Laaga Chunari Mein Daag and the Urban Bourgeois Self-Image

(this piece originally appeared on NG, it has been somewhat edited here)

Much has changed in both urban and rural India since the economic reforms of the 90s. The social, political and economic dynamics are too complex to take in with a single stroke but there are at any rate ‘many’ Indias operating at different speeds. This ought not to be surprising. In the messianic framework of global capitalism what is never allowed for is ‘difference’. Ironically it is precisely ‘capital’ that is quite extraordinary in terms of adjusting to ‘difference’ and normalizing these strands, often in very violent ways. But the ’story’ of globalization is only ever peddled as one of ‘progress’ and ‘liberation’. But for ‘who’? And for ‘what’? The freedom to ‘consume’ is not necessarily true freedom. These different ’speeds’ and dynamics of ‘modernity’ are visible all over the planet. ‘Modernity’ (which might just be another name for ‘Westernization’ or ‘Americanization’ or more profoundly a ‘globalization’ that is simply an ‘effect’ of ‘colonialism’) is highly varied; it does not at any rate operate only along an index of consumption.

Pradeep Sarkar has taken on the rather interesting and incredibly thankless task (given the current dispensation on these matters) of showing up a mirror to the violence of urban bourgeois society. To his even greater credit he handles the critique in very direct ways. It is amusing to see his film being tagged with the ‘regressive’ label. His is one of the most ‘progressive’ films in a very long time and the opposite tag it is getting in the media is either a sign of obtuseness or ideological polemics. What was commonplace in the cinema of the 90s by way of Yashraj and Karan Johar (and in fact even elsewhere for the most part) was truly regressive. This was however lapped up as the ‘progressive’ whereas the true critique is rejected as being archaic. Not surprisingly the Karan Johar films coddled the bourgeois classes and helped nurture their complacency in cultural terms (among others). Any ideology does not exactly liked being questioned!

Sarkar’s Laaga Chunari Mein Daag does the opposite. It imagines an ‘other’ India of small towns and small town aspirations and of the collision that sometimes comes about when one world encroaches on the other. It is a study of how alienating bourgeois codes might be to the self-aware, it is also a reflection on how the ‘mediatized’ global might create the illusion of sameness and ‘nearness’ among different societal segments and obfuscate entirely the deep divides.

For a multiplex audience in contemporary India this ‘other’ India (and there is not only one ‘other’, there are many) is what is constantly being ‘wished’ away. The cinema of the 90s again helped foster this blindness. The political realities of caste and religion, ethnicity and race, language, economics, anything that might not correspond to ‘urban bourgeois desire’ was effaced. Below the surface the most conservative (and reactionary) positions were advanced and this was what truly appealed to the target audiences. It is therefore a rude shock for the very same to learn that in the heart of their imagined ‘renaissance’ there is still sexism, gender bias, sexual politics, economic exploitation and so forth thriving rather remarkably. It is an even greater tremor for the same to be shown how violent and hypocritical their cherished system is. That there are ‘escort’ girls operating in the highest echelons of this new corporate India is surely not debatable, that there are women who arrive every single day in a city like Bombay from smaller, more insular environments like Varanasi and get exploited in all sorts of ways, not least sexually, that the very same women because of the very same bourgeois codes find themselves with very limited choices in life beyond a point is also hardly a revolutionary idea. This happens all over the world. This is a rather common portrait of the supposedly most ‘feminist’ societies on the planet and it is also the same in India. ‘Prostitution’ is not just about an economically lower class streetwalker. It is also about women coming from far more privileged backgrounds but somehow ending up in glorified versions of the same trade. A film industry in any society of the world is often a conduit to precisely such ‘prostitution’ for women who do not quite make it. Similarly corporate environments from the US to India operate with high levels of sexual harassment and exploitation. The ’secret’ that bourgeois audiences find incredibly hard to fathom is not just that this happens but that many of the women in these equations are not necessarily ‘victims’.

The old masala movies were greatly comforting in this sense. The fallen woman who would either get seduced and left to die (and often ended up dying after all the calumny heaped on her!), or get raped by the worst specimen of humanity, or even the courtesan who would be able to freely practice her ‘dance’ without really being forced to sell her body. Sexual exploitation in such a world was always the ‘exception’, most ‘nice girls’ did not end up in this way, and most ‘nice boys’ did not do the exploiting. Even otherwise the world where this happened seemed to be often safely removed from the cultural orbit of the ‘ruling classes’. It always happened ’somewhere out there’. Much as today the same audiences are horrified to learn about caste wars in Bihar or UP and therefore enjoy their representations as ‘heart of darkness’ places in cinema, in identical ways they were always happy with those earlier tropes that seemed to operate at a distance from their experience.

