Adrija Guha
Assistant Professor of English, JIS College of Engineering, Kalyani, Nadia, West Bengal.A
plush apartment in Mumbai. A woman sitting in front of a laptop and doing some
work. Aruna Chaturvedi. A Professor of Linguistics and a writer. Another woman,
a maid, cleaning utensils in the kitchen. Another woman enters. Dolon Sen. A
banker. The maid says that she will not be able to come to work the next day as
her pregnant daughter will come to her house. Aruna does not say anything.
Dolon asks the maid to come as her daughter is just pregnant and not sick. The
maid replies that she will be unable to come even if it means that she might
lose her job. Then she comments on how ‘these’ women will never understand the
importance of the situation as they have not married, neither do they have
children. In short they do not know anything about the family life. Soon after,
another woman (once a man) is introduced to us. Mira, a film director, who has
undergone a sex reassignment surgery and is about to make a documentary on her
own life. Later on, their friend
Subhadra Parekh, a journalist who "lives life to the fullest", drops
in after her lover beats her up.
Ten
minutes into the film and yet we do not come across any male character. In fact
there has not been any male character throughout the film, except in a few
references (Peter, Mira’s boyfriend, Sangram, Subi’s husband and Avinash,
Aruna’s ex). Immediately the film strikes a chord. Here we have women who have
lived their lives on their own terms. They are successful in terms of their
career. The apartment is a proof of their social status for which they are not
dependent on any man. The voice of the maid acts like the voice of the society,
the outer world (as against their inner world, the cocooned apartment), which
has always judged women on the basis of their family life. As said by one of
the characters (Mira), these women have fought against “the social stigma”, and
have fought for identity. Then, what exactly does the film tries to convey? A
review of the film notes: “Mouthing theatrical dialogues and addressing a
series of existential questions, the three middle-aged women go about a
seemingly casual evening as if they’re onstage, mulling about how their lives
panned out” (Rosario).
However
the film is much more than that. Taking a cue from John Berger’s enormously
influential book Ways of Seeing, where he has asserted that the way we
see things is affected by what we know or what we believe (Waugh 509), I want
to argue in my paper how the film Sonata deals with the ways in which
things can be seen. The film offers a
number of possible pleasures. There are circumstances in which looking itself
is a source of pleasure. Every now and then we find Dolon looking through the
window of their apartment at another seemingly single and lonely woman in the
opposite building. At one particular scene we find Dolon predicting the actions
of this woman and, interestingly, the woman does the same things. At one point
she says, “… now she will install herself in front of that PC and not move her
ass till midnight” (Sonata 22:20-27); she turns around and finds Aruna
installing herself in front of her PC, saying that though she does not like it,
she has to complete her chapter before their friends arrive. The result is a
total subversion of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Rear Window (there is a
reference to this film even) and thereby, of the male gaze. Sen’s film has a
female viewer and the gaze is not limited to the voyeuristic gaze. (Though,
quite interestingly, Aruna calls Dolon a “voyeur”.) What Dolon identifies in
this other woman is routine, boredom, friendlessness and loneliness. This runs
parallel to her own realisation that “ we are all in boxes; you, me, that woman
in the window …” (Sonata 21:03-12). Unlike in Rear Window, where
the viewer enjoys what he sees, Dolon here does not take pleasure in what she
sees. She can identify herself with the woman and thus she even tries to help
her out in her own way: “I… waved at her from the window and smiled. She
slammed the windows shut” (Sonata 28:28-32). Later in the film she once
says, “She must be terribly friendless… she looks so alone. … I wonder how she
lives all alone like that. … We’ve been here now what 20 years, I’ve seen her
grow old, slowly, imperceptibly” (Sonata 23:43-24:28). Then she adds, “I want
to see that woman once, all dressed up, wearing make-up, and an expensive
dress, smiling, getting ready to go for a party. Surely this can’t be all that
there’s to her life!”(Sonata 33:12-33:30). In this particular scene
Dolon seems to be in the same position as the cinema audience; she is forced to
see this woman as a spectator, just like us who can only see these women or
rather this film as spectators. On the basis of what Dolon sees, she concludes
about the situation of that woman just like us who, while watching this film,
may think that this film is nothing but another movie about the loneliness of
unmarried and successful women. Isn’t this how middle-aged, unmarried women are
seen by the society? Successful but lonely? We do remember Kate Chopin’s famous
short story, Regret, where the fiftyish unmarried woman realizes how
empty and lonely her life is without a family after she takes care of her
neighbour’s children for a brief period of time. Dolon and Aruna’s friendship
negates this typical mind-set. At the same time they also negate the concept
that women do not like other women or can never think good about other women.
