I watched Calcutta Mail on Jaman (Jaman.com) because of Sudhir Mishra and the good memories I had of Dharavi, Main zinda hoon and Chameli. All three movies are urban movies, and deal with the impact that cities have on the individual, or perhaps rather on the consequences on the individual of the urban dimension within him. What sort of individual is the Indian urbanite, asks Sudhir Mishra; what does the fact of having an urban environment, urban pressure, urban possibilities mean, in terms of living together today in India? Well, Calcutta mail also deals with urban matters, and in fact describes the life of an ordinary man who was going to the metropolis for a job, and who gets involved in a drama that in itself is linked to urban realities, and involves him in the human drama of today’s world.

Here are some elements of the story: Anil Kapoor is Avinash, a middle-aged southerner who on the train meets Sanjana (Manisha Koirala), fleeing a marriage arrangement made for her by her politically very influent father Sujan Singh (played by Satish Kaushik) to one of his henchmen, Lakhan (Sayaji Shinde). That Lakhan is a very frightening thug who looks embarrassingly ruthless even for the foxy Sujan. No wonder Sanjana doesn’t like the sight of him. She’s helped out of his claws by Avinash, and they fall in love, start a family, have a son and live for a few years in the country. But Sujan finds her, and his revenge will be terrible (end of spoilers to preserve the interest of the story).

In fact the film starts with Avinash meeting a young woman who goes by the name of Bulbul (Rani Mukherjee). They share the Calcutta chawl flat where he settles in order to look for his boy, abducted by Lakhan and his gang. She has her own story too, of course, and we slowly get involved in their worlds, and discover what both of them are up to. We follow Avinash as he traces the conman and his gang in the Calcutta underworld, and we also learn that Bulbul is in fact Reema, an educated upper middle-class girl who’s living in a popular quarter for a literary experiment!

The first thing that is noteworthy in Calcutta Mail is the way the city is filmed, the way it is placed around the story, with its bridges, its streets, its population, its lights – day and night – obviously Sudhir Mishra understands cities. He knows that’s where our humanity is most at risk, and also most creative. The urban crucible is the one that can invent the most extraordinary stories. I’m not sure he tries to individualise each of the cities where he places theses stories. But certainly the urban reality brings out his creativity. He knows how long a street scene should last for the eyes to explore it, and what perspective gives a pleasant evocation to the spectator. There is sufficient bustle and life around to plunge the events in a reality that gives the film its authenticity. Demonstrations, commercial activity, varied traffic, children at play, etc. all contribute to this evocation: the city is a giant heart, where the blood of civilization ebbs and flows.

In spite of what one contributor at IMDb writes (“Anil Kapoor seems to be getting too old to act in lead roles”), I think this is the best role I’ve seen him in so far. I found him concentrated, vibrant with energy, and focussed on his character. I can feel the director behind him, but nevertheless he definitely deserves praise. I remember him in Taal, where he played that ludicrous DJ who steals the show away from lukewarm Akshaye, and in some of Satish Kaushik’s films where he was less convincing. Next to him, there’s this devil of an actor, aforementioned Satish Kaushik, who’s real fine, and together with Sayaji Shinde, they form a great evil pair. Kaushik’s ominous gesture of slowly taking off his glasses when in trouble is one of the best tricks in the film. We can then see his little eyes in all their intensity, and the fact that he plays the villain so well here, when he’s so often cast as a buffoon underlines his talent.

The women are less centre stage, especially Manisha Koirala, a little underused. Pity, because her role wasn’t too far from that in Dil se, and Sudhir Mishra could have given her more to chew on.


