Dissertation Components.docx

Abstract: Deepa Mehta is a filmmaker, based out of Canada, who is best known for her films The Elements Trilogy, a trio of films that address some important socio-cultural, political and religious issues in India. The films Fire, Earth and Water are about female sexuality, the atrocities committed against women during the Partition, and the restrictive lives of widows in the sacred city of Varanasi, respectively. These films attempt to shed light on lives of ‘normal’ citizens of the country who have to deal with the oppressive norms of patriarchy and religious hypocrisy as a part of their daily routine. This paper aims to understand, through these films, how women were and, in some cases, still are treated unjustly and inhumanely. The study aims to observe how inequality is prevalent in our society in the forms of discrimination on the basis of sex, religious hypocrisy, as well as subordination through the formation of societal norms like caste and class that were portrayed in the selected films (Caldwell, 2013). Additionally, the reactions that these films garnered have also been analyzed in order to understand the impact of the trilogy, on the Indian audience, as well as internationally. The response to these films, especially Fire and Water, was quite violent to the point that Water’s shooting had to be put off for 8 years before it could be resumed. By going through an array of interviews and articles, the paper will try to understand the impact of this explosive reaction on the filmmaker and the films as well. The cultural and narrative analysis of these films is the main source of information along with some pre-existing research in the forms of books, academic papers, articles, essays, news reports and transcribed interviews.

Keywords: Deepa Mehta, Contextual Analysis, Narrative Analysis, Religious Hypocrisy, Female Subordination, Patriarchy, Taboo,

Chapter 1 - Introduction:

India is a beautiful country; it is home to diverse religions, languages, festivals, people and cultures. Though its richness in diversity is what makes it unique, there is a flip side to it – India is deeply rooted in patriarchy in terms of its religious mindsets, customs and traditional practices. According to Uma Chakravarti, in her paper Conceptualizing Brahmanical Patriarchy in Early India: Gender, Class, Caste and State: The general subordination of women assumed a particularly severe form in India through the powerful instrument of religious traditions which have shaped social practices. A marked feature of Hindu society is its legal sanction for an extreme expression of social stratification in which women and the lower castes have been subjected to humiliating conditions of existence. Caste hierarchy and gender hierarchy are the organizing principles of the brahmanical social order… (Chakravarti, 1993) Literature and Cinema have been mirrors to society ever since they have been introduced, and not only do they have the ability to reflect the society’s best and worst, they also have the power to influence and bring about significant change in the minds of their audiences. As quoted by Richa Sharma, “Cinema projects role models and endures stereotypical spirits while at the same time, interrogating or projecting them ambivalently” (Sharma, 2017) The works being studied in this paper mainly deal with issues of gender disparity and female subordination and what happens when national and religious arguments are brought into the mix. Despite the fact that these films are set in India, the content and messages of these films is such that women all over the world would be able to relate. Deepa Mehta is known as a “transnational filmmaker”, she makes films that may revolve around characters belonging to

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a particular region, usually India, but her message is received, recognized and relevant to women beyond the borders of the nation, all over the globe, according to Manju Jaidka in her book A Critical Study of Deepa Mehta’s Fire, Earth and Water. As she says, “Although (Mehta’s films) focus on Indian Women and their oppressive social system, the perspective is ecofeminist in that it transcends specific locations and draws attention to the mystic connection between women and nature, pleading for a fine balance in the cosmic scheme of things.” Through her films Mehta is able to reveal faces of India that were hidden earlier. (Jaidka, 2011)

As recorded in Jaidka’s book, throughout Indian history and upon the reading of, and about the scriptures, one can say that sexual desire or sex in general is something that is meant to be kept behind closed doors. It is ironic that such values and mindsets are held by those who live in the country that produced the Kamasutra. As for sexuality and desire in women? There is no point in even pretending to acknowledge its existence, according to Indian society. “The Rig Veda does not speak of the Shakti cult, the concept of the superwoman manifested in Goddess Durga, Kali or Parvati; an ideal woman is a Goddess beyond sexual cravings but if she is gripped by passion she is nothing short of a monster”, Jaidka says.