They stand for sisterhood.
Dolon comes across as a fun-loving, bubbly and feisty character as opposed to
the serious Aruna. Aruna, the linguistic
scholar, won’t even stand foul language; she’s comfortable living by the social
code of a time whose scriptures she deciphers. While she’s in her prudish
cocoon, her long-time friend and roommate Dolon is the butterfly that Aruna
never quite morphed into. Dolon is the little devil on Aruna’s shoulder, always
coaxing her into things that she’s uncomfortable with. When Dolon receives a letter
from home, we are not told what is exactly written in the letter. Instead, the
camera focuses on Aruna who tells us the content and the way she says it, shows
that this has always been the content of all the letters that Dolon receives
and has ever received from her ‘home’: “Roof is leaking, need money for
repairs. Mother’s health is failing, losing her vision too. This year Diwali
will be a poor affair; you needn’t bother coming home”(Sonata 18:29-49).
When Aruna tells her to come home with her, she declines the offer by saying
that she has a huge work pressure. Later in the film, at one point, Dolon says
that her Dada has asked for more money this time. The bubbly exterior
gives away to a sad interior. We realise that this successful banker is not
really welcome in her home. To her family she is just a person to provide them
with money and all the comfort that they need. They really do not bother about
her as a person. In this connection we cannot but think of two films- Meghe
Dhaka Tara by Rwitik Ghatak and Ekdin Pratidin by Mrinal Sen- where
the protagonists (in both the cases, the protagonist is a young girl) do not
marry in order to support their families. In fact their families also never try
to marry them off because, in that case, no one would be there to provide for
them. While many feminists are of the opinion that marriage is a patriarchal
institution and hence they refute it, the director of this film has shown the
other side of the story: sometimes the woman does not marry as she cannot
afford to do that; in that case the woman is a victim of the selfishness of her
family. Though this is not within the scope of the film, still we can wonder
why these women have not married: is it a refusal to accept the patriarchal
norm or is there any other reason?
At one point Dolon asks, “Why
do people dislike me?”(Sonata 28:40).Whom does she mean by “people”? The
woman in the opposite apartment who once slammed her windows shut when Dolon
smiled and waved at her? Or her family, who does not want her to come to home
during the festival? Or Aruna?—because she drinks, smokes, eats meat (Aruna is
a Brahmin hence disapproves this ), hugs and kisses; in short, because she is
not as self-controlled as Aruna? The question remains unanswered. It is Dolon
in the film whom we have seen worrying (though not too much) about putting
on weight; it is she who enjoys watching the studs in TV; it is she who says,
cancelling her diet plan and in a not-so-serious tone, that she will eat like a
pig so that she can become so fat that the whole city of Mumbai can be kept
illuminated from 15th August to 26th January as it is the
“body has outlived its purpose if it had any to begin with in the first place”
(Sonata 38:28-31); she is the one who talks about a deep-throat porn
movie; she is the one who sings “ржЖржЬি
ржЭрзЬেрж░ рж░াрждে рждোржоাрж░ ржЕржнিрж╕াрж░ / ржкрж░াржирж╕ржЦা
ржмржи্ржзু рж╣ে ржЖржоাрж░ …”(Sonata
40:31-42:29). Is there any regret behind her decision to not get married? Is there
any longing? From her friend Subi we come to know that once an IT guy, who
settled in Seattle, fell for her but she did not choose him. Is it because of
her family? Or Aruna?... The question remains unanswered.
Another question that might
pop up in our judgemental mind, a question that Aruna even raises in the film,
would be why does Subi, though beaten up by her husband, does not leave him. We
live in a time when we unitedly stand against any crime, domestic violence and
physical abuse against any individual, in general, and women, in particular; we
know that violence against women and girls is a serious violation of their
right to dignity; we encourage the need to take measures by the Government to
minimize rather eliminate these things from the society. During such a time how
can an educated working woman (Subi is a journalist) tolerate this kind of
behaviour, is beyond our understanding. However, having said these things we
have to accept that this is our point-of-view. Subi’s relationship with her
husband does not need to make sense to us; it only needs to make sense to them
or rather to Subi. As she says it’s a man/woman thing and after all, Sangram,
who is the owner of a garage, is not at all a bad fellow; moreover, he is
“good, you know … very good…[in bed]”(Sonata 49:09-11), Subi tells us.