But we have a great comedy-oriented first part with queen Rani, perhaps even too much. If you’re a fan like me, you’ll enjoy her pranks tremendously, but I can understand that sometimes, it’s nearly a commercial pretext. And then there’s the writer sub-plot (Reema is writing a novel in that Calcutta flat, and slowly merging Avinash in it), which doesn’t really add much to the film in terms of meaning. Because of such additions (and here I include the songs, that are nice, but really too KKHH-like for the film’s own good. I mean, the first one is actually shot in Salzburg!!), Calcutta mail’s overall effect is overshadowed by its commercial dimension. I was going to say, its Hollywoodian dimension. You know, that family-thriller type of film, where the emotionality of family ties are used to bring intensity to a political or social story.

Be that as it may, the film’s purpose is still saved for me because of Mishra’s exploration of the power of urban forces on individuals. If individuals have the proper protections (Reema’s bourgeois household and money), they can evade the violence and the pressure of the city. They can even pretend this violence doesn’t exist for them. They will always have something to fall back on (that’s why it would have made more social sense to condemn Reema’s experiment, instead of Bollywoodising it). But for the lower middle-classes to which Avinash belongs, there normally are no such protections. He has to fight with all his might if he wants to get his rights. And yet the film is not as socially or politically pure as it could have been (see Dharavi, or Main zinda hoon for that). Avinash manages to escape and beat the underworld in a far too unrealistic way! Still, he beats it a cost and this cost, together with Anil Kapoor’s energy and commitment create enough coherence for Mishra’s aficionado to feel grateful.


(Above is a very creative scene: while in hiding in Calcutta, Sujan's conman is taking a dance lesson! Will such civilising efforts elevate him away from savagery?) 

And below is a picture of Rani Mukherjee taken as a subject for M. Mishra's camera.

Like perhaps a number of you, I discovered Manisha Koirala in Dil se, by Mani Ratnam, and was attracted by that irritating mousy character of the terrorised terrorist, who with her distant but intense eyes tries to escape Shahrukh’s advances, but not the spectators’. She’s great in that movie, she has a presence, which is at the same time a distance; she teases, she annoys, she leaves you panting. I remember wowing! And a woman terrorist! So tragic… So all that sadness, that drama: that was my first taste of the Nepali beauty seen later in a number of other films, and sufficiently good ones too, to make me wonder recently how come I hadn’t yet contemplated writing something about her.

Watching Ek chotisi love story not too long ago, I was also puzzled by the physical change that the ravishing actress of Khamoshi the musical or Akele hum akele tum had undergone. I started reading about her a little, and pulled some of the strands of a career which apparently has had a number of ups, but also a fair share of downs. I was interested in understanding what had happened. It does seem as if I am studying the phenomenon rather than feeling interested in the person, I agree; but I believe I am interested in her all the more.

Manisha Koirala is an intense actress. She throws everything she has on the screen, to the point that what she’s left with, so to speak, is just a shadow. It’s as if she loses herself in her roles, as if she was consumed by them. She doesn’t look back; she plays with a dedication which is totally spent, which doesn’t care about the future. In a way, that role in Dil se was her programme: once she has finished playing, there is nothing left; she explodes on screen and doesn’t seem to have kept anything for her private life, which somewhat accordingly is also spent, and played to the full, day after day. I daren’t say she has relinquished hopes of building some sort of conventional life apart from her career as an actress, but judging from her choices outside Bollywood, I’d rather admire her all the more if this was the case. Because this is not very Bollywood-like, in a way. So many actors calculate their roles in terms of the fame and money they’ll be able to benefit from them. Manisha, I think, plays first and then grabs at whatever comes with the job. And of course her life is not in a very good shape, because she has not really given it a serious thought.

I do not know the reasons behind those drinking and weight problems of hers, nor whether she is more or less consciously going from one man to the next in search for a life and a love or whatever fulfilment she has in mind. It’s not my business to inquire. What I like, in fact, in that pattern, is what I can sense, even if I’m wrong: a passion, an intensity, even a tinge of despair, which makes her all the more endearing. If I compare her to all those Barbie babes that today’s producers are recruiting in droves, she’s a failure. But all the more a woman. She’s pathetic perhaps in that rush forward towards the excesses of life, and is rather the opposite of stars like Aishwarya Rai who has, it seems, carefully planned her life on earth. But somehow Aish’s tidiness is too tidy! And compared to her (and to other much less noble-minded actresses), Manisha’s unabashed provocative lifestyle has a greater truth: the truth that life on earth has to be lived to the full, with all its good and bad, all its best and worst. The truth that giving your love is the only thing which really counts, even if some more careful organisation secures it better on the long run.

