What struck a deep chord in them was also the topicality of the subject -- the frequent disaster that so-called development spelt for the anonymous masses. Kasaravalli had said in relation to the film: "Modernization, globalization or development are today's catch-words. To make some lives comfortable, others are pushed into misery, to bring light to some, others are pushed into darkness...bearing the brunt of so-called development is the destiny of many forsaken souls."

While on the subject of a director's acclaimed first film, one is reminded of the example of Satyajit Ray, Kasaravalli's mentor, who is associated in the popular imagination more with Pather Panchali  than any of the equally or more ambitious films he directed in subsequent years (Aparajita, Charulata, Kanchanjangha, Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, et al)

It would be worthwhile here to mention the two influences, more than other, that Kasaravalli freely acknowledges as having shaped his artistic look, his way of thinking, his attitude towards people and their flawed destiny, and his aspirations in film-making -- the films of Satyajit Ray and the vast literary oeuvre of Shivarama Karanth, a Tagore-like renaissance figure who passed on some years ago. Ray and Karanth had a lot in common and yet were markedly different in some ways Kasaravalli has taken pains to point this out more than once in the past. Both were liberal humanists, both were intellectual radicals, both swore by 'realism', and both were deeply influenced by Western arts and ideas.

Here, it is necessary to take note of Kasaravalli's undiminished enthusiasm to carry on with the ideas and ideals that first gave life to Kannada cinema in a pristine form, even as he goes about creating his kind of cinema out of the doubts and delights of contemporary times. The urge to experiment or express disappointment with restraint at life's undeserved slings and arrows may have become scarce and, in their place, crass commercial offerings bereft of creativity and conscience may have become the order of the day, but nothing seems to unnerve this exemplary Kannada artist. He is characteristically cool and collected about the changes that have overtaken people's perceptions about cinema, the other arts, politics and society. But the calm is only on the surface, he steadfastly refuses to dilute his own goals in the high art he is committed to pursuing.

Faced with lack of financial support and exhibition outlets, abandoned by his exhausted or opportunistic peers and left to plough a lonely furrow, savaged mindlessly by many critics in Karnataka, any other person in Kasaravalli's shoes would have thrown in the towel long ago -- but not this visionary of few words and unbelievable detachment. If anything, the ill-deserved adversity seems to have steeled his resolve to continue with his kind of cinema which is at once rooted to the soil of his own experience and yet uplifted by an almost indefinable quest for the sublime.