Another classic ! Raj Kapoor (actor and director) and Nargis are once again at the top of their art, and create a masterful, a superb story of love and temptation, of self-deception and redemption. Not only is the story a moving and profound parable on ambition and success, but the way the film is done is inventive, touching, funny, symbolical… It has everything. These black and white movies had the cardinal virtue of presenting moral issues in a contrast that our modern pictures cannot rival. Were B & W directors conscious that they had one foot further in Art? And wouldn’t you say the realism of colours and digital rendition tends to blur the ethical questions? I particularly appreciated Raj Kapoor in this film. He’s absolutely perfect. And very handsome too! Made me think of Errol Flynn and Clark Gable. His tramp character might well be a copy of Chaplin’s (you can actually see Chaplin’s tricks, the automatic hat-lifting, the shoulder shrug, and whole scenes are Chaplin-like) he loses it quickly enough to embody that wistful and moody Raj that we so easily identify with.

Raj is Everyman, he’s Adam: he is first innocent, full of hope, clever and charming (I loved that little bird-flute of his), he has a determined spirit and a courage which makes him friends with all, and loved by the no-less spirited Vidya. When he falls prey to charmers greater than him, he sways between good and evil, but the good heart is always there, his humanity never relinquishes him. Even in sin he remains potentially redeemable. He does sin, he does taste the acrid apple of corruption and vanity, and even if his innocence dies in that fall (perhaps represented by the false death on the stairs at the end), he will shake off the “mind-forged manacles” that enslave him, destroy the mask of falsehood, and be born again to virtue and love. His saviour is of course Vidya, his love and the voice of his conscience.

Nargis is a marvel of femininity. Her expressions are a rapture to watch. I remember for instance that moment when she is teaching the children the song Eechak Daana Beechak Daana and her face changes from sweet to severe (and her body from flexible to rigid) as she notices Raj at the window involved in the same guessing as the children, only with a different intention. 

She is proud, bursting with life, magnificent, queenly. Oh, that scene in the rain while Raj’s iron is burning a hole in the table at the laundry, and they sing Pyaar Hua Iqraar Hua: it burnt a hole in my heart! She is SO amazing there! There is in her eyes a mixture of rapture, of gravity, of certainty, of tenderness, of subtle and strong presence beyond what words can express. She is youth, she is maturity; she is virginity, and she is motherhood. The beauty of that walk is enhanced by its silent spectators, the watchful tea-merchant, the little children passing by, and the false sets, the false rain only serve to underline the purity of that sheer cinematographic artistry. And oh, the haunting melody of that song, with its nostalgic resonances, combined with its piping joy!

Now, the forces they have in front of them: first of course, Maya, Illusion. Nadira was at the height of her glory too. She’s the eternal temptress here, especially in that arch-famous dance number Mud Mud Ke Na Dekh, where the Audrey Hepburn like diva is surrounded by as stunningly beautiful and fresh faces as hers, all worthy of having the first role in any masala. (Which by and by is a clear sign that beauty on its own is not virtue).
Maya’s sparkling knowing eyes, her full and ravishing figure, the vivacity and the utterly seductive power that, Serpent-like, she displays, are stupendous. No wonder Raj can’t “look back”: there is too much in front of him! That future is far more enticing than the past he’s made to forget, like a spell cast on his soul.
The classic figure of the enchantress is once more portrayed, but in an extremely vivid light. So blinding, in fact, that one can understand Raj, perhaps: the creature in front of him is simply too strong for him. If we didn’t know that Raj is falling into a huge trap, we would be enjoying their show as a high-flying display of pleasure and dream-like romance, and we would sigh with contentedness! But the tiger’s soft fur hides the fiercest claws that Nature has crafted: Maya is Raj’s doom, his Mr Hyde side. She will never love him, but only use him for her own gigantic greed and ego-worship. 