Even in today’s times, its women like Sita, from the Ramayana, who followed her husband into exile; Draupadi, from the Mahabharata, who accepted becoming a wife to the five Pandavas without question; Gandhari, who supposedly blindfolded herself for life because her husband was blind and she felt that she didn’t deserve to see if he couldn’t; Savitri, who argued with the God of Death, Yamraj in order to bring her husband back to life and even Mirabai, the poet-saint who gave up worldly pleasures and dedicated her life to Lord Krishna, who are idealized and looked up to. In short, the whole point is that in India, the traditional

though is that women are the weaker sex who have to abide by the rules set by the system, they are lesser than men and the only things that brings any meaning into their lives are men; whether it be as a husband (in order to provide them with the purpose of fulfilling wifely duties and producing a male heir), a father (for marrying into a good family and not burdening the father with her responsibility) or a son (to birth an heir). beliefs like these are deeply ingrained into Indian society and lead to women dealing with injustice like domestic violence, an incorrigible ’son’-fixation, dowry deaths, female foeticide and infanticides. (Jaidka, 2011)

With the development of technology and globalization, access to the world has become easier, physically and virtually, and that has helped bring about a change in the way women are treated and the way heterosexual relationships have started operating; women aren’t treated like slaves anymore, at least not a large majority of them. Women are now being given opportunities to pursue higher education and are being payed salaries that they are able to live on comfortably. While they are still not treated as equal to men in all aspects, we are getting there slowly. This change has also brought about intense doubt with regards to the credibility of the archaic beliefs that the orthodox hold about how the society is supposed to operate; the younger generation has started to question the long-followed traditions and the awareness that women are equal to men has started spreading. This paradigm shift requires an introspection within ourselves and a re-evaluation of all our beliefs and ideals. Deepa Mehta, despite making films based on the women in India, understands the issues related to feminism and the beliefs that the West holds about the feminist movement. She is able to beautifully merge the concepts of the West with the reality of the Indian culture in her work. (Jaidka, 2011).

This work aims to bring forward the issues that Deepa Mehta, a filmmaker with the thirst to question and fight against the conservative norms and powers that work to subjugate women in India, has used as inspiration in her work. She re-writes history by showing us the story from her perspective instead of the stereotypical male perspective of things where the female is a side character instead of the protagonist. This puts the spotlight on issues that were previously brushed under the carpet; it focuses on how women are affected by the social and political expectations on their shoulders and how the idea of women’s sexuality is exploited and used as a tool for oppressing them in this patriarchal scenario. This paper takes a look at Deepa Mehta’s trilogy Fire, 1947 Earth and Water and the arguments these films raise in order to understand the how women of Mother India are subjected to a life of less; less freedom, fewer choices, and next to no rights.

Chapter 2 – Literature Review

“Deepa Mehta has been seen as one of the representative directors of South-Asian diaspora”, says Avinash Jodha, in his article Packaging India: The Fabric of Deepa Mehta’s Cinematic

Commented [TS2]: Add more content. 1)Transnational cinema 2) Newspaper articles and real life info that validates the content of the film and shows if or not these practices are still prevalent 3) Water nominated for an Oscar. What it means to be a part of the Canadian film industry and what is a Canadian film? 4) Why some films were in English and some in Hindi.

Art, “She has carved out a niche for herself in the media as one of the flag bearers of freedom of expression…(She) is quite specific about her agenda as a filmmaker, particularly in the context of her trilogy on India.”

Her father was a film distributor in Amritsar and Mehta and her brother (photojournalist Dilip Mehta) would often watch films while their father worked. It was their father who taught them how to work all the equipment and gave them exposure into the world of films. Deepa Mehta is an Indo-Canadian filmmaker born in Amritsar on the 15th of September, 1949. Soon after the 1947 Partition was announced, Mehta’s father was forced to move from Lahore to Amritsar. In an interview, this is what she had to say about the Partition:

My father and his brothers were brought up in Lahore and they faced tremendous difficulties. They had to leave their family home. They never saw their friends again and my father never saw his Muslim friends again. I grew up hearing about all the horror stories of partition, as did a lot of people who were from the Punjab, the area most affected. In fact, if you ask anybody from the Punjab today, and we are talking about third generation, what does 1947 mean to you, they will never say the independence of India. They all say the partition of India. Every family member has some horror story to tell. It was a Holocaust.

