This article investigates the role of utopian and dystopian spaces in the construction of social realism in
This article seeks to highlight the role of utopian and dystopian spaces in the construction of social realism in Pradipta Bhattacharya’s film
It is important to briefly go over the contemporary Bengali filmmaking context to understand the crucial significance of independent cinema projects such as
The difficulty with the film did not end there. As it was made outside the industrial set up, it was very difficult for him to find halls to screen his films. After the first release in 2013, it was only screened in a couple of theatres in Kolkata and ran for a limited time (
Through a unique cinematic experimentation, using the documentary mode for a feature film and interspersing documentary footage as part of the narrative,
The argument of this article is undertaken through three sections; each section has two subsections. Section I deals with the narrative premise of the film that supplements its cinematic experimentation. Section II discusses the characteristics of the social reality and the dystopic spaces as represented in the film. This section has two further subsections: the first deals with the intercommunication between the utopic and dystopic spaces, while the second carries a discussion on social incongruities. Section III addresses how Mohini abets narrativising the utopian alternative as the embodiment of hope. There are two subsections here: one investigates how the idea of a utopic alternative develops by reversing and rewriting the mythological narrative and subverting gender roles, while the second looks into the references to the folk-cultural forms and rituals used in this film. These sections are followed by the conclusion.
The film opens
The film revolves around Pramit, the aspiring documentary filmmaker, and his journey with his cameraman, Amit, into documenting the former’s personal quest for ‘love’. Amit, too, falls in love in the process. The duo undertakes their journey through the city to the shoddy locality in which the astrologer lives and the film traces their escapades. As the film progresses, we encounter different spaces along with their respective attributes. The serenity of the rural landscape of the opening sequence is once again replaced by a montage composed of glimpses of life in the city with voiceover narration about Kolkata. The narrative of the film includes the fractured aspirations of city-dwellers, the despair of the underprivileged living in the dark underside of modernity and progress, the social barriers vis-à-vis class, caste, and gender discriminations, and a desire to seek a hopeful alternative for a better future.
Contemporary Bangla cinema has mostly omitted positive representations of life in villages and rural areas. Even in films in which the village appears, it is usually an exoticised bubble that represents poverty, backwardness, superstition, gullible simplicity, and abomination. It is a place of helpless confinement with a claustrophobic ambience impairing the growth of individuals:
The bucolic Mohini embodies the Gandhian utopic vision of the nation that accommodates hope and transcendental potential. In his discussion on the ‘Spaces of Utopia’, Ashcroft (
Cultural practices in Mohini embody the ‘secret protocol [Verabredung: also appointment] between the generations of the past and that of our own’ (
The traces of Bengali film history are also retained in the film by creating references to some iconic shots from the films of previous eras. K. K. Mahajan’s influential handheld camera shots following the fugitive Naxal figure in the labyrinthine trail of the North Kolkata in Mrinal Sen’s 1972 film
Kolkata is an intermediate space in the film, the representative real between its dystopian underbelly and the utopian space beyond its borders. The access to both dystopian and utopian spaces is mediated in Kolkata. The city, bearing ‘the aspect of lived
In course of interviewing people for some days, Pramit meets a fraudulent astrologer. This astrologer claims to know about Mohini. At this juncture, the film enters into the realm of the fiction. Through a fine blending of fiction and non-fiction, Bhattacharya builds his filmic reality by breaking the rigid dichotomy of the real and non-real on one hand and blurring the boundary between the reality and illusion in his film, on the other. From this sequence until they reach Mohini, the film captures a fictional narrative performed by professional actors. This part of the film is fictional but follows a documentary style. In Mohini again the film comes to combine the fiction with non-fiction. The prerequisite that the astrologer sets to divulge the secret about the village is their visit to his home. Determined to get further information, the intrigued Pramit decides to accompany the astrologer to his home along with Amit. The astrologer leads them to the dystopian underbelly of the city in a slum. This space embodies the non-illuminated side of modernity. They undertake a stressful ride in an overcrowded, noisy train followed by an extended walk through the labyrinthine trail cutting across an expansive shanty-town to reach the dystopian space of darkened shadows riddled with poverty, deprivation, unfulfilled desire, helplessness, futility, and broken dreams, along with fear, terror, anxiety, and uncertainty of a precarious life. This space is dubious in nature. The living condition of people in the slum is exposed as the handheld camera follows them to reach the hovel in which the astrologer lives with his two wives. The experience of people dwelling in this dystopian space is ‘marked by disappointment’ and ‘entrapment’ under ‘the oppressive functions’ of the social system perpetuating the colonial legacy (
From this dystopic space, they begin their journey in search of people in Kolkata who have been to Mohini. As if on a treasure hunt, Pramit and Amit visit a number of places looking for the right person who could help them access Mohini. In course of their search they visit more sites of darkened shadows in the city exposing different aspects of reality. Interestingly, contemporary Bengali cinema typically depicts North Kolkata locations as a mysterious archive of stagnant time and primitive memories of the city that remain unaffected either by temporality or modernity—
The disparities in contemporary Bengali society have their origin in class relations, caste hierarchy, and strict gender-roles in an aggressively patriarchal system.