More sinister than Maya the Illusionist, there is Seth the Realist (played by actor Nemo). He’s a sight too, a perfect character. I’d say he symbolises the Devil lurking at the back of the scenes, grinning because he’s sure of his ultimate victory. He’s the one who pulls the strings; he’s the one who lays the traps. He doesn’t mind losing temporarily, because he can read in the mind of petty human beings who are manipulated by their desires. Upon seeing his delightful physique, I was reminded of Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars!
Seth doesn’t need to tempt, others do that for him. He’s just there to remind his slaves that they have enslaved themselves from their own free will, and they are now prisoners. Nevertheless the end of the film will show him to be the greater slave of all: he’s enslaved to power and greed, and this slavery will be his downfall.

 So this is a very classic (but universal) story, the story of the young ambitious man who believes he can conquer the world (or in this case, Bombay), only to realise too late that it is the world that has conquered him. Innocence and Experience. It contains nevertheless a very urgent question, which revolves around the notions of honesty and poverty. Before realising that he has gambled and lost both honesty and purity, Raj is faced with this dilemma: why should the poor suffer from their poverty, and at the same time justify it by their virtuous resignation? He has noticed (during one of the first episodes of the film, when Raj is picked up by Seth in his car) that the poor are accepted by the rich only if they are reliably virtuous. As soon as they start lying, or double-dealing, they are no longer acceptable as “the poor”: they must be punished and rejected. That’s why Seth, who professes in this scene to want to “help humanity” throws him out: it doesn’t occur to him that lying and faking are a way for Raj (and all poor people) to gain sorely needed advantages which otherwise would always elude them.

So Raj first sees his ascent to riches as a revenge against his humiliation. The poor are made to suffer because of the satisfactions of the rich, and it would be wrong to fight against such an injustice? Can’t the poor transgress a law which is unlawful, since it serves in fact the sole interests of the rich? After all, there is nothing bad in money, it is only a means. One needs it to be happy, to be comfortable, to raise a family, to ensure the safety of the children’s future. Raj feels all this, and if he tricks the rich into letting him benefit from some of that comfort, he sees no wrong in it, and he tries to convince Vidya that his position is honest, and morally acceptable. Such a position is not very far from the anarchist or revolutionary theories which communists have tried to bend into a more organised and socially acceptable programme.
Vidya’s response is interesting (her name, as Carla reminds us, means knowledge - thanks, by the way, Carla, I saw the film thanks to you). It is backed by Raj Kapoor the director too, because the film insists overwhelmingly on the simple but happy life of the street-people. They don’t work, true, they don’t have that source of social recognition. But they dance, sing, share, and they cope. Their resilience is a solution that economists do not generally take into consideration when putting forward arguments with which to counter communism. Vidya tells Raj that his “revenge” has in fact corrupted him, that he has been bought by immoral profiteers who have found another prey to satisfy their greed. She gives him the key to a life of happiness: alone one cannot build a family and ensure a future for the children to come, but together it’s possible. But he hasn’t heard, or if he has, this solution doesn’t weigh against the lure of power and pleasure. Raj hadn’t counted on the fact that he would become infected by the corruption which goes with money, power and artificiality. But Vidya sees that, and resists with all her might to the easy temptation of compromise. All this does not mean, I suppose, that Raj Kapoor was against any type of political reform, but it debunks the moral stance according to which one can feel justified by transgressing the law if one is poor. Certainly the poor have extenuating circumstances if they steal and lie, but not a right to riches, no more than the rich, in fact. The rich have a moral obligation to redistribution, and their social selves are never made any greater thanks to belongings.

There would be a very interesting commentary to be made about what clothes mean as a social and psychological object in the film. As a launderer, Raj deals with visible and arranged surfaces. These surfaces can hide and reveal at the same time. He keeps on telling Vidya that she must not be deceived by appearances, that you can’t tell a book by its cover. But can’t you? In fact, clothes and attire say a great deal. A person’s essence is not summarised by his or her surface, but this surface often tells a story which words don’t always want to admit.