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She moved to Canada in 1973, after getting married to documentary filmmaker Paul Saltzman. They set up their own production house, called Sunrise Films, along with her brother Dilip soon after the move. (Mehta, 2017)

All throughout recorded history, it has been noticed that women are especially targeted during political unrest. Their bodies are exploited and they become nothing more than objects, their sexuality being exploited and being turned into their biggest vulnerabilities; reduced to being a vessel that is subjected to all the rage and violence around them. And this isn’t something limited to the national borders on India; there are records of this phenomenon taking place all over the world. Deepa Mehta is one of the few filmmakers who has understood and portrayed the devastating events of 1947 through the perspective of the women instead of the women. Mehta’s films put women in different setting; violent moments, domestic, middle-class monotony, and also situations with unforgiving sociopolitical and religious pressures. (Jaidka, 2011)

In an interview with Mehta in 2006 by Richard Phillips, she was asked what she wished to achieve with her films and she said:

To wipe out two thousand years of imposed training is difficult and obviously won’t just happen with a film. Fire, Earth and Water were essentially about the conflict between the desire for independence and freedom and religious tradition, or at least the most backward forms of these traditions. If I’ve made some progress in that direction then I’m satisfied.

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And in yet another interview with Phillips in 1999, she had expressed her views on why not many made films that ‘accurately’ depict India:

Obviously, I am not including everybody in this generalization, there are many exceptions, but there are several conceptions that prevail in the west about India. There is firstly the spiritual India—a place where you go and find nirvana. Secondly, there is the conception that India is entirely poverty stricken, with a permanent kind of begging bowl attitude. There is the India of Maharajas, princes and queens, and the India that comes from nostalgia for the Raj. And there is always the prevailing pressure that people should feel superior to some other place: look how bad India is with all the beggars, aren't we lucky to be better off. It is uncomfortable and difficult for some filmmakers to produce works that destroy these perceptions. India brings specifically fixed images in many western minds, and the minute you start de-exoticising that, you have you deal with Indians as real people, and there is a pressure not to do that. Finally, there are many dark political questions about partition that the British establishment doesn't want brought to light. When you know the real history of partition and the responsibility that lands in the laps of the British, obviously you understand why it is a very uncomfortable subject for them.

Mehta first received recognition for her films Sam and Me (1990) and Camilla (1994). However, her most popular work, one that she is now widely known for, is The Elements Trilogy consisting of the films Fire (1996), 1947 Earth (1998) and Water (2005). The latter was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Mehta has received

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the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Order of Ontario and Queen’s Jubilee Medal. She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada for “challenging cultural traditions and bringing stories of oppression, injustice and violence to the fore”, as documented by The Canadian Encyclopedia.

TALK ABOUT TRANSNATIONAL CINEMA

The trilogy is set in India, its past and present. Delhi, Lahore and a city which in all aspects was Varanasi, but had to be re-named due to reasons that will later be elaborated. There are no non-Indian characters in the films, except for the British soldier in 1947 Earth. Each film is set in a different setting and time; Water in the late 30s, Earth in the 40s and Fire is set in a modern setting in the New Delhi of the 80s-90s. So technically, Mehta is moving backwards in time with each film as if trying to look for roots, causes and explanations. (Jain, 2017)

It was the release of the first instalment of her trilogy, Fire, that gave her the reputation of the controversial filmmaker that she is known for today. The release of Fire brought on the wrath on Indian conservatives and politicians. The film started a much-needed conversation about female sexuality and took it further by also adding in themes of overt homosexuality. (Jaidka, 2011)

It definitely did not come as a surprise to anyone that this film caused an uproar among Hindu fundamentalists and conservatives. The patriarchal, predominantly male mindset of the country tends to shy away from acknowledging such overt displays of female sexuality. Soon after the release, the films had to be taken down because of the violent response they garnered from the public. Many even thought of it as a way to poison their women’s minds and the ‘contamination

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of the sacred Indian womanhood’. The Shiv-Sena’s Bal Thackeray authoritatively asserted that homosexuality was not Hindu, and therefore not Indian. According to Jai Bhagwan Goel, the portrayal of such ideas on screen is futile because “What does (one) gain by showing lesbianism? As is it the institution of marriage is breaking down. This will make it worse”. The film, very obviously, caused a revolution by bringing to light the hypocrisy of the patriarchal Indian society and how the women are left with barely any rights to make their own decisions, and how oppressed they are by the men in their lives. (Jaidka, 2011)

The second installment in this series was known as 1947 Earth. It was based on the novel IceCandy Man by author Bapsi Sidhwa. The story is essentially a re-telling of the historical events of the Partition with a shift of focus to the horrors that the women of the country went through. The adaptation of the book into the film by Deepa Mehta kept with the theme of giving a voice to the women and narrates a story of ramifications: that of political turmoil on relationships among friends, that of hatred and violence and its effect on local communities and families. Mehta, again, uses her film to start an extremely important conversation about issues that had been, till then, buried. The torture, rape and mutilation that the women were put through is shown through the eyes of a character called Shanta. Lenny, the little girl, and Shanta, her maid, are the voices of the film. Their story is that of the loss of innocence and ruthless exploitation.