Another symptom of an aggressively patriarchal system and structural misogyny is domestic violence and the inferior position of women in the family.
The third and final locus of the narrative action is Mohini, a village serving as the utopian space, representing absolute harmony and undiluted bliss, the entry to which is privileged and mediated by a secret keeper. With reference to postcolonial contexts, Ashcroft (
This space demonstrates the transformative potential to rewrite mythological narrative and reverse gender roles, offering a sharp contrast to the dystopian context dominated by strict gender roles. This potential allows Mohini to reverse the mythological narratives about the life of Lord Krishna. For example, after reaching the destination, when both Amit and Pramit dive into the river for a swim, a slender, bangled hand of Shampa, soon to become the love interest of Pramit, stealthily removes their clothes that they kept at the bank. This reverses the story of Lord Krishna’s stealing the clothes of bathing milk-women, by making a woman steal clothes of strangers playfully. Another example of playfulness is when, during the courting period, Shampa throws a bucket of water on an absentminded Pramit from a hidden spot, reversing the mythic act of Lord Krishna playing pranks on Radha and other milk-women during Holi, the festival of colour. These instances of spirited bounciness are not restricted by any socially-allocated strict gender role or restrictions of expected behaviour. Shampa’s proactive pursuance of her desire sharply contrast that of Mallika’s. In the case of the former, nothing hinders her agency over herself, whereas the latter is entrapped in her gender role and expected social behaviour. The autonomy that this space provides to an individual is not gender-based. Here, a woman has the privilege of choosing one partner over another in a love triangle, without creating violent rivalry. After her clandestine advances, she finally makes an appearance and kisses Pramit while he was walking through the mango grove. The final instance mythology reversal occurs when Pramit leaves after spending a few days in Mohini to catch up with the funding of his film in Kolkata. Leaving Shampa behind after a period of intense courting to carry out his responsibilities is reminiscent of Lord Krishna’s leaving Brindaban, a space demarcated for his love with Radha, to go to Dwarka to deliver his regal duties as the king, never to return again. However, Pramit leaves Mohini after promising to come back a few days later to take Shampa with him as his wife, to which she consents. The relationship is shown to be premised on equality and mutual respect. As promised, Pramit goes back to Mohini, only to find out that no such space ever existed.
Shampa is brought up by her grandmother. Theirs is a woman-only household, yet they don’t exhibit any sorrow or misery of orphanhood. They look after each other in the family and as members of the community undertake their responsibilities to look after guests. Mohini has other households with working women. However, gender roles seem to be fluid here. For example, as Bhoben, the rickshaw puller who is in charge of bringing guests to Mohini, arranges shelter, prepares their bed, serves them food, and fans them. Unlike the dystopian space, the social and economic crises, as well as the issue of love, do not appear as a problem in Mohini.
