Disturbed by Vivah…

[Bits of discussions that appeared earlier on NG... I should add here that despite my reservations about the film's climax I find the narrative quite passable and would have considered the movie more or less harmless were it not for this ending..]

SATYAM
I didn’t mind Vivah despite the ‘traditional India’ fantasy till that ‘fire’ sequence came up. What happens thereafter was more than a little disturbing for me. I am very suspicious of this ‘agnipareeksha’ like trope! Admittedly it was something else that provided the impetus here but Seema Biswas (the stepmother) warms up to Amrita Rao only after the latter goes through that ordeal of fire and rescues her sister.

QALANDAR
Barjatya in a sense inverts the agnipareeksha in Vivaah doesn’t he? i.e. in a social paradigm where women are prized above all for their looks, the “test” here is for the male — i.e. can Shahid’s character show that he is virtuous enough to stay loyal to the marital bond — not the female…

I do agree that there is a cop-out inasmuch as Barjatya has Amrita’s face end up quite unscarred, making the film perhaps psychologically more palatable for an audience that might otherwise be tempted to regard the female character as “damaged” (recall the unfortunate audience reaction to the plot twist in Indra Kumar’s Mann), but that doesn’t change the fact that in this film it is not Sita but Ram who has to undergo the agnipareeksha…

SATYAM
You rightly point out that her face remains undamaged therefore allowing the audience to remain in love with the heroine!

As for the ‘agnipareeksha’ your point is a valid one except that it is still the woman who has to walk through fire! In other words wouldn’t one rather be the male here?! Of course it is also interesting that as opposed to doing it for Ram the Sita here almost has to do this for another woman — her stepmother. The other thing to keep in mind here is that the scars will be completely healed with time (and plastic surgery, Barjatya is suddenly rather ‘modern’ in this aspect!) and so while Shahid Kapoor has passed the test in his own way he will ultimately get the woman he (and the audience) has been in love with in every sense! Finally Raam seems not to have doubts about Sita’s chastity but recognizes the test as being politically expedient. Hence he relies on a symbolic order in the tale and Barjatya also invokes this symbolic order by having Amrita Rao walk through fire in order to prove her fidelity to her family in the most complete way.

But of course there’s another twist here. Sita can emerge unscathed from the fire, thereby proving her chastity. Amrita Rao can do so only by literally getting burnt. For Raam it is the lacky of bodily damage that seals the deal, for Shahid Kapoor it is the very evidence of this that establishes Amrita Rao as true in the most enormous sense. Not that he was asking for such a test! But he got it anyway. In this way Barjatya is a Christian of sorts! The body must suffer! of course only the woman’s body suffers here! Shahid is simply asked to have the moral rectitude to stand by her, the moment he does the surgeon will announce the wonders of plastic surgery. This last is actually a true blue miracle in Barjatya’s world! This is a universe where man’s landing on the moon would still be news!

What I have nonetheless realized is that it isn’t that Barjatya depicts small town life that people then relate to but that he puts forth a fantasy of small town life that people find enormously compelling in an age where traditional lifestyles and mores seem increasingly under threat. And within this world he is able to fashion the kind of pre-teen romance that would seem absurd in any other setting! It makes for a potent mix for sure. At the same time I am unsure if Barjatya can get this sort of result with a major star. I think that within this framework the lesser known star or one who’s not big enough adds to the ’small town, small people’ appeal of the subject.