All this should perhaps, on the surface of things, coincide more with a certain reckless Bollywood, where moral values are rare and the crowd bends the individual to its laws. But as the author of this article says, Bollywood is very conservative in its own way:

“For an industry that has constantly negotiated and pushed the boundaries of desire in its cinematic products, Bollywood is a notoriously conservative place: affairs are discussed with as much moral judgement as avidity; actresses who dare to turn 30 are immediately downgraded to playing the mothers of their erstwhile co-stars; stars with ‘vices’ like alcohol and drugs are gradually dropped from the marquee. There is an iron-cast divide between who you are and who you project yourself to be, and Koirala’s singular mistake was to skate on the thin ice of acceptability and be unapologetic about her many-hued personal life. Bollywood would be unforgiving.”

It doesn’t matter that she showed interest in politics and social work: “as daughter of a family prominent in Nepali politics, she was appointed UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador in September 1999. She is also involved in active social work both in India and Nepal. In India she works to promote women’s rights and prevention of violence against women. She also works with an organization working to prevent prostitution of girls who are brought from Nepal and sold in India. Ms. Koirala intends to produce public service announcements in India calling for an end to discrimination against women and for protecting the rights of girl children.” In spite of these involvements, she doesn’t conform to the moral code of media-ruled appearances, and doesn’t bother to appear to regret the situation she puts herself in. In fact, her “problems” are in themselves a silent criticism of the code of conduct that other actresses follow. This is how the same perceptive analyst continues:

“It is easy to attribute Manisha’s fall from grace to the vicious industry gossip, easy to paint her as a victim of malicious stereotyping. But really, on balance, Manisha is a victim of her own unwillingness to remain on the A-list of Bollywood actresses. She is a beautiful woman with a haunting screen presence, has been compared to Meena Kumari no less, but has become limited as an actress because she failed to challenge herself. Her memorable roles have been few and far between, and she has had to waste too much time trying to wash the mud from her image.”

I think he’s right to blame her: she would certainly blame herself, I think. But I hope that she doesn’t care about that mud too much, because others have layers that aren’t as visible, but certainly as thick. I even wonder whether there isn’t a certain amount of jealousy towards a gifted actress who hasn’t thought twice about her image, and has taught those socially wise women the lesson that they don’t want to learn: the body ages, the good looks wane, the security that money and social ties bring are transitory possessions, which one day will have to be abandoned. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I wouldn’t mind being right!

And the comparison with Meena Kumari goes in fact further than looks and screen presence, as I’ve discovered by looking into that other lady’s bio. The Wikipedia page underlines Meena’s difficulties with men, with alcohol, and her resulting downhill career: it even stresses the “Choti Bahu” pattern, after the name of the main character in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, for, says the author of the article,

There are some eerie commonalities between the lives of Choti Bahu and Meena Kumari: The estranged marital relationship, the taking to drinking, the seeking of younger male company, and the craving to be understood and loved by all.

Funny how these patterns seem to attract attention: I’m sure that in fact there’s not much in them, but they’re like talismans: if you believe in them, then they start having power. Manisha Koirala’s stars seem to belong to that tragic arc, for better or for worse. I’d say that if you are of a generous nature, you’re sooner or later going to be taken advantage of, and if on top you don’t care about what people say, well, they don’t care about you.