The narrative of the film utilises a number of concepts from bāul religio-cultural practices, folklore, and mythology to construct the utopian space. Bāuls are esoteric folk religious communities of Bengal, historically traced to the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. Their practice is marked by enigmatic songs. Their religion is heterogeneous, comprising ritual practices with roots in Hindu, Buddhist tantric, and yogic doctrines, as well as Sahajiyā Vaiṣṇavism and sub-continental Sufism. Bāuls believe that the human body is a macrocosm which should be cultivated to attain a proper spiritual apotheosis. They perform complex religio-sexual exercises which generally could be called body-cultivation including controlling of breath, maneuvering of body fluids, and attain prolonged sexual union through seminal retention. This is to transcend the physical essence to a higher spiritual state. To perform such ritual practices an initiated male practitioner would require female consort(s) or Sādhan Sanginī. For Bāuls, the divine love between Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, the mythological divine couple who holds the essence of primordial masculinity and femininity respectively, is present in the love of a man and woman. They believe that the bodily desire or Kām could be transformed into Prem, the divine desire for the supreme, and thereby trigger the spiritual apotheosis in the corporeal matrix.
The general scepticism about love in the sequence in which Pramit asks his informants about their views about it, is juxtaposed with the idea of love in folk spiritual traditions, i.e. vaishnav tradition and bāul ritualistic tradition. For example, Mansoor Fakir, a practicing bāul carrying on Lalan Fakir’s egalitarian legacy in West Bengal despite not belonging to the Lalan-Shahi tradition, advised people to love without any ulterior motive. His suggestion is with reference to the teaching of Chaitanya Dev who considered altruistic love as the sole weapon in time of crisis.
This idea is further referred to in the narrative which confirms Bhattacharya’s use of arshinagar metaphor in a bāul ritualistic sense. Mohini is commemorative of arshinagar, a metaphor for a coveted space in bāul ritual practices beyond the materialistic space with traces and trauma of the lived experiences. The idea of arshinagar in Lalan Fakir’s ‘Barir Kache Arshinagar’ (‘the city of mirrors beside home’), removes the restrictions of the mundane world and delves deeper into spiritual realism using allegories. However, the idea of seeking love and the coveted resident of arshinagar is not to be confused with the idea of ‘desire’ in either a literal or a Freudian sense. Although this metaphor reflects the desire for love and beauty at a time that is dominated by extreme materialistic pursuits, it inheres the idea of eternity that involves both the materialistic and spiritual. Pramit’s search for Mohini—looking for everlasting love—is analogous to a bāul’s quest for arshinagar, that is, the abode of the not-yet-seen-neighbour who can transform the seeker’s life by removing miseries and lack by touching his/her life, leading to fulfilment. The idea of a guru is important in the folk-religious practices (such as bāul and sahajiya vaishnav doctrines) based on body cults. The transcendence to the utopic zone of arshinagar is impossible without the help of him/her. The painter interviewed in the second documentary sequence refers to the idea of guru first in the film.
Bhoben the rickshaw puller continues the legacy of such guidance of a guru. His father Haren brought Shampa and her grandmother to the village. Pramit and Amit arrive at Mohini on Shampa’s birthday. The reference to the arrival of a potential partner on her birthday also has a bāul ritualistic reference. According to the bāul ritual practices a woman is born twice, once when she comes out of her mother’s womb and the second time when she menstruates for the first time when a potential mother in her is born, awakening her sexuality and procreative potential. The highly cryptic Lalan song, ‘Chander gaye chand legeche/amra bhebe korbo ki’ (‘a moon touches another, why should we be worried’), refers to this transformation in a woman. Bhoben, a metaphoric position for guru in the sense of a guide in life, knows about the forthcoming arrival of a guest as soon as the biological inauguration of an individual’s womanhood comes closer and yet she is not in love. Unlike several mainstream religious practices, bāuls do not denounce body and sexual acts which are used as means to achieve the spiritual apotheosis.