I would like to finish this review by stressing Raj Kapoor’s poetic inventiveness. The poetry and the magic of Śri 420 come first from its moral and spiritual message, but there are scenes where the director’s art is remarkably poetic and inspired. One of them is that moment when a drunken Raj, not understanding what it means to be in danger, leaves Vidya after she has expressed her disapproval of his conduct. This has already happened, by the way, in an early, premonitory scene at the beach:

Anyway, here, as Vidya stands rigidly still, looking at him run away from her, the director visualises for us the torment she’s in, and we see another ghost-like, tormented Vidya, extracting itself from her figure, and imploring the moral Vidya to run after him and compromise.
But Vidya doesn’t move, at least outwardly, and as the music rises, the tension between her two passions rages. On one side, love and weak forgiveness, on the other resolve and educational truth. This scene stuns by its sheer inventiveness, even though it has been filmed with the limited means of 1955.

There is another moving scene, again happening at the moment of a song (notice how, in this classic, most of the songs are situated at pivotal moments of the movie, contrary to so many modern Bollywood films where the musical moments are just decorative intervals). Raj is at present at a loss about what his life means, and is back on the street where his friends the beggars and peddlers are seen to sing and enjoy themselves. A young lass is dancing and singing a trite romance: “I’ve given my heart to you”. Raj comes closer, and, transfixed, listens.
Slowly he understands the words apply to him and Vidya, that his pact with Seth, his association with Maya are traps and deceptions. And the simple song sung by an ordinary street dancer restores in him the truth and the promise he has made to his beloved. He takes up the words and joins in. The music lingers on, the words float in the air, a rickshaw driver catches its tune, and it passes on to a cyclist whom we follow in another part of town, and from there we arrive in sight of Vidya’s porch, where she is sitting, disconsolate, and the miracle of music happens: she too is now singing the same words: “mere dil tujko diya”! What was at first nothing but rhymester’s banal lyrics become an all-important human reality: if they are both in love with one another, nothing should sunder them, purity is again possible, in spite of all separations and distances. In Sri 420, the victory of truth and honesty is not just there to satisfy the spectator’s need for a happy end; it is a testimony to the fact that life is stronger than death, God more powerful than the Devil, and His image set deep inside us, more human than is our animality. 
One last moment of great inventiveness, reminiscent of Oscar Wilde's The Portrait of Dorian Gray: Raj passes in front of a mirror, and surveys his new persona, his elegant demeanour. But suddenly, in front of him in the mirror, stands not Raj the gambler, not Raj the Superhero, but Raj the tramp, and he's grinning, he's laughing! A little conversation ensues, where Raj from the happy past inquires whether Raj of the present is happy with all his succese. The new Raj can only admit that no, he isn't, and when his double disappears, this is what happens:

                                                                   So poignant.
Well, this will be probably be my last instalment before Christmas, so I'll take advantage of it and wish you all a Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year.

One last thing: after the movie review here, a very interesting debate has taken place on Bollywhat about the question of Raj's honesty: you can find it here!

Here’s an unassumingly important little film. Shonali Bose's Amu is a kind of a detective-story, with young Indian expat Kajju coming back to the country she’d left when she was 3, and discovering about her past. We follow her as she little by little unearth facts about herself and about her foster family, along with a history lesson, situated around the time of the 1984 Indira Gandhi assassination  riots (See what the author says about them here: www.wsws.org/articles/2005/oct2005/bose-o06.shtml). What’s artistically very pleasant about Amu is the film’s realism - New Delhi, its crowds, its noisy streets, its colourful atmosphere (somehow I come out of the film bathed in that soft evening light) – the photography is very respectful of what we see - and at the same time, it is very much interested in people and their reality, their mystery (all those close-ups). 

But more importantly of course, it fulfills a historical mission (how should the future generations come to terms with a violent past that they’re prompt to condemn?) which is also political (the film was censored because authorities thought that young people needn't know about a past that is best buried and forgotten!) and it also explores the psychological dilemma of parents who hide a truth from their children. 

The film doesn’t give much to the audience in terms of songs and dances: there aren’t any. On the contrary it delicately evokes things that are often grossly publicised in standard masala movies: for example, we understand that love has happened between Kajju and her boyfriend, a retiring youngster who first criticised in Kajju’s what he believed was a tourist’s curiosity, when we see them fleetingly hold hands, nothing more. The young girl’s relationship with her foster mother is very nicely done. As spectators, we have Kajju’s point of view, and we share her emotions as she starts suspecting her foster mother of having hidden events concerning Kajju’s past which might be compromising for her. The disclosure of the truth will further deepen that subtle analysis of human relationships. 