She even adds that she cannot live the life of a “jogan”. Both Aruna and Dolon
can be critical of Sangram, we may not like him (we meet him once in the movie;
it is night, he has come to their complex; he is drunk and shouts Subi’s name
from there); but if the relationship, in spite of all the physical and mental
torture, on a regular basis, makes sense to Subi or if it makes her happy, we
should not question that nor should we impose our ideas on them. Aruna sees
this relationship the way it is seen by us or by the society at large; Subi
adds another dimension to this.
Sex is an important topic of
discussion among these three friends. Sometimes it is about Subi’s share of men
in the world and how she likes to have various relationships or sometimes it’s
about the awkwardness, that they feel must be there between Mira and Peter. Subi
wonders how can Peter have a sexual relationship with someone who was formerly
a man. However the most prominent sexual tension seems to be there between
Aruna and Dolon, who are friends and have been roommates for many years.
As said by a critic, Udita Jhunjhunwala, “Unmarried and childless, they have
the ease and boredom of a couple too comfortable with each other.” We see them
bickering at each other like old couples. They know each other too well. Though
they chide each other at times, still they know how to comfort each other. At
times we feel that they are much more than friends. There are many explicit
references throughout the film that hint towards a possible romantic
relationship between the two women. According to a film reviewer, Kennith Rosario,
“But for two
progressive, English speaking women, they never utter the word “lesbian” while
confronting each other on the topic. Even the impudent Dolon, who otherwise
chastises Aruna for being a prude, stays away from the L-word. It either reflects the ever-prevailing discomfort around homosexuality or the filmmaker’s
myopic characterisation (the one department the film heavily rests on).”
However, it seems a bit problematic that the characters who can have an open discussion on sex reassignment surgery will have any problem in admitting lesbianism. Moreover the question that arises is – why do we always have to name a relationship? How do we differentiate between the various forms of love? Is there any water-tight compartment between them? As the character of Siras says in the movie Aligarh that now-a-days we get stuck to the word itself and never try to understand and feel the word; the various names make the word sound dirty whereas it is a beautiful word. Poetry lies not in the written words but in the pauses between them. Similarly to understand any relationship it’s not compulsory to name it; it is more important to understand the nuances of the relationship. The same thing can be said about Aruna and Dolon. Whether they are lesbian or not is not important. What is important here is the fact that they not only understand each other’s words but also the silences and the pauses. Some of the best scenes of Aruna and Dolon is sheer poetry: for example, the scene where Aruna plays Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’ and sits in the chair and gets lost in the music-Dolon looks at her face and then puts a garland in her hair and places the lamp in such a way so that the light falls on Aruna’s face and notices how “lovely” Aruna looks and then says looking at her, “how regal, just like a queen” (Sonata 27:18-21).
As the film progresses many secrets of the past get revealed. We come to know that Aruna once had a relation with a man called Avinash and decided not to be with him because he did not want to settle down. He was a Bohemian, a gypsy; she liked his wildness. But as we have understood so far, she likes to have a conventional lifestyle. A little later Dolon reveals that when Aruna had sent her to Avinash after they departed as, according to her, Avinash would be “ripped apart”, Dolon met him and came back “all full of him”. She went to console him but seeing him in pain she “forgot everything” and surrendered herself to the moment. As she says, she wanted to cover Aruna with that happiness. She goes on to say that he was the only man whom she could have loved because Aruna loved him. In a very Bergmanian style the director presents the two women’s faces, sometimes separately sometimes merging into one, for near about a minute. The close-up scene of Aruna and Dolon’s face seems to remind one of a scene in Persona
where, towards the end, both the faces merged into one. Though here the faces do not merge, we can see their underlying vulnerability and precarious status:
between the openly visible and the smoothly impenetrable. Like in Persona, here also the faces go through all these permutations. Towards the beginning of this article I wrote how “these women have fought against “the social stigma”, and have fought for identity.” By the end of the film the fragile, unworthy, inauthentic selves are peeled away. Both the women are in turn stripped emotionally bare and have moments where they lose their composure. Besides questioning the ethics of stripping the soul naked of all pretence, like Bergman, Sen also shows us both women’s wily and ingenious self-fashioning during their encounters with each other.
The emotionally charged scene gets interrupted by a phone call, from Mira, the friend who was supposed to arrive by 10 o’ clock and who never arrives. Peter has died. Subi calls them to inform that a terrorist attack has taken place at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel in Mumbai and asks them to switch on the TV. It is 26th November 2008.
Terrorists have attacked the hotel and several other places including Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, Oberoi Trident , Nariman House and many others. More than hundreds of people are kept as hostages. The terrorists open fired in the hotel. Many died. More number of people were wounded. The two women sit in front of the TV watching the news. Shocked. The film gradually fades out. In a wonderful way, the director shows us the flitting nature of life itself.
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