The road to the ‘high class escort’ is never presented as an inevitability in Laaga Chunari Mein Daag. It is, somewhat boldly, presented as possibility, and an entirely plausible one within the framework of the narrative. The radical move here is precisely not that Rani Mukerjee had no choice but that she did in some ways and most women in her position also do. Rani’s character in the film does not have an overdetermined fate in this context. Sarkar knows this and therefore in the climactic moments of the film there is really no apologia from the female protagonist. She has through the course of the film suffered remarkable pain but she has not really considered herself a victim. She defends her choice as a ‘necessary’ one in some ways but refuses to ‘justify’ it. There is a great difference. The Rani character makes a choice at a certain point in time which is not the only choice she could have made. She is always aware of this. The critics have misread this point quite profoundly. In an older cinema such a theme would always involve no individual autonomy, here it does. Before calling such a narrative ‘unrealistic’ one must ask oneself this: how do so many women become ‘escort girls’ in the first place when clearly it is a requirement of their profession that they belong to somewhat more elevated strata of society and thereby be able to function in a world where presumably a ‘low class hooker’ would not be acceptable? It is this level of autonomy that Sarkar confers on the main character that is the film’s most interesting move. The film opens up a space for the authentic representation of a ‘choice’ or the same for the proper understanding of a social phenomenon. Sarkar does not treat Rani as a victim very much. He treats her as a woman who always makes strong choices in life, some of which are more socially determined than others (this is surely true for anyone in any society), but ultimately are her ‘own’.

But Sarkar goes beyond this. This film is not just an essay in individuality or feminism (though it is certainly both) but also a sharp critique of bourgeois mores and an equally acerbic one of an urban upwardly mobile India that would shut its eyes to any and everything not consonant with its world-view. One of the most interesting characters in the film is the mother played by Jaya Bachchan who goes through enormous grief upon learning that her daughter has been somehow pushed into making this sort of choice because of pressures exerted by the family but who is also willing to along with it beyond a certain point, not by reveling in the economic advantages offered by such a ‘deal’ but by making a miserable compromise with her lot in life. Similarly her husband, Kher, who is unaware of this development till the very end nevertheless castigates himself when the truth is revealed for having been an irresponsible, self-pitying husband and father, and not doing enough to alleviate the family troubles and in fact also calls his wife (in another significant moment) the ‘mother’ and ‘father’ of the family. There have been comparable moments earlier in the film when Kher rues not having a ’son’ and Rani Mukerjee feels the responsibility to become such a ’son’.

When the sister played by Konkona Sen Sharma learns the truth somewhat earlier than her father she, in a surprising move, apologizes to the sister for having been co-responsible with her parents of producing this situation or for never bothering to find out the source of the ‘funds’ because of her satiety in the same.

In a somewhat related way the employer who first propositions Rani Mukerjee sits in his office with a very nice picture of his wife and child facing him. It is obvious that he does this sort of thing rather regularly. He represents a very urbane and genteel kind of yuppie even if he has acted in enormous bad faith. But Rani’s more permanent employer really seems to be a ‘nice guy’ whenever he makes his appearance in the film and Rani shares a somewhat comfortable relationship with him. In fact the film juxtaposes the two characters here. Rani rejects the first ‘yuppie’ precisely because he has cheated her, by changing his mind after he’s made her submit to his will, by offering her money instead of the employment he promises earlier. She rejects him completely and rejects the money that he offers as well. She does not in a way ‘prostitute’ herself to him. She does so in the second instance and onwards where the decision has really been her ‘own’.

In a lighter though significantly parallel scene that connects with the social critique point I am trying to make Kunal Kapoor mocks Konkona Sen Sharma for not being familiar with the ‘modern Indian woman (the photograph of a model is the subject of the discussion). Konkona retorts by showing him a news story where a truly liberated woman hailing from a small town is practising gynecology. The question is this: is the model who represents a global ’stereotype’ of her profession more of a ‘liberated’ and ‘modern’ Indian or is it the example in Konkona’s news story?

Sarkar meanwhile is also alert to the attraction the superbazaars of cinema and pop culture represent for small town residents. A comparable ‘history’ was captured in Bunty aur Babli along more masala lines and here also there are enough windows offered into this ethos. The two sisters are obsessed with Shahrukh Khan’s house! When a film crew lands up at their residence to arrange a filming they are ecstatic.

But the film does not in turn offer stereotypes on either side. Much as there is much that is objectionable in the imagined ‘liberation’ of the new India, much as there are characters that represent the violence of the new dispensation, there is also equivalent violence on the other side. The parents are indicted by the director in the ways already mentioned but a close relative and his son are also nasty customers in this ‘family’ racket, constantly waiting to grab some money, whichever way it comes. The son here eventually starts extorting money from Rani once he learns about her trade on the threat of exposing her in her home town. Again Abhishek is the truly progressive lawyer also operating in the same corporate environment. A friend who keeps helping Rani in the film and who tries to dissuade her from taking up ‘prostitution’ very much represents a ‘new generation’ character. There are other examples either way but in any case there are no easy dichotomies in the film.

Sarkar in the final analysis has made a very progressive work that unfortunately does not match the self-image of many of his audiences. Moreover he also does offer any easy platitudes to the other side either. The film is perfectly placed, not melodramatic in the least, and there are series of wonderful performances here.

One of the greatest strengths of the film is the wonderful visual texture Sarkar gives it. It is hard to think of the last film that so lovingly and authentically conjured up a ‘real’ India of the quotidian. Sarkar is really in his element when the film operates in Varanasi but there are some fine Bombay shots here as well. And of course there is that attention to the little detail that is again a thing of the past in most of contemporary Hindi cinema. When was the last time one saw a girl missing a bus in Bombay? And there is fine lighting throughout, again especially in the Varanasi shots.

Does he take some cinematic liberties nonetheless? Yes and this is simply another definition of cinema. The truth being offered here is far greater than any imagined demands of realism. The film offers a powerful social critique twinned with a properly feminist story. Sadly both do not suit the contemporary mood of the purveyors in these matters.