So yes, Shonali Bose’s Amu is a wonderful film about identity, and the way this identity connects with our history. There is no satisfying feeling of identity without a truthful relationship to our history. The right to one’s individual origin parallels the right to one’s national history. And the temptation to deny those two types of right to those concerned comes from the same root: fear. Fear that the impact of knowing might counteract the benefits of ignoring. Fear of course that knowledge of the past will condemn in the present those who hid their roles in the past. Tyrants and totalitarian leaders of all ages have always kept a hold on what version of history to tell people. The pharaohs’ battle accounts engraved in stone reliefs are necessarily one-sided, because of the cost of making historical accounts. This is a fact that modern-day historians take into consideration. And dissenters tell us how revolutionary history was warped and twisted in Marxist regimes in the XXth centuries. But even democracies have a battle to fight in order to protect themselves against revisionism, or subtle re-evaluation (often politically oriented) of their past.

Our past says who we have been, and therefore who we are. Where we come from has a direct relationship to where we’re heading. It’s not fatalism, or determinism; it comes from the essence of knowledge. Memory is that essential part of knowledge which enables decisions, and free decisions too, to be taken. We base ourselves on a mass of experience coming from first our own lives, then from our family, our surroundings, our country, and finally our humanity. If the link between these realms of experience is cut somewhere, we feel a need to mend it, because our identity is composed of all these dimensions. 

Some people argue that parts of our past, or of our history is best forgotten, perhaps because it would be a source of violence if it were out in the open again, or because it would traumatise us and endanger our maturation process (this is often the reason given for children). And true enough, memory (through the phenomenon of repression) does make us forget things which our mind rejects as painful. Likewise, some countries’ postwar legislations, for example, have instituted systems of pardon and peacemaking which in effect have been “positive forgetting” institutions, if you see what I mean. But these exceptions cannot transform the fact that Justice is based on as much truthful history as possible. The link with our history must be clear-headed and adult, whatever the costs, just as psychoanalysis insists that a true recognition of one’s hidden impulses and guilty conduct will establish a sounder personality. Sometimes the truth is so abysmally destructive that very few can accept to confront it, and there is a very natural movement of both individuals and nations to forget, so that life may be possible. Such has been the case with the Holocaust, and many other genocides in the XXth century. Stone institutions had to be built, testimonies had to be digitally recorded, flesh and blood witnesses had to be filmed before their death transformed their materiality into half-flimsy memory artefacts, all this to raise bulwarks against the levelling tide of forgetfulness and relativity, or “reductivity”, this life-linked attitude of living creatures who must carry on living in spite of realities which would normally condemn them, and therefore reduce the importance or the extent of past crimes. Our conscience reminds us, yes, but it also sometimes tends to protect us by smoothing hard facts. And the responsibility of civilisation is therefore to erect monuments to man’s animality or monstrosity, so that he can learn from the past and remain human. It is also to educate children to remember, and to encourage historians and journalists to do their job. And committed film-directors too. 

PS: this is an extended copy of a commentary made for Jaman.com, where the film can be rented at a low price. Thanks to the people there and their commitment to world cinema.

Addendum to this article: go check what Simran writes to Filmiholic's review of the film in one of the commentaries. It's here, and it's important reading!

Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa (thirsty) is so consistently lauded that it’s rather daunting to start talking about it. All the reviews I’ve read about it were superlative. Everybody says what a landmark it has been, what wonderful music it displays, what poetry it exudes… One person (Vishakh) does mention nevertheless that the film « does show its age »: and I would say, indeed it does (1) I don’t intend to debunk the opus, but for me it wasn’t a marvel from beginning to end. Certain passages were too conspicuous, too obviously effect-searching, and the mood was too often the same, apart from the comic-relief scenes with Jhony Walkar which are nicely done. I also have to underline the poor quality of the copy on DVD I bought, too jerky and dark at times, and since the film is very dark thematically, well, it didn’t help!

