Paheli (2005)

2005

Directed by: Amol Palekar

Music: MM Kreem

Lyrics: Gulzar

Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee, Juhi Chawla, 

Suniel Shetty, Amitabh Bachchan, 

Dilip Prabhavalkar, Rajpal Yadav, Anupam Kher, 

Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah

Just before Paheli was released, there was a great deal of interest in the project. It was the ultimate melting pot of the purely commercial, as represented by Shah Rukh Khan (incidentally, anyone remember a time when he was Shahrukh Khan?), Rani Mukherjee, and Amitabh Bachchan, and a very different type of cinema that was personified by Amol Palekar. Reactions verged from 'Amol Palekar has sold out' and 'SRK wants a National Award in his kitty' to a genuine interest in how the project would take shape. Post-release reactions were equally polarised. In fact, I have rarely seen a mainstream commercial film that garnered as many negative reactions as it did positive ones. I hadn't seen it yet, then, and I remember my younger cousin who was visiting from India telling me he hated it - 'A woman falling in love with a ghost!' were the exact words he used, in the most disparaging tones ever. I was slightly taken aback. He and I usually shared similar tastes when it came to music and movies. 

I was also disappointed - I like Rani Mukherjee. A lot. I also like SRK when he is not being "Rahul, naam toh suna hoga?" (Actually, I even liked his Rahul act in the beginning. It just got predictable after a while.) And there was Bachchan saab. Most importantly, it was an Amol Palekar film. I like his films. There is a sensitivity there that I find endearing. So... I sat and watched Paheli with a lot of reservations. 

Here's what happened - I fell in love with it. In its entirety. The plot, the acting, the colour palette, the songs... everything. So once again, I was dismayed when I saw the adverse reactions - ranging from 'She is an adultress' to my cousin's 'Yuck, it's totally unbelievable' (Of course it is! It's a fable!) to a lot of other criticism that made no sense to me. Keeping in mind that film watching is a very subjective experience, and no two people need, or will, see the same film when they watch it, and that everyone brings in their own interpretation into motives and characterisation... this is my opinion of Paheli.

But before that, briefly, the story:

 

Lachchi (Rani Mukherjee) is getting married, and while she had hoped to get married to someone from her own village, her groom is Kishenlal, son of Bhavani Singh of Navalgarh. It's the day before the wedding and her friends tease her - she is not going to get much sleep on her wedding night. Soon, too soon for Lachchi, it is time for her bidaai.  Sooner still, it seems, she is on her way to her in-laws' village. Her new husband, Kishenlal (Shahrukh Khan) is not only a serious man who has no time for her playfulness, he is engrossed in balancing the accounts of the wedding expenses. 

Despite Bhanwar Lal's (Anupam Kher) reluctance, the wedding party decides to take a short break on the way. They soon stop at a roadside inn, supposedly the residence of 108 spirits. Bhanwar Lal wants to go on, but is overruled. Her husband's aunt sends Lachchi off to the well to wash her hands and face. Enroute, a mischievous spirit, wanting to see the new bride's face, takes on the shape of a crow and...

Leaving her friend, Kamli (Aditi Govatrikar), who is fascinated by the spirit who's taken on the shape of a blue bird, Lachchi walks alone towards the bawdi (step-well). The blue bird follows her there. By this time, Lachchi is spooked.

Soon thereafter, they leave the inn, and the besotted spirit is quite despondent at their departure.

The way home is not enlivened by Kishenlal's presence. He is still engrossed in chasing an elusive account, and is quite miffed with Lachchi eating the roadside berries 'like a ganwar'. Things don't change much after they reach home either though Lachchi is very warmly welcomed by both her mother-in-law and her jethani, Garjobai (Juhi Chawla).

Kishenlal is still engrossed in his accounts; so much so, Lachchi has to ask him to lift her ghoonghat. It's when he reluctantly does her bidding that he suddenly remembers the one item he had not added - coconuts! As a shocked Lachchi looks at him aghast, she gets another, more severe shock - her new groom is going away the very next morning. For five years. It will be over in a flash, he assures her. And after all, she will be at home, with his family. It is he who is going to be alone in a strange place. And so, Lachchi finds herself weeping her heart out on her bed - alone; for as Kishenlal explains, why consummate the marriage when he is leaving the very next morning?

