My heart belongs to Bollywood Benares

Tum aao gulshan-e-Lahore se chaman bardosh
Hum aayein subah-e-Banaras ki roshni lekar

Masaan is a difficult film to write about; Masaan is the easiest film to recommend. There is none of that defensive Well-I-Liked-It or the half-hearted Why-Don’t-YOU-Watch-It-And-Tell-Me or an outright Ba’ad Mein Mujh Se Ticket Ke Paise Na Maangna. But when you begin to write about it, you start to dither. Nervous that you will pin down the gossamer wings of its moment with your clunky words. I have described it elsewhere as the tremulous sweet, Daulat ki Chaat. It is a frothy ‘suggestion’ of a sweet that can only be experienced – words might just tear apart its fabric. Later, when I speak to Varun Grover, the writer and lyricist for the film, he serendipitously describes to me the Benares sweet malayio and I will now forever link Daulat with Masaan.

Thoughts as I watched the film? No Good Comes Out Of Having Sex In India – or self-deprecating black humour to that effect as the opening moments feature a surreptitious rendezvous that goes terribly wrong. It’s then that you note how lucky we are to have Richa Chadda who gets small-town India’s grit and vulnerability down pat. Her character Devi doesn’t shy from reaching out, from realizing there is a world out there, being angry and also aware of the chicken coop from Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger. Remember Adiga with his “hundred of pale hens and brightly coloured roosters, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages”? They know they will be next, but they cannot rebel.

Thoughts as I watched the film? No Good Comes Out Of Having Sex In India

Adiga could just as well be writing about the other protagonist in this tale set in Benares: Deepak. Deepak who is studying to be an engineer and has grown up Dom. Deepak who explains patiently to a family that only knows an India where caste clips your wings or where you pay to get a “pakki sarkari naukri”.

Two characters ready to flee the coop.

Until Love, Sex and (how do we put it?) waqt and dandey wali sarkar ka dhoka happen.

You discover that the Ganga figures as the other character in the film: the Ganga as a social map and Deepak’s outburst as an effervescent Shalu quizzes him about his home; the Ganga and its parallel economies with the river morphing into a site where one takes a wager on endurance – and a story arc that covers the relationship between Devi’s father and the sprightly Jhontu. Later, as the sun descends and spools of social anthropology unfurl in a haze of ganja and cheap alcohol, the Ganga will keep its secrets as lovers steal kisses or shed angry tears.

The city may ask of you, why leave when the world is coming here to you?

There are so many vignettes popping up in this film. Verily, a veritable Ganga. The use of the film Qayamat Se Qaymat Tak’s “Ghazab Ka Hai Din”, which strikes nostalgic cheer and our fears of how things can go rapidly wrong in the same chord. Devi’s angst at never escaping the city and that brief moment when she holds power as city slickers beg her for a train seat out. The kindly Sadhya Ji who may just be another shackle holding her down. And all those other moments you will discover as you watch and repeat-watch this film. It is believed (as one of the characters shares) that one needs to visit Sangam (Allahabad) twice. Masaan needs to be revisited. Many, many times more.

When you are a graduate student struggling with dissertation deadlines, any tales of a mysterious water reservoir granting the knowledge of this world is very welcome. I read about the Gyan Kapur (the well of knowledge) situated in the compound of the Vishwaneth Temple in Benares at a particularly difficult time, negotiating my thesis a decade ago. I am thinking of that promise now and of my visit to the well later that year as I watch Masaan. I know that the writer and director behind this project, Varun Grover and Neeraj Ghaywan, have indeed in their nomadic student lives and work, resorted to ghaat ghaat ka pain piya hoga, but this stop at the Benares ghat has done them very well.

Benares on celluloid has suffered kitsch, the cliched mandirs, aarti, paan and Holi

I asked Grover and Ghaywan how Masaan escaped unscathed from the city’s moral thekedar, the film touching as it does the contentious areas of caste and sexuality in the city. Varun believes that they did not face trouble as the past decade has seen film crews descending on the city and the neighbourhood. There is less anxiety now, less of the diffidence that fuels paranoia about cameras in the city. And yes, it helps that, over the years, local production house have set up shop in the city, helping filmmakers from outside (like them) with the logistics. He confesses that Benares showered the film crew with affection and that they were told that the story had a ‘personal connect’ and non-provocative commentary on the city.