Briefly the story: Vijay is this unsuccessful poet who cannot get published, because his production doesn’t fit with the current taste for sugar-coated love poems; he lives in pain from having been jilted by a Meena, a college girlfriend who has preferred marrying a rich businessman, and has broken Vijay’s heart. Jobless and forlorn, having deserted his family, he meets her again, and realizes the depth of the chasm that life has dug between them. Logically his despair leads him to meet a lovely street girl (Waheeda Rehman) (in fact he’s lost his poems, and she’s found some of them which she sings!); she is touched by his delicate approach, and falls for him. Logically also, one day, at night, he decides he’s through with life, but he’s saved in a very touching way that I won’t disclose. This leads to the most interesting part of the film: the poet is thought dead, and in a strangely evocative and highly symbolic scene (of course reminiscent of a kind of Resurrection), he is the witness of his larger than life triumph. Dead, his poignant destiny has given a meaning to his poetry which it didn’t have when the poet was alive. Crowds sympathize with his figure, publishers print and reprint his work, and of course the vultures, smelling fresh blood, land on the site: friends of all kinds, converts, money-lenders, etc. Vijay’s name is acclaimed, (his name means Victory) but it’s a dead Vijay, and he’s watching all this macabre celebration!
So the first thing I appreciated in this film is its philosophical stance about creation and originality. It tells us that society simply cannot adapt to genius, its leveling power is so great that instead genius must adapt to it, and that means, for the genius, to become crazy, die, or exile himself (but where?). Three things which actually happen to Vijay. And the strength of the story is that it explores these solutions one by one, with the artistic coup de force of course being the symbolic death described above. Society is like a living body, it will reject any invasion of its territory by alien thought and desire. It will create the antibodies to devour them. And it will rejoice at its own health when these are rendered innocuous, time for it to absorb the virtue it has combated.

What happens when the supposedly transformed alien has not, in fact, been destroyed, and comes back to confront his own transformation? Such a monstrous situation is that of Pyaasa. For there is something otherwordly about this reappearance. Vijay is not really a resurrected Jesus. Even though he does (but only symbolically) come back from the dead and befriends the poor and the prostitutes, he isn’t a Christ-like figure. He is too moody and dejected. He too is waiting for salvation. To me he represents the “undying spirit of Man” (as a good comment says - a rare feat – on the back of my DVD), he is a living denunciation of hypocrisy and callousness. He walks on this earth as the ghostly and undying voice of Pain, the voice of Misery, and this is a voice that, when tuned at the right intensity, society cannot bear to listen to (and that perhaps included this Bartman from IMDB). 

The second thing that is interesting about this film is its tragic dimension. Tragedy occurs when all that is good, true and beautiful is doomed without repair, and we know it, and yet the forces that could allay this destruction are powerless to stop it. Vijay is recognized as a poetic genius, a messenger from the realms of beauty and truth, that stand for all that is spiritually excellent in humanity. When humanity is not the prey of desire and folly, it knows deep down that such goods are its most precious nourishment. But somehow it cannot help degrading them, spoiling them, like a wanton child. It has lost its innocence and believes only in itself. It alone must decide what is good for it. Voices and eyes from the outside which hear its animal breath, and see its corrupted mind are alien to it and provoke it into a rage of destructive calculation. Great reformers in history have often suffered that fate. In the film, the tragedy is materialized especially by the spectacular scene when Vijay’s return shatters his executioners’ cannibalistic plans, and this exposure earns him nothing but negation and exclusion. It is also present in his forseeable downfall in spite of all the love and beauty that he celebrates.The film is a love-story, a thirst-story. Good title, because what Vijay stands for is a desire that needs to be quenched, and at the same time a source from which nobody cares to drink. He pours out his need for love, and remains thirsty. But aren't we all thirsty and quenched at the same time? Do we not all need to be refreshed with the sources that we can't find because we are too busy drinking from spirits that don't satisfy us? 