 

I’ve been longing to write that LetsTalkAboutBollywood article about Naseeruddin Shah for a long time. He’s one of my favourite Indian actors, if not my favourite. Okay, let’s say he is my favourite actor (alive). I suppose it’s natural to take sides, so there, I prefer the fox to the lion. The lion’s beauty is a treat to watch, you stand straight when you watch him. But the fox’s cunning makes you duck and dodge, to see what’s behind, or inside, and that’s more my style. Everybody will agree that Amitabh is the lion: he’s the old king of Bollywood, as yet uncrowned. But Naseer is Foxy Loxy, the clever charmer, the unassuming jester, the cunning fooler. Naseer can do what he likes, the way he likes. He’s got that little wily face, those rodent’s eyes, that powerful and deadly jaw that can bite through any role and chew any text. Looking at him you think: “What a nice little man” But in fact he’s a devil. He’ll make believe you’re saved even though you’re damned, and will do so with that little absent-looking expression.  Wouldn’t you say that he’s half there and half not there?

A 1999 article calls him “Mr Chameleon”, and that’s noted everywhere. Shah’s versatility is renowned and deservedly praised. “It is this seemingly effortless ability to slip under any character's skin that has always ensured his success. Shah proudly says that he has no niche: "I have managed to avoid the trap.” No doubt, I’d say: you don’t trap the fox, he’s the one who traps you, and laughs his way out. “Grinning because he knows he has played all parts-from the libidinous villain and blind school principal to the famished villager and beefy weightlifter-picking up several trophies in the process, including a best actor award for Paar at the 1984 Venice Film Festival.” Here are a few pulloffs from this many-facetted crafty craftsman:

One of the best roles I’ve seen him in was that of the Subedar, the nazi-like overweening prig in Mirch Masala. It is in such roles that you see all his creativity, all his power. Somehow playing villains enables him to implement the buffoonery which acting always contains up to a certain extent, and which he feels capable of expressing perhaps more than others. In Masoom, we see him as the vulnerable and complex father who shifts from love to guilt, and has to learn to bear the awful weight of a truth made ten times more painful because he thought it simpler to hide years ago. The bland faces and awkward moves, the soulful eyes, the poignant silences: all testify to his great talent here too. In 3 Dewaarein, he’s Ishaan, the slippery conman, the elusive master trickster who steals the show continuously: he’s at the top of his art there. There’s a scene in which he dresses up as a dead man, and disappears in a James Bond-like manner, and yet is caught at the end by the black eyes of revenge (Juhi Chawla the avenger!): too many trap-laying makes one forget that others too can lay traps. That film really demonstrates his utter foxiness! One last example: Monsoon Wedding. Here, Shah is no trickster, but as the courageous defender of a wronged daughter, he has to face the all-powerful Uncle who has done everything for the family, including incest… A role that demonstrates his commitment to important causes, we’ll come back to this in a while.

I’ve always wondered whether there wasn’t something feminine in Naseer: perhaps it’s his smallish physique, perhaps his round features. In fact, when I look at his pictures, I see no femininity. He’s a guy all right! Perhaps it’s his way of acting then? There’s something fluid and easy-going in the way he acts, a naturalness, a presence, and also an absence of swaggering and machismo. It could also come from the way he adapts to his roles so fully, never caring about the loss of his own identity, something very few actors in Bollywood manage to do (even Amitabh has a tendency to remain Amitabh, I feel he’s more and more reluctant to let go of that cherished self-image of his). Naseer is more feminine in the sense that he doesn’t cling to his persona, like so many male actors do. In fact, I’m sure he’d be extremely successful in a transvestite role! (Not that I particularly wish to see him in such a role, but if there’s somebody who could do it, it’s him)