The final film in the trilogy is called Water. This story focuses on females who have lost their husbands. The film is set during the time Gandhi was heading the fight for freedom and British Raj. This story revolves around widows and their helplessness in the face of religious hypocrisy. Widows didn’t have much of a choice on how to live life after their husbands died; AS MENTIONED IN THE FILM They could either choose to give up their lives as well and

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burn with their husbands on the funeral pyre in a ritual known as Sati, they could choose to marry their husbands’ brother and lead a married life or they could live a banished life, where they would have to give up all pleasures and live a life of abstinence to ‘atone for their sins’ that caused their husbands to die. They would have to give up the idea of beauty and shave all their hair, give up wearing colorful clothing, jewelry or any kind of sringar, which is the act or adorning oneself; they would need to give up wearing shoes and only wear white sarees; they would get simple food only once a day and live in seclusion. (Jaidka, 2011) This story is told through the eyes of an innocent little girl who is sent off to live with widows when her old husband dies. This tale explores the hardships, prejudices and restrictions that widows have to deal with.

One can easily understand the extent of hypocrisy in Indian society by looking into the events that took place when the film was first being shot. Even before the shooting began a horde of protestors evidently trashed the sets on the banks of Ganga in Varanasi. The shooting had to be put off for five years before they were able to secretly shoot it in a secret location in Sri Lanka under the guise of shooting a different film.

This chapter was a brief introduction of the trilogy that gave us some insight into the films, the thought behind them, the perspectives and their reception by the masses. Moving on, we will now be looking at each film separately, in order to understand the obvious as well as underlying themes, motifs and symbols in them. We will also identify various prejudices and stereotypes, socio-political issues and religious restrictions placed on women as seen in these films, along with the ways in which the trilogy challenges these ideas. Finally, we will also be looking at how these films impacted the Indian populace as well as the diaspora.

Research Design: The films will be analyzed using narrative and contextual study methods. The impact and reaction of the audience - Indian and diaspora - will also be looked at. The study will be backed up by pre-existing research in the form of books, articles, research papers, transcribed interviews, online newspaper clippings and other relevant sources available. In order to understand the rest of the study properly, it is imperative to establish what the methods of study entail. According to University of North Carolina’s The Writing Centre, Contextual Analysis is analysis of the film as part of a broader context, including Culture, Time period, Location etc. of the film’s creation. It asks questions like What might the film say about the culture that created it? What were/are the social and political concerns of the time period? Or, like researching the author of a novel, you might consider the director, producer, and other people vital to the making of the film. What is the place of this film in the director’s career? Does it align with his usual style of directing, or does it move in a new direction? Other examples of contextual approaches might be analyzing the film in terms of a civil rights or feminist movement (The Writing Centre, 2016).

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods tells us that Narrative analysis is a genre of analytic frames whereby researchers interpret stories that are told within the context of research and/or are shared in everyday life. Scholars who conduct this type of analysis make diverse interpretations and conclusions by focusing on different elements. These elements include, but are not limited to, how the story is structured, what functions the story serves, what is the substance of the story, and how the story is performed (Allen, 2017).

Other than these methods, the other main resources (but not the only) of information are the books by Manju Jaidka and Jasbir Jain titled A Critical Study of Deepa Mehta’s Trilogy:

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Fire, Earth and Water and Films, Literature and Culture: Deepa Mehta’s Elements Trilogy, respectively. Jain’s book is an amalgamation of articles and essays by various scholars and experts on the subject while Jaidka critically examines the films and the negative reactions they garnered, while giving her own expert opinions on the matter.

Chapter 3: Fire – Politics of Sexuality Summary Themes, Motifs, Symbols and Characters Analysis

The first installation of the trilogy, Fire, released in 1996, is a story full of ‘infidelity, conspiracy, clandestine lesbianism and celibacy’ (Dey, 2014). The story itself isn’t extraordinary; it is the fact that it is set in India, infused with the Hindu culture and at the same time shows characters trying to break out of the confines that the culture places on them, is what makes the film resonate. Homosexuality is such a taboo topic in India that people prefer to believe that it doesn’t exist at all. And then to construct a film around the idea of lesbianism in a family that seems so normal, highlights the existence and presence of it, and that it something that many cannot accept.