 

The next morning, Kishenlal leaves, sent off with many exhortations by his father, blessings from his aunt and sister-in-law, and a grieving mother. Only Lachchi is not to be seen. A disconsolate Kishenlal leaves without seeing his bride again. On the way, he stops at the same inn where they had stopped the day before. The spirit is perplexed. What is this man doing here so soon after his marriage? His puppet friends have no answer, and so the spirit sets out to solve the mystery. 

Besotted by Lachchi, the spirit decides to take her husband's place by her side; after all, no one is going to question him for five years. Back in Nawalgarh, Bhanwarilal is surprised to see Kishenlal back. Bhanwarilal is sure that his son has returned because he could not stay away from his wife. A businessman is useless after he marries, he says. But 'Kishenlal' has a reason to return. He's come to ask his father's advice. On the way, he had come across a sadhu who, pleased with his devotion, told him to return home. Every morning, the sadhu had told him, he would find five gold mohurs under his pillow. So, should he stay, or should he go? Unable to hide his avarice, Bhanwarilal accepts his 'son's' return joyfully. 

So 'Kishenlal' comes home. He is hardly able to believe his luck, though he is afraid it will not last. His mother and sister-in-law are overjoyed to see him, but none more so than his new bride. She is unable to hide her feelings; she knew he couldn't stay away, she tells him happily. The ghost is unable to keep up the deception, at least with her. He confesses that he is only a spirit who has taken on her husband's form for love of her. A disbelieving Lachchi only laughs, but the ghost reminds her of the crow, the squirrel and the blue bird at the bawdi. He loves her, but he will stay only if she wants him to, he tells her. Lachchi is broken-hearted. The ghost, not bearing to see her tears, turns to leave.

But she stops him: 'Jaanewale ko rok na saki; aanewale ko kaise rokoon?'

Lachchi and her 'husband' are soon deeply in love with each other, even while the ghost fears that soon the lawful husband will return to snatch his Lachchi away from him. Lachchi is content to live in the moment. Let the future be what it will. 

Meanwhile, back in Jamnagar, a lonely Kishenlal decides to write a letter to his bride. Unable to fashion a letter to her, he writes to his father instead and sends it via a messenger, Bojha (Rajpal Yadav). However, the ghost intercepts it, much to Bojha's consternation at seeing the person who gave him the letter to deliver, in front of him. Bojha is summarily dismissed and is quite angry at the treatment meted out to him. He's even more disconcerted when he goes back to Jamnagar and sees Kishenlal in front of him, wanting to know if his father had sent any reply!

Meanwhile, the ghost and Lachchi are still engrossed in their newfound love. So much so, the ghost cannot even bear to have Lachchi go to her maternal home for teej, as is the custom. Two years have passed, and everybody is happy. Lachchi is happy at having a husband who loves her; the ghost is happy to spend every waking moment with his beloved; Kishenlal's mother, grieving over her other son's absence is happy to have her younger son back home; Bhanwarilal is pleased to count his five gold coins every day... only the real Kishenlal, alone and forgotten, conducting his father's business in a faraway land is desolate. Acting on his servant's advice, he writes another letter home to ask for permission to return. But Bojha's wife, unable to stomach the insult offered to her husband the previous time, burns the letter.

Back home, the ghost has managed to convince his father that they need to build a bawdi for the village. Lachchi is happy, but not so much when he uses his powers to win the camel-race, the loss of which seven years ago had driven his brother from hearth and home. As she sadly explains, she had quite forgotten that he was a ghost. Why does he remind her? Each bit of magic that he does is yet another chance for him to be unmasked as an imposter. What if the price they have to pay for his winning the race is their relationship? Faced by her very real fear, the ghost promises not to perform any more magic. 