Later, though, he shares how, for a while, the movie’s working title was Raand Bhand Seedhi Sanyasi (from the doha, Raand Bhand Seedhi Sanyasi / In se bache tou seve kaasi), but they were dissuaded by well-wishers of the project. The fates of the four central characters in Masaan are intertwined with this doha. The raand (originally the child widow-turned-prostitute) is Devi, who is now viewed as promiscuous by her city. Deepak (the Dom) is the sandh (necessary but avoidable). Jhonta is the child who dives off the steps straight into the Ganga and the sanyasi is Sanjay Mishra’s character, a former man of letters who has set up shop by the riverside.

"It has been a long safar. The Hindi safar and the English 'suffer'. Both, for maza to tab hai"

I confess to Varun and Neeraj about how conflicted I felt about the city now, caught between Pankaj Mishra’s The Romantics (a book that had me moving bori bistar to Benares) and Masaan, which is all about flight from the city. But then, Benares is the abode of Shiva – a place where cycles are shattered, spirits rehoused, identity reconfigured. A city where the living come in hope of rebirth. And for some months, this city of changes spiritual and material watched Grover and Ghyawan go hammer and tongs at their story, drafting redrafting, until Ghyawan’s short story about a cremation ground and a young Dom became Masaan. Ghyawan was still a corporate lackey when a colleague told him about the surreal world of a cremator. The macabre held on to him: the worldview of these men, probably unlettered, but the epics they must have lived… Ghyawan shared his short story with Varun and he too had a similar fascination for (and here he breaks into the Hyderabad of his childhood) “Wo ek sufbiana mahaul tha as you may say in Urdu, sama’h that just fascinated us.”

Masaan was never written with Benares in mind. All they wanted was a town set near a river, a cremation ground. A series of serendipitous moves followed. Benares came much, much later. Varun adds here: “Indian films have never explored the city, other than of course the trope of Bombay in films, with the city perpetually etched as a dangerous place. Somehow, Benares, for me, had that mix of complexity that merited this project. The city had been kind to me as a student: it gave me my first creative reward… theatre.”

Neeraj feels it’s important to acknowledge how he never thought of this film as being about Benares; rather, this is a film about Benarsis. “I had only that short story, yes. But then it’s not as if I spent my childhood in this city. I don’t have family in this city. But I remember that feeling of joy in my initial reconnaissance days in the town when I once missed my train out of Benares. I knew then that this maut ka sheher would turn out to be my salvation. Now, the people of this city, the Benarsi, are just the opposite. Zinda dil hain. I remember waiting for Varun some days at shops. The endless chai, the plates of chaat, local food, people’s stories, some of the most wonderful conversations on politics and music. And the day would pass away. Seriously, in big cities, could one have this luxury? Could we even spare a minute this week for anything but to file our income tax and meet our deadlines?”

They feel that their movie will appeal to most audiences and definitely to people like the protagonists of this film, who have this sudden urge to escape, having felt all their lives that they were cut off from the rest of world. Cities like Benares are self-contained little universes. So even if one were to just up and go… go where? For the city may ask of you, why leave when the world is coming here to you? And the young will mutter about shedding their awkward mantle of an inferiority complex, the mortification of going to a big city on a break, and then not having the confidence to speak with young cousins who pepper their conversation with English.

Where does Devi and Deepak’s confidence come from then, I ask Grover. “Well, both were aware of the possibilities beyond their town. Devi’s was to shatter this worldview of what constitutes ‘moral’. For Deepak, it was his caste. Gender too remained a shackle. There is a scene in the film that got cut, where the little boy Jhonta has been rebuked by Pathak ji. He comes to Devi for dinner. Agar mujhe phir haath lagaya, mein chala jaoonga. Where would you go, asks Devi, if he were to shun us all. Barey sheher. The big city for wahan barey sheher mai koi koi kisi ko nahi jaanta.” This pain of everybody knowing you. And the words that will hold you forever to your shackles.