Fire revolves around the day-to-day life of a seemingly happy, middle-class family that consists of two brothers, Ashok (played by Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and Jatin (Javed Jafferi); their wives, Radha (Shabana Azmi) and Sita (Nandita Das); Biji, the brothers’ mother, and Mundu, the man servant who is also Biji’s caretaker. At first glance the family seems to be like any normally functioning household with Radha playing the role of the Badi Bahu (elder daughter-in-law) and taking care of the main tasks of the household and taking care of Biji, as she cannot care for herself after having suffered from a stroke which left her unable to speak or walk. She would only be able to communicate by ringing a bell, which she kept handy at all times. The family runs a restaurant and a DVD rental store together and all seems well. But a few minutes into the film, things start to unravel, and out come the problems: Ashok has taken a vow of celibacy after finding out that Radha is barren, Jatin has married Sita, but

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he is in love with a Chinese girl called Julie, who didn’t want to get tied down by marriage and he continues to have an affair with her after marriage despite the fact that Sita has also found out about it. On top of this, Jatin sells porn videos in his rental store, secretly and Mundo is notorious for he watches porn in front of the mute Biji and gets off to it, when he is alone with her and is supposed to be taking care of her. The unhappiness in their marriages encourage the women to bond and eventually they indulge in a romantic relationship with each other. One day Mundu is caught in the act by Radha and she goes and tells Ashok, encouraging him to kick Mundu out of the house for his behavior, but instead Ashok forgives him, excusing his behavior because he is a man. In the meantime, Mundu has been noticing the blossoming relationship between Radha and Sita, and he is jealous, for he has feelings for Radha and wants her for himself. As a means of taking revenge for exposing him, he drags Ashok to witness the women in the middle of the act of having sex. Ashok has a very predictable reaction of disgust and horror. He is also ashamed because witnessing the act caused his desire to awaken after years of suppression.

“There is no word for what we are, how we feel for each other”, Sita tells Radha (Fire, 1996) and they both make the decision to leave behind their unhappy lives and create a future together. Before she leaves everything behind he conscience encourages her to speak to Ashok and explain everything to him but he throws it back in her face by expressing his bigoted opinions about how her relationship with Sita was sinful and it would only lead to ruin. She stands up to him and claims that she had felt dead for years but Sita made her feel alive and she would not give her up for anything. Ashok commands her to apologize and forget everything but when she refuses, he shoves her and her sari catches fire. Ashok makes

no move to save her and instead watches her as he rescues Biji. Despite everything, Radha makes it out alive and leaves Ashok for Sita. FIRE IS NOT A LESBIAN FILM. MAKE IT CLEAR.

Chapter 4: 1947 Earth – Politics of Nation and War

The Partition of India is an integral part of the country’s history and it played, and continues to play, a major role in shaping India’s varied cultures, values, institutions and attitudes. It was this monumental event that Deepa Mehta based her next film on.

1947 Earth is a film adaptation of author Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel The Ice-Candy Man (as it was known in India. It was published under the title Cracking India abroad). The novel tells a story partly about the love affair between a Hindu girl and a Muslim boy, during a particularly politically tumultuous time in Indian history.

When Deepa Mehta translates the written word of the novel to its audio-visual representation on the screen, she chooses to abide, partially, by Bollywood’s style and introduces song and dance into the film. In the words of Manju Jaidka:

…It retells a ‘hyphenated’ story from a twice-hyphenated perspective. Sidhwa is a Pakistani-American and Mehta is an Indian based out of Canada. Yet Mehta’s cine version seems to overlap Sidhwa’s as both focus on a female version of history and both show how the ‘will of men’…subjugated Muslim, Sikh and Hindu women during Partition, resulting in a profound inequity in gender relations. (Jaidka, 2011)

1947 Earth centers around a group of friends who belong to different religious backgrounds and have to go through the horrors of the Partition and how their friendship is ripped apart as a result of the violence and aggression between their religious communities. The main

characters are Shanta (played by Nandita Das), who works in a Parsi household as the Aaya (nanny/caretaker) of a little girl called Lenny Sethna who is physically disabled because she suffers from Polio and needs a brace in order to walk. The story revolves around the two Muslim men, Dil Navaz (Aamir Khan) and Hassan (Rahul Khanna) who vie for the beautiful Shanta’s attention. Summary Themes, Motifs, Symbols and Characters Analysis

Chapter 5: Water – Politics of Religion

In Hinduism, water is sacred. It is believed to have magical cleansing powers, especially the water from the holy rivers of the country. Hinduism considers purity and avoidance of spiritual and well as physical pollution, very important. The Ganga river is seen as the most sacred of rivers; its waters are used in pujas and yagnas. Many also believe that a sip of water from the river on the death bed assures entry into heaven!