 

Storm clouds are nearer than they think... Kishenlal, lost in the pangs of separation, cannot understand why he hasn't heard from his family in the past four years. They have struck water in the parched land. Lachchi is pregnant, and while the family is ecstatic, the ghost is worried. As the puppets point out, what will happen when the real husband comes home? How will the real Kishenlal react to the news of his wife's pregnancy?

 

Paheli is a film about choices. It is also about consequences. It is about a woman's sexuality and her acceptance of the same. It is a film that is definitely not black and white, and I'm not talking about Ravi Chandran's exquisite cinematography that saturated the desert landscape with such vibrant colour. Finally, it is about human emotions - infatuation, love, grief, abandonment, greed... How far can, or should, a son go in his obedience to his parents? (Remember this is a folk tale, and that, from the land where Shravan is deified.) What is his responsibility to his newly-wedded wife? Does the wife have a right to choose her own destiny? Or should she bow her head down under the weight of her  ghoonghat?

A (Indian) friend argued that Lacchi comes from a bania background herself. Surely, she knew her husband would have to leave her alone for large stretches of time in order to trade? She's been brought up to accept such separations. My take away from that is, what if  Lacchi doesn't want to accept it? What if she wants a husband who will be there for her, with whom she can share her life?  Why is it so wrong for a woman not to accept hoary tradition? Would we, for instance, tell a woman that it is okay for her husband to demand that she bear a son? Hey, there's tradition behind that as well. Or, is it okay that young girls are not educated beyond a certain age, because they cannot be more educated than their husbands? If not, if women can (and should) rebel against archaic 'traditions', why is it not okay for Lacchi to seek her own happiness? 

She doesn't know her husband. At all. One day they are married, and the next he's gone. Yes, women do wait for their husbands who have to leave their families behind to earn their livelihood. Not all women are like Lacchi. True. But does that make Lacchi 'bad' to want something different for herself? She chose a certain path. There were consequences. In the original folk tale, the ghost/spirit disappears and Lacchi is left with her brute of a husband. Does that make it alright? I mean, that Lachhi paid for her sins! Does it make everyone heave a sigh of relief that natural order had been restored? Lacchi cannot possibly be happy, yes? Why are we in such a hurry to hang the red badge of shame on a woman who chose what she saw as the best of two options?

Yes, she doesn't spare a thought for her 'real' husband at the end; but I would argue - who is her 'real' husband? The man she married and who then bid farewell to her within hours of the marriage? Or the 'man' she shared her life with for the past four years, her joys and sorrows, her body and soul, whose child she carried within her? Is the wedding the marriage? Or is it the life she lived since then that is the real marriage?

Also, keep in mind this is a folktale; Indian folktales are famous for being allegorical; could we see the changed (from the original folktale) ending as the ghost and the husband being two sides of an individual? So that, in the end, they complete each other? Or should we look at it as Lachchi being able to exercise her choice only through a ghost?   

Rani had a role that was tailor-made for her. Her Lacchi was irrepressible, passionate, sensual, innocent. Rani's eyes and her irresistable smile made it very hard to not like her. She imbued her Lacchi with a charm that makes Lacchi not just an abstract concept but a real person. She made us see her conflict, and how her decision at the end is not a whim. 

 

When the spirit tells her the truth, and asks her whether she would prefer he disappear, she bursts into tears. The visibly discomposed spirit is about to leave when she bursts out, "aj tak mhari marji kisine nahin poochi." No one's asked her to make a decision for herself before. 'Jo tum pooch rahe ho, jawab dena kitna kathin hai, jaante ho? Apni ichcha se par ki hone ko keh rahe ho.' (Do you know, she continues, how difficult it is to make that choice? You are asking me to give myself to you, a stranger, of my own will!) Yet, she does precisely that. She was so alive whenever she appeared on screen that I wished she was there more often.

No one quite romanced on screen like the Badshah of Bollywood did once upon a time. He brought an innocence back to romance, and the combination of puppy-dog eyes and dimpled smile was positively incandescent on screen. Paheli came during that period. And this was a film where, playing the double role of both Kishenlal, the husband, and the spirit who appears in his stead, Shahrukh imbued both with a very different body language.