Besides the bāul practices, Bhattacharya documents a number of other folk cultural forms, such as Hapu (a traditional form of Bengal’s folk culture and mass entertainment, now nearing extinction, in which martial physical acts are exhibited while telling a story through the rhythm of songs), Bolan (a form of folk cultural performance from West Bengal, done during the last month in Bengali calendar, to celebrate the festival of Gājan, associated with the worship of the Lord Shiva), and Kirtan (devotional songs narrating stories about Hindu gods and goddesses). These are disappearing fast, due to rapid urbanisation and neo-colonialism of the global capital (and resultant Americanisation of Indian cultural expressions). He archives these forms with the precision of a trained ethnographer by making artisans perform for his film who have never performed before a camera. Use of non-actors for his film is another important aspect of his social-realist style. It is no wonder, therefore, that he borrows insights and concepts from the philosophy and cultural practices of bāuls, a community that has been serving as ‘iconic bearers of a venerable indigenous heritage’ since the ‘second half of the nineteenth century’ in India as an apt cultural resource for the colonised seeking their cultural roots (
The film represents a subtle critique of modernity and its affective influence on urban contexts by foregrounding the ancestral cultures of people. Mohini represents the simplicity of a bucolic life in rural India without valorising it, which is prominent in Gandhi’s utopian view. Far from being mutually exclusive, banal day jobs and cultural performances are integral complementary parts of its society. People are the patrons, participants, and their homes are the exhibition premises for the cultural performances in Mohini. In this conflict-free space, everyone is happy and prone to falling in love which promises to last a lifetime. Love is what binds people here. The exploration of the self in search of love that characterises
Bhattacharya’s imagination of the utopic space is deeply rooted in the alternative spiritual philosophy and folk cultures of Bengal. These are egalitarian in nature and can counter not only the culturally-homogenizing project of globalisation but also the elite upper-caste Brahmanical tendencies in India that are condescending, unconcerned, or dismissive of these forms. In foregrounding the folk cultural practices as predominant components of the narrative, Bhattacharya follows his celebrated predecessor Ritwik Ghatak who magnificently interweaves Chhau (a martial dance form of West Bengal, Odhisa, and Jharkhand based on folklore, oral mythological, and epic), bāul songs, and the tribal cultural expression of festive celebrations in his autobiographical film
In consolidating marginalised forms at a rural location which remains muted in the periphery of the nation’s imagined boundaries, Mohini assumes the ‘political form’ that Partha Chatterjee (
Bhattacharya’s social-realist style celebrates the ordinary and the everyday. Through this style he represents lives of working-class people in society and discusses the cultural, economic, and social situation in Bengal. Through this, he also launches his critique of socio-cultural practices while suggesting possible systemic improvement. To achieve this dual goal, it was, therefore, imperative for him to interweave the documentary mode as part of the craft of his feature film.
Bhattacharya continues a tradition of utopian spatial imagination prevalent in Bengali literature and films. The literary predecessors of Mohini in Bangla literature are: the Ladyland in Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s ‘Sultana’s Dream’;
There are filmic precursors to Mohini in Indian cinema as well that share its philosophical, temporal, and spatial attributes. Several of the above texts have been adopted as films. For example,
In 2006 Tata Motors announced construction of a compact small-car manufacturing unit in Singur, a small rural vicinity under Chandernagar Subdivision of Hooghly District in West Bengal. The protests of the unwilling farmers backed by a number of political interest-groups and stakeholders led to massive political turmoil in the area, drawing international media attention. In 2008 Tata Motors pulled out their project to shift it to Gujarat as a result of the aggressively conflictual situation, leaving the nearly-completed structure of the factory behind.
Sasmal is the man who has been to Mohini and mentioned it to the astrologer, without giving him any further detail. The astrologer sends the duo to Sasmal for directions to reach Mohini which he no longer remembers. But he tells the name of his student, Mallika, who has gone to Mohini as well, hoping that she will still remember how to get there.
This is a tradition of tantric Vaishnavism with its origins in 14th century Bengal also known as
Asuras (demons) are the archenemies of Adityas (gods). They are children of the same father but have different mothers. The enmity between these half-siblings ensued around Samundra Manthan (churning of the ocean) over the distribution of the elixir of life that immortalises whoever drinks it. With a desire to subordinate the Asuras by not allowing access to means of immortality, the gods resorted to deception though at the time of churning both groups agreed to share whatever the ocean throws out.
For detailed discussions on Bāuls and their practice, see
Chaitanya Dev, also known as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, was the founder of the Gauriya Vaishnavism and a leading figure of the Bhakti Movement in Bengal in the 16th century. The Bhakti Movement was a counter-hegemonic social movement that strongly promoted social justice, peace, inclusivity, communitarian society, eradication of the discriminatory caste system, and communal harmony.
I thank Pradipta Bhattacharya, the director of
The author has no competing interests to declare.