The final film of the trilogy, Water, is based on the lives of women whose husbands have died and how the society now treats them inhumanely. The film is presented through the eyes of Chuhiya, an 8-year-old child (similar to Lenny in Earth), who is happy, and fun loving. In the middle of the night she is awoken by her father and told that her husband (whom she doesn’t even remember getting married to) is dead. After, we see the heartbreaking scene when Chuhiya’s father drops her off at the widow’s ashram and she realizes that he is leaving her there for good.

At the ashram she finds herself among many women: First, she comes across Madhumati, the ‘boss’ of the home, whom everyone else listens to. She rules the ashram and expects everyone to agree with everything she says, literally! She is rude and domineering and Chuhiya dislikes her immediately. Then we meet Shakuntala, the silent but strong woman, who shows motherly tendencies towards the little girl right from the start, when she makes the other widows leave her alone and proceeds to rub turmeric paste on her head to ‘cool her temper down’. Next, we meet Kunti, who asks to be called Bua. Chuhiya and Bua bond over the memories of all the food and sweets they ate at their weddings. Bua, too, got married and widowed as a child. Bua is stuck in the past, forever

reminiscing the simpler times when the food at her wedding made her so happy, and how while after being widowed she was barred from eating such delicacies anymore, she longed to eat a laddoo again. Finally, we have Kalyani. A young and beautiful widow whom Chuhiya befriends. Everyone in the household treats her differently; she gets to stay in her own, private room while everyone else has to share a space, she is given the privilege of letting her hair grow out and often receives special gifts as well. All of this is because Madhumati uses her to earn money for the upkeep of the ashram; she sends her out with Gulabi, a hijra who serves Madhumati and brings her news from the ‘outside world’ and also feeds her drug addiction, and they cross the river to the large bungalows where Kalyani is made to spend nights with rich, old ‘seths’ or landlords in exchange for gifts and money.

Kalyani, by chance, comes across Narayan, a law student who recently returned home. He was one of many who got swayed by Gandhi’s philosophies and became a nationalist. He was instantly enamored by Kalyani to the point that he would sit outside the ashram and wait to get a glimpse of her. The two soon fell in love and decided to get married. When Madhumati found out, she was against it as their ‘income’ depended on her. As a punishment Madhumati cut off Kalyani’s hair, and locked her in her room. Shakuntala soon set her free and she ran to meet Narayan who wanted to introduce her to his parents. But when Kalyani found out that Narayan’s father was one of the landlords she was sent to, she could no longer agree to marry him. And since she did not want to go back to the ashram and resume her miserable routine again, she, in despair, ended her life by drowning herself in the river.

But unexpectedly, the film did not end here. Rather, it took an even darker turn. Since Madhumati no longer had someone to bring in cash for her and all the widows in the ashram were either too old, or not pretty enough, she sent Chuhiya with Gulabi, in the absence of

Shankuntala, under the pretense that Gulabi would take her home after they went to a friend’s place to ‘play’. It is a horrifying scene when the little girl is sent into the landlord’s chambers and she enters innocently and announces that ‘she is here to play’ before it cuts to the landlord who is sitting on a canopy bed, sipping alcohol, looking at her leeringly.

The second Shakuntala finds out she runs to the river, begging the men at the banks who row the boats to take her to the other side. But by then Gulabi has reached this end of the shore with a comatose Chuhiya who at seeing an enraged Shakuntala approaching them, flees. Shakuntala picks up the unresponsive girl from the boat and cleans her up before cradling her and sitting by the river for the night. In the morning, news spreads that Gandhi’s train will be stopping at the station for 5 minutes and that he would be greeting the people. Shakuntala decides to go see him, and when he leaving, decides to rescue Chuhiya from this life by handing her over to Narayan who is also on the train. Themes, Motifs, Symbols and Characters Analysis