As Kishenlal, he was fussy and nervous, yet he was also the man devastated by being forgotten not only by his wife (to whom he faithfully writes long letters) but also by his family. He is the man who is heartbroken when he returns home and realises that no one really cares who he is. 

 

Shahrukh is also the shape-shifting mischievous spirit who falls in love with a girl, and is devastated to realise she is newly married. (He goes off to pour out his woes to two puppets, beautifully voiced by Naseeruddin Shah and his wife, Ratna.) He lives for that love, and he is willing to captured for that love. From the beginning, even though he is willing to impersonate Kishenlal and deceive everyone else in the family, he is always honest with Lachchi. The only thing that was disconcerting (to me) was Shahrukh's huge orange turban!

Of course, there were a couple of scenes where he reverted back to being Shah. Rukh. Khan., but they were rare. This is one of his finest roles, and one where he performed so well that it shocked me when, in a TV interview after its poor showing at the box-office, he disowned the film. I must confess that it made me think a little bit less of him.

Juhi Chawla appears in a small role as Kishenlal's bhabhi, Gajrobai, whose husband, Sunderlal (Suneil Shetty in a cameo) abandoned her whilst he ran away. She lent her role a dignity that is evident even in her grief, and I wished that I could have seen more of her. There is one scene where Lachchi begs her to come to the temple; perhaps, if she asks the deity to intervene? Devotion can work wonders after all. A stoic Gajrobai looks sadly at Lacchi and says, ''Jo apni marji se chale jaaye, unhe bhagwan se jora-jori karke wapas bulwaane ki kya darkaar hai, Lachchi?' (When someone leaves of his own free will, where is the need to beg God to compel him to return?)

 

 A special mention to Rajpal Yadav, who appears as a slightly manic messenger (he just blends into his character), to Dilip Prabhavalkar and to Anupam Kher, who plays Lacchi's slightly vaccuous uncle-in-law and avaricious father-in-law repectively. How can I not mention Amitabh Bachchan's fantastical shepherd? It is a cameo, but a wonderful one. And the two puppets. Naseer and Ratna made use of their theatrical roots to give life to two of the most lovable puppets I have ever seen on scene. They are both sutradhars and voices of caution.

 

Amol Palekar's Paheli is an accredited re-telling of Vijayadan Detha's novella Duvidha. It had been made into a film once before - by Mani Kaul. (Incidentally, I think 'Duvidha' is a far better title for the film than 'Paheli'. Because it is not a riddle, but a conflict. Even if it is not quite the conflict you think it is going to be.) He makes no attempt at explaining the story, he just puts it out there, and allows you to take away what you will. He lent a progressive twist to Detha's novella by changing the ending to reflect the woman's choice.

 

Paheli is a feminist fable, but not in the sense that you usually think of the label 'feminist'. This is a film where women seek, and make choices that allow them to live their lives within the constraints of their own traditional society. So, if Juhi's Gajrobai silently bears the grief of her husband's absence, but offers her support to Lacchi, whose life seems so different from hers until it all falls apart, there is strength in that choice. And so is Lacchi strong, in her decision to have a relationship with a husband who's not exactly her husband, in her decision to have and keep the baby even when she thinks she is going to lose her lover. So are the other women strong; for instance, Lacchi's mother-in-law, who consoles a grieving Lacchi (though the mother-in-law doesn't understand what Lacchi is really grieving for) telling her that there is no dishonour attached to her for becoming the mother of another man's (spirit's) child, for if they, the parents did not recognise their own son, then how could Lacchi be expected to? 

I watched the film again recently, and I fell in love with it all over again. And this time, I noticed some of the bitter-sweet scenes that I had not paid much attention to earlier. I could have wished for a slightly tighter editing, a better narrative for Juhi's character, perhaps cutting a couple of the songs (sacrilege! if you listen to them!), but in the final reckoning, it is a film that I really liked. Have you seen it? Did you like it? If not, why not? Share your thoughts in the comments.