Most of you probably know that he is a theatre actor down deep, and that he regularly plays on stage. He has his own theatre company, the Motley Company (see here), he’s played for Peter Brook, and I wish he would also play for other world-renowned directors. In fact, when you study Naseer’s profile, he’s one of the rare Indian actors I know for whom I wouldn’t need to strain my praise and build some sort of half-category that pro-Bollywood affirmative action so easily justifies. Let’s say the truth, for once: Naseeruddin Shah is a good actor, but no more than Robert de Niro or Dustin Hoffman. Probably less, in fact. Yet he can suffer the comparison, something that almost nobody can do in today’s Indian Cinema. Aamir Khan has real presence, but is too self-centered; so is Shahrukh; Ajay Devgan’s scope is too limited. I haven’t seen Abhishek recently, but he strikes as too green for the moment. Most of them simply have to learn to act! I have only looked at some of the men, but apart from the one or two exceptions, the same could probably be said of the actresses. The problem is that the Indian cinema is still MUCH too India-oriented. Why would they make a crucifying effort at self-redefinition when a billion spectators are there to watch them strut, dance and sing? Who among them would be capable of dying that awful wriggling death that Shah performs in Sarfarosh? Not very pleasant in terms of hero-worship.

 
I am wondering if much of his talent doesn’t come from the fact that he isn’t a sex-symbol, and has had to fight to exist as an actor. Most of the young actors out there are remarkable for their good looks (to say nothing of the girls…): they just don’t need to be good. But if you’re not a pretty face, and you want to be noticed and have money bet on you, you’ve got to attract the money in some other way, talent for example. Somebody who is thinking at how to use his own drama company to reflect upon the political situation of the country where he lives – this would sound almost banal in Europe. But that’s something Naseeruddin Shah has been doing for a long time (see Playing tough). In that field and in others, I can’t see anybody following suit quite yet.  


Oh, and if you know of good films with him, I’m all ears!

« This is one of the worst Bollywood films ever made. It tells the sickening story of a 15 year old boy who loves a 26 year old women. Its weird, cos the boy is just so annoying and looks stupid. He spends long hours just spying on her with his telescope. Thats right, 50% of this movie, is the boy spying on her. Who is this film aimed at and what kind of people will enjoy this kind of trap. Its like gazing at a security camera hidden in someones room. With respect i would like to add that if the actress was beautiful and sexy, maybe the film would of had a reason to watch it. Manisha Koirala looks old, scruffy and ugly. There are little scenes of sex which is rare in Bollywood. Even these scenes were unsatisfying and turned me off. Manisha has made some of the most bizarre movies in Bollywood, Who knows why she chose this path. Some of these movies include Tum, Escape from Taliban and Market. The twist is even more disgraceful, where the boy stops looking at her and instead she starts spying on him. Rubbish acting from all actors in this movie, bad direction from Shashilal Nair. Do not watch this movie, a big waste of time. » (Liakot Ali)

You have just read an IMDb review of Ek chhotisi Love story, a 2002 film by Shashilal Nair. All the reviews are like that, even if some are not that bad. I saw the film thanks to Jaman, where it can be rented for a song, and strangely, most reviewers there found it intriguing, enthralling,  excellent… Who’s right?

Answer: Jaman’s users. And this, even if the film is a Hindi version of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s 1988 “Krótki film o milosci” (A Short Film about love), and if Shashilal Nair’s film has copied it heavily (I recalled having seen Kieslowski’s film some way through the Hindi one, but my memories of it are distant – so I got this information while researching on Kieslowski). From what I’ve read, it looks as though it’s almost an exercise in shameless adaptation and theft, all the more so as there are no allusion whatsoever to Kieslowski in the film’s credits. So what I’ll say here will be at the same time a comment on S. Nair’s work, and at the same time on his Model. I realise I should have seen Kieslowski’s film first, but that’ll come.
 
Let me first deal with such comments as the one that opens this review. People like M. Liakot Ali have a handicap, that of judging the quality of a film through personal prejudices. My hunch is that they don’t know it’s a handicap, and this prevents from doing justice to author and film alike. If such people wanted to have a fun time watching this film, I’m not surprised they’re disappointed. On the other hand, I can also sympathise with this person: there is indeed something unpleasant in having to submit to a voyeur’s phantasms for so long. But what he doesn’t see is that this unpleasantness is part of a demonstration.

