A few days ago I saw the film Chitrangada by Rituparno Ghosh at the Kashish film festival
A few days ago I saw the film Chitrangada by Rituparno Ghosh at the Kashish film festival. I loved the idea of the film, the outstanding introduction of Tagore’s play, Chitrangada within the film, but was not quite happy about the excessive melodrama, trite dialogues and self-consciousu00a0sex scenes.
I felt this great urge to discuss my views with the writer/director/actor, Rituparno, whose film Choker Bali (Grit in the Eye) I absolutely loved and whose other film Antarmahal (Inner quarters) made me very uncomfortable with its brilliant intertwining of palace, religious and sexual politics. Then my friend, who was trying to connect us, told me Rituparno had died. A heart attack. He was barely 50. Even though I never met him, I felt I had lost someone very close and dear.
ADVERTISEMENT
Illustration/ Devdutt pattanaik
I remember the joy I felt long ago when I read in a magazine that he was reading my book, Jaya, on the Mahabharat and that he was planning to do a film on Draupadi. But that film will never happen.
Chitrangada, in the Mahabharat, is simply a princess of Manipur. Her father has no sons and so he allows her to marry Arjun, provided he does not claim the children born of the union. It suggests a kind of matriarchal society, where the daughter’s children become heirs. Later, Chitrangada’s son, Babruvahan, fails to recognise Arjun, and defeats him in battle.
But Rabindranath Tagore gave this ancient tale an amazon twist, perhaps influenced by folk narratives based on the Mahabharat. In his opera, Chitrangada’s father wants a son but is given a daughter by the gods. He raises this daughter as a man, a warrior, and during a hunt she captures the handsome Arjun, who is on a 12-year exile from his own land. She falls in love with him but fears Arjun will reject her because she is manly (in fact, he assumes she is a man because she is such a good warrior). So Chitrangada asks Madan, god of love to make her more womanly. She approaches Arjun thus, and Arjun falls for her. When Manipur is attacked, people cry out for the warrior-princess and Arjun learns of her for the first time. He longs to meet this woman who he feels is extraordinary. A pleasantly surprised Chitrangada, begs Madan to restore her to her original form, and Arjun loves her even more. Thus Arjun loves Chitrangada for who she is, not what she pretends to be.
In the film, the man who claims to love Rudra, the character played by Rituparno himself, rejects Rudra when Rudra decides to change his gender through surgery, and become a woman, so as to fit into a normative heterosexual framework. But his lover loves him as he is; he does not like the idea of gender transformation. But what of Rudra’s desires? Are they less important than the lover’s or that of society? Answers are not simple. All a storyteller can do is make us think. And Rituparno provoked many such thoughts. I thank him for that. Rest in peace, my friend.
The author is Chief Belief Officer of the Future Group, and can be reached at devdutt@devdutt.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.u00a0
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
