— Khushi M P
There are few movies that leave the audience in a state of exuberant melancholy. Masaan is one of those movies. The movie came out in 2015 and stars some of Bollywood’s most talented, albeit underrated actors. The movie is set in Varanasi, a town in Uttar Pradesh. Varanasi is a place of holiness, a Hindu Heartland of sorts, and has been romanticized to no end in movies such as Raanjhana. Masaan showcases Varanasi in a very different light. The movie also does a great job of showing its nonconformity to the small town romcom trope that has gained traction in recent years. It is not trying to be aesthetically perfect, it is trying to show raw ground realities using meticulous cinematography.
The movie starts off with Devi Pathak, played by Richa Chadda, watching a porn movie. The scene follows Devi around as she changes into a saree and checks into a hotel room with her boyfriend. The police barges into the room and threatens both of them with human trafficking charges. Caught in a vulnerable situation, it was easy for a person in a position of power to prey and profit off of them. Devi’s boyfriend kills himself, leaving her to deal with the burden and consequences of the incident. The movie also follows, Deepak, played by Vicky Kaushal, who is a final year civil engineering student striving to get a job. His family has been working the lower caste job of burning dead bodies for generations. His parents do not wish for him to suffer that fate. Soon after his introduction, he meets Shaalu Gupta, a girl who is from a different social and economic class at a pani puri stall, and is instantly intrigued by her.
Masaan’s characters, first and foremost, are made of real life. They are people so familiar to us, because we see them all around us. They are our neighbours, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends. The movie stays away from trite tropes – the main character and faithful sidekick, for example, or the typical love story where the main leads get together in the end. There is an element of poetic realism in this movie. The screenplay written by Varun Grover delivers a beautiful cinematic experience. . It showcases the ordinary mortalities of life, keeping the extravagance of commercial cinema to the side. It is the mundane capturing of reality that makes the movie work – we enter the psychic space of the characters we see on screen and live their lives, feel their emotions.
The movie is riddled with references to social norms based on caste, class, gender. We see how power mainfests in different forms. The power that a policeman has over common citizens, the power that a father has over his daughter, the power that a loved dead person has over the living. Caste affects the characters in a very significant way. The friends they make, the job they get or can get, the position they hold in society. But in Masaan, we see that those boundaries can be trespassed. Devi is a Brahmin woman, and her father tries to cling desperately to the respect he has amassed when she is placed in a sticky situation. Initially, her father even appeals to the policeman to let them go on the basis of being from the same caste. She is skilled at computers, and uses economic independence as a tool to have some control over her life. Deepak and Shaalu’s love story is an inter-caste one. We see them connecting on Facebook, talking on the phone, going on bike rides together. Using the fruits of modernity, by embracing change, the characters move on from the situation they were given. The movie does not highlight class difference. It concentrates on the lower middle class, and how all the characters try to improve their financial situation. For Deepak, it is a question of leaving his town, his familial job and living a respectable life that his caste position in Varanasi did not allow. For Devi and her father, it is the blackmailing police officer who forces them to arrange an unattainable sum of money. Gender roles and how society treats men and women differently is visible all over this movie. The men earn, the women cook. The women cook even if they earn.
A movie like Masaan will probably never be the highest grossing movie of any year, but it can touch your heart and become your comfort movie. The film makers use symbols to get some unsaid points across. For example, when Shaalu dies in a car accident, Deepak holds on to her ring while mourning her. When he loses it, however, he is able to concentrate on other things in life and can think of moving on. It is obvious that the ring is symbolic of her, but it also signifies the part of him that does not want to forget her. In the end, both Deepak and Devi are left to cope with the death of their loved ones. They are on the verge of financial independence and starting life on their own terms. They meet as strangers at a river bank, when Deepak offers a crying Devi some water. The movie ends here, leaving the audience to find their own answers to what could happen after this. Ending with a question mark is one of the best parts of this movie, as the viewer’s mind keeps going back to the story. You can’t help thinking about it, about how accurately the movie reflects society, and how lovable the flawed characters are. Massan ends on a note of the most beautiful form of hope. It is a movie I will never forget, and keep going back to whenever I need a break.
Edited by Anoushka Agastya
Design by Abhiram V M
Article 19 