Because the film is a psychological experiment. I use the word experiment on purpose, because it carries the idea of trying, and perhaps of not quite succeeding, but also of exploring a reality which is not necessarily appealing to laymen. Scientific research is often like that, in fact: long, repetitive, inconclusive. Spectacular results are like a creation, and are rare. They correspond to masterpieces, in the world of art. Anyway, the qualities of Ek chotisi love story (and so, certainly, of A short film about love – even though I shall now concentrate only on the Hindi version) are its storyline, its interrogations about desire and love, its technique, its acting (Manisha Koirala didn’t shine; she was OK – but I quite appreciated the young Aditya Seal), and a good many moments were cinematographic surprises.

The fact that the director chose a plumpish, older-looking actress to embody the woman whom the young boy falls in love with is a sign that he doesn’t give in to cheap spectator voyeurism (it’s always easier to decree that an erotic film is “interesting” artistically if you “appreciate” the women used as actresses in it), and that he knows more about real love and desire than our pin-up culture wants so many people to believe. The fact that she’s older is also a sign that he understands the common reality of adolescents often sexually aroused by women old enough to be their mothers (there are some beautiful close-ups of Manisha’s eyes and face in the movie).

The film asks this question: what is desire? Why does it govern us so powerfully? This instinct that draws us towards a person of the other sex, why do we need to call it love? Is love just a cheater, just a lure, played on us by our animal instincts? This need for love, that transcends our carnal desire, seems as strong as sexual desire itself. We need as much to call our desire “love” as we need to satisfy this desire in our bodies. Why is this so? Why does this promising, brilliant young teenager commit suicide because the woman he feels attracted to shatters this equivalence between desire and love? A Freudian interpretation might suggest that there is something deeply maternal in the love that we need to feel and to give: our first love was our mother. We harbour a need to love and be loved which originates in our first emotions as children loved by their mothers, hence the trauma of children who have not benefited from such original love. And I’d say the symbol of milk (and spilt milk), so present in the film, has got something to do with this dimension.

And so when the age comes when desire is reoriented away from parental figures to other men and women, and when it is fuelled by other more mature instincts, isn’t it natural that this deep attraction that we call love combines with the sexual drive felt from the age of adolescence? Okay, I’m not going to go into too much psychological detail, but surely the film has something to say about the difficulty of confronting the growing child’s dreams of original love on the one hand, and the harsh reality of more mature emotional desires on the other. I see this dilemma acted out both in Aditya’s character, and in the woman’s. She too is suffering from this sickening abandonment and isolation. She too is torn by the lack of love in her sex life. When she shouts to Aditya that what he calls love-making is nothing but sex, it’s because she sorely misses that love, and, down deep, she is hurt by the desecration of sex reduced to its “two-minutes of pleasure”. Her lack of happiness is a clear sign that she would like to feel what Aditya feels, even though she doesn’t believe that what he feels is nothing more than lust. If she wasn’t suffering from the absence of love and the emptiness of sex, why would she forbid him to use the word love to describe what he’s seen of her sex life? Love has enough importance for her to stop people from making the mistake that “having sex” is not ‘making love”.

Our constitution requires both sexual fulfilment and love, and the two cannot be separated without breaking something very deep in ourselves, something by which our life is held, a nexus that keeps us alive. Of course – and the woman’s grim love-life is a good illustration – it’s in fact possible to live with this separation, to have sex and not to love, or be loved, but we all know that this kind of life is sadly lacking an essential element. (On the other hand, a life with enough love but devoid of sexual relationships is bearable, and some people would even say desirable). Aditya’s suicide attempt is profoundly realistic: he is at an age when the intransigence of human desires is maximal, when it is hardest to accept compromises. Adolescence means “I will live my life to the full”, and if something is missing, the balance is broken, and everything can collapse. 

