Sairat: Love in the time of family honour

Nagaj Manjule, the celebrated directed of the cult Marathi film Fandry has come out with yet another compelling tale in Sairat. The film is very important for our times, especially where caste and creed take priority over blood relations; where humanity is sacrificed on the altar of so called family honour and pride.

Director: Nagraj Manjule

Movie Clip

The film is a suave narration of love story between a boy (Parshya) from a poor family and a girl (Archi) from the upper echelons. As expected, it is a love tale that cannot be! And hence all the drama has to unfold. As the narrative proceeds, though, there seems to be a semblance of normalcy appearing, and yet what seems to win at the end is the tragic ‘family honour’.

The whole film is a realistic scripting of what seems to happen in many parts of Indian conservative societies. It is not making undue overt statements either. The characters in the film are the next door neighbours going about their daily routine. However, things take a serious turn when what seems normal is ‘shattered’ by the unusual love tale.

This is indeed an important film for our time – a time which has developed so much scientifically and technologically and yet backward in its reasoning and attitudes to life. Not just for the narrative it unfolds, but for the boldness it exhibits in presenting the day to day events in all its beauty and rawness. In fact, this film has the potential to both entertain and shock, placing before us the limitless passions – both positive and negative – at work among humans. The young new actors – deserve plaudits for the life they have added to the narrative.

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

Fandry: Chasing elusive birds!

Marathi film Fandry which has won many awards, is a typical film that deals with the caste question and the struggle for survival of dalits in an Indian village. This is perhaps one of those very few films that have brought out the raw reality of the subaltern powerfully. The subaltern narrative that is in focus in this film is the brutality of caste system which in this modern world plays out more subtly than the historic untouchability. Here is a family, the day-to-day struggles of which are a spectacle of entertainment for the so called upper caste people in the village. The entire narrative is depicted through the eyes of the teenage son in the family Jabya. The irony is that this boy is chasing two ‘birds’ both of which are elusive to him – one a long-tailed sparrow and the other a fair girl from the upper caste.  

Director: Nagraj Manjule

Film Clip

The caste dynamics at play in this film are similar to the dynamics playing in any village today. Caste today is not just about untouchability; for untouchability in its true sense is no more a major concern, when you can easily stay away with people whom you don’t like. It is about attitudes and perceptions. In the film, the family of Kachrya, the father of Jabya the ‘lover boy’, lives as usual on the fringe of the village; but the family is sought after to tidy the dirt of the village, i.e. to catch the pigs which are another symbol of defilement. Perhaps, the family can be banished only when all the dirt (pigs) are done away from the village. 

The final scene in the film where the young Jabya gives vent to his suppressed anger seems just an aberration in a scenario where dalits are considered a mass to be merely used and suppressed, and the discrimination and humiliation meted out to them considered something normal. It is a landmark film that brings to forth the dalit angst. 

-Melwyn Pinto SJ