I say it after many other people, but it’s true that the actors are very good, especially the women. And the baddie, Meena’s husband (played by Rehman), too. Vijay himself didn’t completely convince me, somehow (he's too uniformly dejected – would’ve needed a little Shakespearian self-irony). But both Meena (Mala Sinha), with her artful grace, her practicality, and in spite of her worldly choices her real love for Vijay, and then of course the striking Gulabo (Waheeda Rehman). She’s hardly characterized as a real prostitute (compare her with Kareena’s character in Chameli) and that gives her the charm of the poet’s woman-friend that we see in some romantic works. She’s warm, sensitive, protective and ordinarily full of life, except when Guru Dutt wants her to be forlornly in love with Vijay.

I think the film would have received added strength from a more balanced comic relief, even if Johnny Walker does his best with his hair oil and side glances! But the story is too heavily preachy, and on the whole humanity isn’t that one-minded. The film’s metaphor is weighty, but at times a little lightness of spirit would have been refreshing. Hey, not all artists, not all lovers, have suffered Vijay’s fate! And society is more complex and less predictable than the way it is portrayed here. I think that some Indian movies have succeeded to merge an urgent sense of drama, telling us that our world is old, AND a joyful hope in the spring-like liveliness of youth.

  

Absolutely excellent. The hubris of petty officers, the crisis and tension coming from lust and gratuitous violence, the horrifying banality of colonialism, the abuse and victimization of women: all these elements combine to create a tragedy which the Greeks would not have disavowed. We are the transfixed witnesses of a horrendous, and at the same time, magnificent process: the price of a woman’s virtue depends on how much it costs for the community. Even feminine solidarity crumbles when submitted to enough masculine pressure… And yet, does it? The fantastic last scene of the film, when everything seemed lost, shows that women have stupendous resources that make one realise the strength of a resistance in which women take part, and I am reminded of the British resistance to Germany during World War 2, when the wives and mothers of soldiers took part in the war effort, and replaced them in the factories and mills of the besieged island. So, hurray for women’s valour! 

 (This is a review posted at Jaman.com, where the film can be rented for $1,99)   

The film clearly states that when only men rule, when their authority is unchecked by the natural balance that comes from a normal interplay of the sexes, they lose their human status and revert to animality. There is one interesting scene near the lake, at the beginning of the film, when Sonabai (Smita Patil, what eyes! what acting!) explains to the freshly arrived Subedar (tax-collector, a riveting Naseeruddin Shah) that it is for village people and animals to drink: the Subedar then ironically (but perversely) describes himself as ‘this animal’: will she give him to drink? She then, as a woman, restores him to the status of man:

“As all men you shall bend and cup your hands.”

Of course this defiant attitude is not understood by the Subedar as a statement of the true social order: he sees it as a sign of that seduction game which reduces love to a fight between two consenting warriors. Such a version of love (epitomized for example in the Spanish type of courting), for all its sophistication, is not very far from animality. Men see women as a prey, women see men as a predator, and the “game” (the word here has its twofold meaning of play and prey) is to increase as much as possible the pleasure of the hunt. Much of our modern misunderstanding of what love is comes from this perverted game-making. Women are turned into game to be sought and caught, and they in return must escape and defend themselves, using their teeth and claws… Or otherwise submit as she-cats do, because it is supposedly the natural order of things.

In one other passage, the “Gandhian” schoolmaster arrives at the Subedar’s camp, holding a maimed child in his arms, and complaining that it is his men’s horses, rampaging through the village, who have hurt the boy. The reclining sybarite (he has just entertained himself with the villagers’ homage to his ‘art de vivre’ - they have never heard a gramophone before) laughs his head off at him (and all the villagers roar with him): what? his men’s horses have done that?  But, as everybody knows, “Can one expect any sense in animals?”

Ketan Mehta knows what he’s doing. Intelligence, or common sense, is one of the film’s main themes. For example, “intelligence” is what the tax-collector requires from the the Mukhi, or village chief (a convincing Suresh Oberoi), when the former asks the latter to bring him the woman he’s lusting after, otherwise, even if he “dislikes bloodshed”, he will be obliged to use force. It is “wisdom” that the Mukhi asks from Sonabai when she is shut up inside the factory and refuses to open. 

