Recalling An Event Called 'Bhavni Bhavai' story

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 If Ketan Mehta has chosen to retire from filmmaking after Bhavni Bhavai, he would still have been remembered for long as a major director, writes Vidyarthy Chatterjee 

More than a quarter of century has passed since I first saw that breathtaking film about how "untouchables" lived and died in poverty, squalor and abject degradation- in Gujarat once upon a time. It was a cold January day and the venue of the screening was Mavalankar Auditorium on Rafi marg in New Delhi. Bhavani Bhavai left the audience speechless with its then 28 year old director Ketan Mehta's daring innovative style, its formal experimentation, its visual richness, the hilarious, energetic performances of its leading players, and its deeply moving story which could be easily followed despite its disinterest in linearity. Radical as much in form as in its politics, Bhavni Bhavai was, however, the kind of event that Mehta was destined not to re-visit in course of a disappointingly uneven career.

Untouchability  may  not have the same severe character in Gandhiji's Gujarat today as it existed in earlier times, but it is still there, just as in other parts of the country. It is not uncommon for newspapers or TV channels to report atrocities against Bapu's "Harijans". Sometimes it looks as if caste and Hindu society are synonymous, and the malaise is growing by the day.

To get back to Bhavni Bhavai --what preceded it and what has happened in Gujarati cinema since its remarkable appearance. Gujarati cinema was always largely escapist in nature, "feverishly pursuing mythological, religious and legendary themes", to quote the late Kantilal Rathod, director of Kanku, one of a handful of meaningful films to have been made in Gujarati. It is strange that Gujarati cinema should have such a dismal face, considering the pioneering efforts by Gujarati producers active in Bombay since the early ‘˜20s. In contrast, Marathi films have, almost since inception, shown a marked interest in subjects of  social concern, fleshed out in styles that seemed quite advanced.

Perhaps, one of the reasons for Gujarati cinema's bad health is the lack of interest shown by filmmakers in novels and short stories with contemporary themes rich in human values. This was clearly stated by Rathod and other directors like Kanti Madia, Govind Saraiya and Upendra Trivedi. In fact, of the 150 films made in Gujaarati till 1975, only a handful were based on well known literary texts, notably Kanku, written by Panna Patel, Prithvi Ballabh by K.M. Munshi and Gunasundari No Ghar Sansar by Goverdandas Tripathi.

Another reason, arguably a more plausible one, why Gujarati cinema is still to attain maturity is its obvious dependence on Bombay extravaganzas for inspiration. Hindi formula films have cast their baneful shadow on Gujarati films in a big way, in the same way they have polluted in varying degrees other language cinemas in the country. Stunt films packed with dance "items", vulgar display of sex, and violence never seem to increase in number or grow in popularity.

Having said such (deservedly) unkind things about Gujarati cinema, perhaps the balance need to be righted with the kind of high praise that a gem like Bhavani Bhavai deserves. This writer has observed in MOTIF (an avant garde journal published from Jamshedpur) dated march 30,1981:"if Gujarati cinema is to start being relevant and meaningful, it must so to say clasp to the bosom and encourage in all possible ways a rare talent like Ketan Mehta..."

Mehta graduated in economics from St. Stephens College, Delhi, studied direction at the Pune Film Institute, produced many programmes for Ahmedabad Doordarshan, and worked as assistant to, among others, Kumar Sahani (Maya Darpan, Tarang) and Muzaffar Ali (Gaman, Umrao Jaan) before coming to direct Bhavni Bhavai.

Mehta is on record thus: "In Indian films the alienation of the rural poor from the urban way of life has become clichétic. What we require is some kind of synthesis of the two with our past and heritage. The purpose of a film should not be to alienate people. I have chosen a popular form (the Bhavai) so that the people for whom film is made can understand it. My film traces the history of the social evil of untouchability in Gujarat and what it means today.

"Form by itself is not sacrosanct. Different forms are necessary to communicate different messages."

There was a time in the history of Gujarat when thousands of people had to wear achhootna vesh (garb of  the untouchable). The upper castes imposed on the "untouchables" certain dress restrictions which were meant not only to subjugate them and keep them in eternal bondage, but to defeat them psychologically and dehumanize them as well, make them less than human in their own eyes. What were these restrictions? The untouchable had to tie a broom behind him which would erase his ‘˜offensive footprints', wear a third sleeve as a mark of submission, wear only unwoven yarn as headgear, and carry a spittoon round his neck.

Bhavni Bhavai narrates how for many centuries the untouchables endured in silence these cruel, humiliating practices. Old people like Malo (Om Puri) and wife Dhuli (Dina Pathak) knew no language of protest, and even if they did, they lacked the courage to speak it. But the young lovers, Jivo (Mohan Gokhale) and Ujjam (Smita Patil) held their right to dress as they wished as sacred as their love. They revolted, paid heavily for their courage, but succeeded in forcing the imbecile and tyrannical king (Naseeruddin Shah) to lift the restrictions.

Arguably, no one in Indian cinema has mounted such a pulsating carnival of music, colour, humour and horseplay, song and dance, and storytelling to denounce social obscurantism which holds our nation in its vice-like grip to this day. Here it needs to be remembered that the bhavai is a stylized form of Gujarati folk drama which "synthesizes diverse performing arts into socially relevant communication". Mehta succeeded heavily in adapting this highly attractive art form for his avowed purpose of exposing untouchability for the crime against humanity that it is.

Govindan Aravindan ,the late Malayali auteur and original artist with a deep knowledge of several arts, from painting to music to theatre, showed his appreciation of his younger contemporary's debut film thus: "we are, I feel working with a totally Western idiom (cinema). Using the same techniques and the same chemistry, can we evolve a new form, a new sensibility? Ketan Mehta has tried in Bhavni Bhavai. This is something we have to try. Using that idiom to evolve a form of our own is not easy."

If Ketan Mehta has chosen to retire from filmmaking after Bhavni Bhavai, he would still have been remembered for long as a major director, such was the strength, skill and subtlety of his first film. What he went on to do in subsequent times, save for the interesting Mirch Masala( 1985), show him not exactly in flattering colours. In 1980, who would have thought that the Navsari-born artist would one day churn out listless offerings like Hero Hiralal or Oh Darling Yeh Hai India? Of such contradictions, one daresay, is life or art gone berserk, made.