Another crucial theme of the film is that of vision. Open windows, transparent glass, magnifying glass; watching, peeping, discovering… all the elements are there. What is their connection with the theme of desire? Well, they enable the link between the subject who desires, and the object of his desire. We are toys of our instincts, and we are toys of our perceptions. We cannot help being manipulated by our senses, our eyes especially. And the binoculars or the telescope are nothing but the eye to the power of 10. Whether we want it or not, our eyes betray our interference in other people’s lives. We see them, we watch them, and they are transformed into a picture, into an impression. Of course this picture is superficial in essence, and if we cannot benefit from other means of knowledge, the person’s appearance will determine our position towards them. Positive or negative. Hence all the excesses due to passion or racism, which both come from a superficial knowledge of others only. 

Ek chotisi love story shows the inherent risks of vision in human relations (it is not a film about its advantages), and especially as regards love. Our humanity and our civilisation are based on vision, because our minds are fed as it were by images, the first of them being that of our mother feeding us. A great deal of what we know and remember is stored in the form of images. But there are limits to this power, to this freedom. A person can inflict great damages to another by using this power wrongly. Everybody needs to be seen and recognised, but within certain limits only. The desire that expresses itself through another person’s eyes laid on you can be unbearable. It transforms you into their object, just as it transforms them into your object. Relations will never be the same for two people between whom desire (or love) has been expressed. Forever there will exist this knowledge that this other person has bared themselves, has shown this desire of theirs, with its vulnerability and also its violence.  

For in the rays of vision beaming two sets of eyes, nothing comes in between. Vision transmits directly, nakedly, what the body feels and needs. That language (and its violence) belongs to our humanity, of course, and our culture has elaborated many ways to boost or soften it (makeup, head positions, eye-language, or on the other hand veils or sunglasses). The film shows that you can use vision to say things which are felt, and that in fact this language is one of the body’s most powerful language tools. We have seen how much it can transform both the receiver and the sender.

The presence of the grandmother is part of the puzzle. Her experience and protection of her grandson means that the violence of his desires are somewhat integrated in a society, a community that can understand it and accompany it. It is remarkable that she never scolds him. On the contrary, she is there as a comforting presence, and tries to understand, in a powerfully pathetic way.

The contrast between her and the young woman is also devoid of any violence, even if she says Aditya has fallen for “the wrong type of girl”. Her admittance of the situation underlines the human reality of random perception: a particular face has one day crossed our eyes, other eyes have looked into our own, and whoosh! desire ignites. Why? Why this person? There is no answer. We are the toys of our desires. How can she criticise the girl for Aditya’s love of her? It’s not her fault. She represents an enduring humanity who has resisted in spite of the destructive violence of desire. Who has even thrived on this desire, perhaps. There are some tricks (institutions, education…) that the experienced generations can try to implement in order to guide the next ones out of harm’s way, away from too much exposure to the violence and nakedness of desire, but all in all, a mature human being will have to pass through these flames, if they want to mature, precisely. Pass from soft to hard, like a pottery in the furnace.

The young nameless woman of the film is in the middle of the flames: she is the flames herself. Like fire, she illuminates and attracts the males from all around, and she flashes and burns when they come too near. She’s a prey and a predator at the same time. She burns and is burnt by her own fire. Only love can put out the flames of desire. Only love can calm the rage of passion. Love’s long-lasting, forgiving balm. But she has never felt this balm, this tranquillity; and the young boy cannot give it to her, because he is in need of it too. When she understands that he really loved her, not only desired her (because the two are inextricably linked), she also realises that she’s “the wrong girl”, that he’s too young, and that he has been the victim of her face, of her person. There is something absurd in this chance occurrence of love and desire. But this animal part of our humanity is inescapable. We deal with it the best we can, and if it lashes against us, we have time, consolation, and patient healing at our disposal.