Rising from the ashes

Nonika Singh

Beyond the touristy gaze there is a Varanasi, the real city peopled with flesh and blood, who go about their lives most ordinarily yet have dreams and aspirations. And it’s these human beings otherwise caught in the web of circumstances that birth, fate and the small city has created around them that Neeraj Ghaywan turns his directorial eye upon. 

As he stays clear of the picturesque colourful postcard Varanasi, what you get is a slice of the city as it truly exists and one that is changing as the rest of India is. 

So, here is Devi (Richa Chadha) daughter of a pandit (Sanjay Mishra). She has sexual needs, to satiate which she gets trapped in a scandalous blackmail. Then there is Deepak (Vicky Kaushal), a member of the Dom community, who wants to escape the destitute life of his ancestors. As his father and brother go about the job of burning the dead on the ghats, he studies civil engineering and falls in love with a girl (Shweta Tripathi) from upper caste. Their love acquires wings and has this amazing soft, almost ethereal quality, not the least because whole lot of poetry is suffused in their relationship. She loves shayari, he is earnest in his appreciation.  Of course, tension too is palpable as the caste divide is gnawing. Dreams die young especially when these collide with grim reality. 

Yes, indeed the film’s title is Masaan which means crematorium. So, death is expectedly a motif and a metaphor. There are vivid scenes of dead being buried, references to skulls of the bodies being broken. Indeed, be it on the burning ghats or away from it who can escape death?  

However, here what resonates equally strongly is life. Actually, the film’s English title, Fly Away Solo, is more telling and conveys more emphatically what the director and the writer want to stress upon. 

There is no wishing away the harsh truths of life which become harsher when you are living on the margins. Caste alone does not make you a pariah. Being a woman caught in the wrong time and place can be equally devastating. But in acceptance lies freedom. So, the father accepts daughter’s misdemeanour, daughter comes to terms with his as well as her failing. And on the parallel track Deepak learns to move on. And the film moves at various levels.

Not surprising the film that begins on a shocking, even morose note ends with optimism and hope. And that is the film’s biggest strength. How it weaves a story around gloom and doom yet celebrates life-affirming forces. In fact, as it navigates its way through its many layers and texts, it doesn’t falter in offering you a credible and interesting story line as well. Almost like a masterstroke the two parallel lives are kept apart yet are bound together in the choices both the principal characters make.

Characters anyway come alive thanks to some nuanced and understated acting by Richa Chadha and Vicky Kaushal. Sanjay Mishra appears so human that your heart goes out for his predicament. Despite the strong thematic content the narrative touches you without manipulating your emotions.

It’s honest to its tenor and ethos as Ghaywan promises and subtle which he didn’t profess. His training under Anurag Kashyap as an assistant in Gangs of Wasseypur comes in handy and adds the requisite realistic touch both to the characters and settings. 

The film which comes heavily recommended from Cannes Film festival where it won two awards also gets our resounding vote for telling a tale tenderly yet forcefully. Stay away only if you consider cinema synonymous with superficial entertainment.