Sairat...a lesson in remembering!

Imagine someone making you laugh heartily and then suddenly punching you in the stomach so hard that you almost collapse. You are not hurt because of the physical pain, but the mental shock you weren’t prepared that was coming. This is how you feel when Sairat ends and the credits start rolling. You sit there in disbelief not knowing how, why and what to react.

The film opens with an amusing cricket commentary where the tournaments are taking place on a dense playground. The director of the film Nagraj Manjule is seen in his usual style making comical and much clichéd remarks about the young political figures while welcoming them on stage. Parshya is a show stealer. He chases his lady love, Archie wherever she goes. She is rebellious. She is innocent. She is truthful. She is caring. Her character has been strongly written. Parshya is not as courageous and non-submissive to injustice. In fact he is shown taking beatings in several instances which is valid. There can’t be any random kicking and punching by a hero in real lives where the goons go flying about in the air.

Nagraj’s sudden exit is forgotten but seems like a wise choice on his part. Every character which is unrefined makes the film seem even more real. The actors which Nagraj Manjule employs may not otherwise find a place in today’s films as yet, so he too seems very keen on not leaving behind a single actor from his previous film Fandry. But, take a moment and try thinking about a hitherto made cinema in a rural setting. Re-known actors hired from Mumbai and Pune’s heart are seen lamely sporting artificially torn and muddied clothes where they try to speak a stereotypical “aamhasni, tumhasni samda thaauk haaye” Marathi. That is not Marathi, that is not Maharashtra and above all that is not rural cinema in a true sense. What rural cinema can be is proved here by the director in every instance. Everything is unbelievably rustic including the locations, actors and choice of curse words. There is no lame effort to bring into picture the thus far shown glamour in mainstream cinemas.

 The film’s cinematography is excellent with a few judicious aerial shots, a thing Marathi cinema is yet to get accustomed to. Crisp editing. Extraordinary screenplay. Simple yet funny dialogues and the music make the film delightful. The background score and songs rightly constitute the heart of the film.

 A father’s love for her daughter is shown explicitly by the fact that she can ride on a bullet or a moped or a tractor whenever she pleases. Even the house is named after her. There are big framed photographs of her which clearly indicate that the stigma related to a girl’s birth and gender discrimination is blurring. Another instance of respite about equality in terms of right to education and discrimination to none is when we see people from all castes of this village studying in the same college and playing games.

Nagraj has chosen to make a humorous yet strong commentary on Gutkha which has a tough message. Pradip, the physically handicapped character, in a short scene conveys sufferings of a differently-abled person and the social stigmas attached to it where he comes to realize of his crude reality and is seen walking away from the frame trying to greet another handicapped man. They too deserve admiration; he might have wanted to say.

As the love story progresses, the couple is caught in a compromising position that would have angered any Indian father. Clearly, that is followed by severe beatings to the girl, the boy and his friends. You keep wondering to yourself if there was really any need to show an uncomfortable scene amidst an innocent love story? Couldn’t they have been caught when the songs were in progress? But then you remember it’s a Nagraj Manjule film. We can believe the actors singing songs on the tip of a cliff waving odhni-duppatas but we keep shying away from what happens in reality. This is what the mainstream cinema has done to us. We don’t want to believe what we otherwise see in reality. We want ourselves to be fooled by the larger-than-life incidents. So, welcome to ugly fights, welcome to uncomfortable conversations and welcome to reality. Nagraj is here to inject appropriate dosages.

The couple is on the run and seeks shelter and support from Salya’s relative. He is poor and makes a living by mending tires and lives in a dusty, dimly lit shed. He being a family man tries to convince them of the rights and wrongs by reminding them how eloping is only suited to the films. We see his half asleep wife and overhear their baby crying as he speaks. This scene serves as the first caution to the couple about their near future but they decide to go on. However, the hardships they face in the slum are much worse.