The two share an engineering background – ditto the actor Vicky who plays Deepak. I tease them about the use of science and technology, which becomes salvation for Devi and Deepak, their ticket out. How Nehruvian! Neeraj agrees: “Yes, it may have been conscious. For a while, the small town on film has been treated as satire. Benares on celluloid has suffered kitsch, the cliched mandirs, aarti, the paan and Holi. I refused all that in the film, though my local coordinator would come and say, ek shot daal dein...”

Neeraj speaks with great fondness of his cast. “Sanjay Mishra had to play the audience’s eye. His internal conflict is the audience’s gaze. After all, he has raised his daughter as ‘modern’. She has been the son. He believes in her having a voice, proud of her work. But then there are all these other societal pulls, of morality, which his city tells him that Devi has challenged. So he is constantly asking himself, What Is Right? For me, it was a deliberate effort not to get into the whole grovelling poverty cycle. These people and their story is the character. We had to immerse ourselves in this city. We just became Benarsi. Mazaj samjha, my actors had to become Benarsi in the city’s image. So, though I am not a believer or an agnostic, when the local crew would say, please do this or that puja I just did it, just to get the form right.

“Our Vicky, yes, is a method actor. But Richa did a lot to, as we say, mazaj pakadne keliye. Her internal agitation, her character’s… her Devi had a tomboyish streak. That she wore those floaters. That backpack on her left shoulder. And then she was grieving. I made her watch Blue from Three Colours, Bandit Queen and some of my other favourite films. Hers was a difficult character to write. Such conflicted feelings. She can be confident. Speaks her mind. But then so much was internalized. I was also particularly attached to the group discussion scene. I went to a B-school. I knew when it came to this bit… we may be friends, all friends, all trying to make a point. How quickly that friendship shifts. It’s a rat race. We would all read this Manohar book. I made sure we showed the characters holding it.”

We had to speak about the use of “Ghazab Ka Hai Din” from the QSQT soundtrack. Says Varun, “Oh, we felt it was very important, that movie coming when it did, the shift from action to romantic. And yes, it has a refrain of a doomed love story. We couldn’t use the full song: it becomes too expensive with the rights issue. We only had rights to 90 seconds.”

Neeraj adds, “QSQT has always been an inspiration, that old-world romance. It was just our attempt to bring back the ‘falling in love’. Today, they just don’t show the process. Nothing gets those palpitations going. And yes, that we got to use the song was the cherry on top.”

So what next? Neeraj’s parents, who are not as cross with him now as they were when he gave up his engineering and management training, are now pestering him to appear some day on film. Bus ek chothe se role mai aajao. He sighs: “Parents and their Armaan. Hazaaro khwahishe.” He has framed his Cannes award (and made six copies of it). He reminisces about Cannes and the standing ovation: “Frankly, I just blanked out. There were no Indians other than our team. And this feeling of closure. It had been a long safar. The Hindi safar and the English ‘suffer’. Both, for maza to tab hai.”

Pakistan must see the movie, both agree. Anywhere in the world where there are small towns, there will be stories of hope; everywhere, there are the same stories of hope. Varun quips: “Pakistan will love it, their sense of humour, Lahore’s sense of humour, Punjabi humour. Lagta hai Partition mai humour wohi reh gaya.”

And what of Varun’s Benares Memories?

The dhrupad festival. It happens on the banks of the Ganga and is open to all. Dhrupad is not the simplest of Hindustani classical musical genres. One has to move from the higher scales to the lower. It is held three days before Shiv Ratri. Such a niche moment with music lovers sitting on gaddas – it begins at 8 pm and goes on till morning.

Malaiyo. It is a sweet made from boiling milk until it thickens. You place the steel pot in a boat and take it out in the cold of the night and let the dew set in. Scrape the froth the next day – that that is your malayio.

And you haven’t lived until you’ve experienced a Benares dawn, an Oudh evening.