The problem with intelligence and understanding is that it is a cultural thing; you need to develop it, to encourage it. It needs a fostering environment to increase and be useful. This is the awkward conclusion which the schoolmaster comes to, when asked about India’s independence: what’s the use of it? How do we recognise it? He says: “you need to study to feel its value” Because independence and freedom comes with thinking about one’s alienation and oppression. An animal ignores he is enslaved by his instincts. A man might too, in part, if he’s uneducated. The theme of women’s emancipation is naturally linked to this question of intelligence, and it is interesting to notice the reasons given by the other women in the street to criticise Saraswati (a very impressive Deepti Naval), the Mukhi’s wife, when she takes her daughter to the Gandhian schoolmaster’s class (thus said to be “out of her mind”): "school won’t help make the girl into a lady", and: "no one will want to marry her!" So, parallel to what the film says about women’s resistance to men’s power, there is a statement about women’s access to knowledge as well. Feminine intuition (or even instinct) is not enough. And indeed, alongside Sonabai, there is Saraswati: two images of feminine power.

This is also shown in Radha’s story, which serves, it seems, as a contrast to Sonabai’s. Radha is a young girl who is promised to the Mukhi’s brother. The difference with Sonabai is that she accepts to favour the Subedar’s lust one night, in return for a trinket which she shows Sonabai when both of them are behind the closed doors of the factory. Radha tries to convince Sonabai that she would get something in exchange for her acceptance of a night with the bully, an acceptance that would signify her rescue from the dangerous confinement of the factory. All this even if that night has cost the young girl her beloved; we understand this when Radha's father comes to see the Mukhi and begs in vain for him to accept his brother to marry her. But the peace of the village costs more than the happiness of two young people, and the virtue of a young woman can be traded even by other women if the pressure is too great.

By the way, the notion referred to as womanly virtue is “self-respect”. It is Sonabai‘s self-respect that Abu Miyya the old factory guard, (an impressive Om Puri, with a yellow mane like a lion[1]), is defending against the intrusiveness of the soldiers who ask him to surrender the fleeing young woman, and it is the women’s self-respect that one old villager refers to at the Mukhi’s village meeting, after some consciousness of human dignity seeps back into the heads of those present. Ironically, it is also his “self-respect” that the Subedar claims is “at stake” when he is discussing Sonabai’s transfer into his tent. If one disregards this pompous mockery of true virtue which the Subedar disgraces willingly, what is this “self” which is alluded to here? What does the film tell us about feminine integrity? Why does one woman resist being unfaithful at the cost of her life, and another regards her body as accessible to a stranger? “Only the rich can afford to have self-respect”, says one of the women to Sonabai: is this true?

What is interesting is that this discussion of self-respect in the film brings out a discussion of what it is to be a man. Abu Miyya for one says, speaking of his refusal to open the door: “there is at least one man in this village”; earlier on, a villager also said that the cowards in the village meeting were women and not men. So claiming self-respect is not only being more human, it is being manly, in the sense of courageous. It is vindicating certain limits to oppression and alienation. It is saying that the self is like a guarded city, a temple where the doors open for those who knock gently, but close on enemies and bullies. It is ready for a siege, ready for a sacrifice of its own freedom of movement in favour of the greater freedom of spirit. It isn’t a question of money or status, but, says the film, it is at least partly a question of education. Sonabai resists, Saraswati resists, and the two of them represent Women building tomorrow’s better society. Certainly Gandhi would have been proud of both of them. 

One last word about this Mirch masala, this hot red spice which plays a crucial role in the film’s thematic. The Subedar calls Sonabai “hot stuff” – he’s right for once, even if in his meaning the expression has rude undertones. I believe Ketan Mehta has chosen this title because it represents the fiery spirit of the Indian women, or at least, the spirit they need to acquire in order to resist oppression and false civilisation. Red is the colour of revolution, the colour of blood, the feminine colour. Perhaps we can also read in this title a subtle criticism of the bland masala movies which do not often enough question the assumptions of the Indian social status quo, especially regarding the role and the future of women.