Apathy on part of Police with respect to harassing the couples on the run is known to all. Inter-caste marriages have appropriate provision under Special Marriage Act, 1954. Government of Maharashtra has even announced a scheme to encourage inter-caste marriages by providing them with several cash incentives. But to no avail! Law enforcers often become law violators. This sheer insensitivity and submission to the powerful people in society by police is very tragic. This selective justice is lethal.

The fairy tale ends when they confront reality in order to survive. Parshya’s insecurities about Archie and Archie’s less diffident retaliation to his domination display a sad reality about the patriarchal mindset. But they do not give up. They go on living to get married, to have a baby, to earn a decent living, and to book a flat. But, even when Archie has gotten everything she wanted she cannot forget her roots. She cannot forget her parents and that is very affecting. She is seen telling her colleague about how wonderful her father is. She is seen helplessly enquiring about her family and especially about her father in two instances. What she gets in reply is to be seen only in the film. Perhaps, she should have forgotten everything. Perhaps, this act of forgetting is the most difficult part of life. Perhaps, people don’t understand the importance of forgetting.

Archie rides the bike and Parshya rides pillion holding their son against his chest. They see a few right wing activists harassing couples by the side of the road; they get disturbed but move on. Just like they always have! You get so involved in their life that you find yourself silently praying for the movie to end when they are at the zenith of their happiness. Especially, when they get married or have a baby or find a house. You’d like to end the film there. But had Nagraj Manjule done that he would have failed on several fronts and in turn hopped the bandwagon of trendy cinema. He goes on to tell us what lies ahead.

Indian cinemas have a fixed layout where a villain is shown in a dreadful light. Director’s obvious tilt towards the protagonist is evident. Sairat differs on this aspect. Mr Manjule has left it for us to decide. He has not taken any sides as to who is just. He shows how Tatya Patil loses his political clout. His tanned face with a smirk while attending a public function stands testimony to it. Caste factor is not fundamental in just the upper caste but also in Parshya’s caste where his father is seen pleading in front of THEIR Panchayat to not outcast his family for his son’s mistake. No one is spared. Everyone suffers.

The couple ran away chasing happiness but their baby, a symbol of their happiness leaves back bloodstained foot-prints. Every second youth today is troubled with love related depression. What if they were given the liberty to act upon their own decisions? Imagine the trouble they will be saved from! Youth suicides may come down. Depression and anxiety related disorders among the youth may come down. So, the next time we plead for freedom we have to ask ourselves which freedom are we talking about?  

Fandry was like a painting where you had to derive several meanings out of it. That was a great limitation for mainstream cinema viewers who misunderstood it as another love-story. Sairat, however is a ready platter. You are fed with everything. You just have to empathize to what is being shown. No doubt Sairat is a strong commentary on honor killings, but the possibility that it will reform orthodox elements in rural settings in debatable. Some might even perceive the couple’s killing as appropriate. They might even get ill-motivated to end a story in a similar fashion if at all that was to happen in their immediate neighborhood or even in their homes. That is the only fear underlying it when it comes to stories such as these. It is also absolutely obnoxious on some people’s part to say Sairat will spoil the youth and encourage elopement. If that’s the case how has the mainstream Bollywood cinema that passes off muck in the name of entertainment equipped the youth with skill development, education and health and made them ready for the demographic dividend? Sairat wasn’t made to exclusively reform youth. Let us not confuse the two. What social reformers could or couldn’t do in a hundred years can’t be done or undone by a film like Sairat.

It is true that caste barriers and prejudices are fading, but not at a speed we would’ve liked them to go. Try and imagine Parshya as the son of an influential politician like Sushilkumar Shinde or Ramdas Athavle or a Senior Bureaucrat. Would they still have gotten killed? What killed them? Caste or class? Or both? We do not know. Chasing the couple is justifiable. Killing is not! Caste, apparently can kill people. But can class come to their rescue in such circumstances? Caste discrimination and violence have deep roots and tangled social roots. It will take sustained and mutually reinforcing efforts of law and political will to fight it. This should not be thought of in terms of profit and loss for any political formation. It is simply what we need to do to call ourselves a humane society. Perhaps, such a thing would remain elusive in India for a long time to come; but the dream is worthwhile.