“Masaan”- Life, Death and Beyond by Ananya Verma

“मुसाफ़िर हैं हम भी, मुसाफ़िर हो तुम भी किसी मोड़ पर फिर मुलाक़ात होगी।”

As the sun shines on the stories of Devi and Deepak, there is chaos and conflict between social bondages and inner tumult. In a very beautiful scene Shalu (essayed by Shweta Tripathi), quotes Bashir Badr in a conversation with Deepak (played by Vicky Kaushal). Masaan is a narration of this hope of finding solace, in the hope of how lives criss-cross in unexpected ways, altering our destinies forever. It deals with the intersectionality in experiences of those who lie in the lowest rungs of social hierarchy. Masaan seems like a story of one of us. 

It has been ten years since the movie was released, and the landscape of the Hindi film industry has changed manifolds since then. Masaan was not a blockbuster hit even in 2015, but it did get a theatrical release sans the obstacles that many movies with similar or even little nuance get today. Moreover, today when audiences go berserk raving about the return of the “OG times of Bollywood” at the mere mention of movies with hyper-masculine heroes, thinking of a film like Masaan nudges us to rethink what cinema can be, and what it is capable of doing. 

The movie gushes through the roads of Varanasi and traces stories centered around issues of gender and caste. Director Neeraj Ghaywan and writer Varun Grover deal with extraordinary tales of ordinary people like Devi Pathak (Richa Chadha) and Deepak Kumar, the main characters, along with other characters contributing to the storyline substantially. 

Devi’s story begins when, out of “jigyasa”, she has a sexual escapade with her lover. She gets caught by the police, and her partner dies by suicide right there. The police blackmail Devi and try to yield a hefty amount of money from her father. Devi’s story is one of resilience in the face of society-inflicted shame. A motherless woman faces the odds of going against social norms and is bullied and harassed by her co-workers. She stands tall in the face of all these odds. Owning her sexual desires with resolve and bravado. She is grieving her lover but not even once is there shame, at having what’s human- desire. 

Her father, Vidyadhar Pathak (Sanjay Mishra), a former Sanskrit professor, pulls all cords to pay the bribe amount. A “morally upright” man, Pathak tries hard to make ends meet, and upturning the moral compass uses Jhonta (the little boy, who assists him) to use trivial means to exact the amount. His morality seems blurry in these instances and perhaps coerces one to question, what exactly is moral and immoral? Should one note the morality underlying Pathak’s endeavours at protecting his daughter or the lack thereof in the trivial means he employs to achieve it, to an extent that it endangers the life of the young boy? It is these greys that make Masaan real. Sanjay Mishra portrays helplessness and desperation in a very endearing way. His desperation to protect Jhonta and the following guilt, brings the screen alive and smears it with immense warmth. 

Richa Chadha as Devi is a woman with a spine, whose soul is made of fire. She moves ahead in life, grieving for her dead partner yet striving to make a place for herself while also helping in contributing to the sum of the bribe. Her story is of a seeker escaping from the confines of the regressive to what she considers a more liberating world. It’s the coexistence of grief and her chase to be alive that makes the story shine. 

Deepak, on the other hand, comes from a Doma family. A socially marginalized person, he is caught in the shackles of an environment that suffocates him. Much like Devi, he is seeking an escape. To add to the story, he falls in love with Shalu who is an upper-class woman. His struggle with his identity forms an essential aspect of the tale. Tripathi and Kaushal’s romance is innocent and innocuous. There is an insane amount of beauty in the bond that the two share. Unfortunately, in the course, Shalu dies and Deepak grieves her loss. 

“साला ये दुख काहे नहीं ख़त्म होता है, बे” 

Deepak’s entire misery is reduced to a single fragment of time in this now-famous line. This one scene tears hearts apart, making it as heartbreaking as it could be. 

In another scene when he reveals his caste identity to Shalu, his pent up frustration finds a catharsis and at the same time shows the hierarchy of gender dynamics. He spells out the ignominy that he has to go through for doing what his ancestors have been pushed to do since ages. His angst at the possibility of losing his beloved merely because of his caste identity is a tale that many may resonate with. The scene is so well written that for those few seconds, you can’t help but question the norms that hinder one to love freely, to live freely. 

As Deepak moves on from the loss, he pines to have an identity that liberates him from the shackles of the identity of his caste and tries to rediscover himself. He eventually lands a government job. His story shows the trials and tribulations of people from the lower caste and their quest to escape from the social reins of bondage. Deepak is the lamp of hope for his family. He brings to life his aspirations as he struggles with his loss. 

The extraordinary soundtrack and dialogues are very appropriate to the context in which the characters are set in, making the movie even more beautiful. The poeticism in the entire movie is most explicit in the verses of the songs. It is a tell-tale of life: a story of pain, love, courage, guilt, and victory. 

The movie ends on a note that leaves scope for imagination about the futures of Deepak and Devi as the two meet for the very first time in 109 minutes of screentime. They interact during a boat ride, fading into the background with Bhor setting in. Perhaps a metaphor for the dawn of a new life. The essence of Bashir Badr’s quotations are reiterated here; how lives with similar stories cross paths. How those who are the most socially vulnerable, may be ostracized with different experiences but the poison stems from patriarchy almost unequivocally. 

The river and its banks form a fundamental aspect of the movie. The river acts as an intersection of lives from the beginning to the end. It is not just a beautiful add-on, in an elitist way. The river, unlike in most cases in popular media, does not aim to soothe the audiences’ gaze but in fact showcases tumult. It is at the ghats of the Ganga where chaos unravels and lives. Neeraj Ghaywan’s directorial debut, Masaan, was acclaimed internationally. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, and won two awards—FIPRESCI, the International Jury of Film Critics prize, and the Promising Future prize in the Un Certain Regard section. However, it was not a hit at the time of its release. Its audience found it eventually, through the course of Instagram reels and cinema discussion clubs. Unfortunately, it still remains a niche movie, lost in the hullabaloo of stories that romanticize abuse for love and perversity and misogyny for charisma. 

Masaan is the crematorium of guilt, redemption, pain, grief, and societal doctrines. Masaan portrays stories of people who seem to be located around us. Remnants of these characters are also within us. All of us have a little bit of all the characters. The movie might be set in Varanasi, but it is a story of every city and town in India where there is morality, corruption, and defiance simultaneously. Masaan is a tale of the morality of a small town; as the writer Varun Grover had said in an interview. 

“संगम दो बार जाना चाहिए– एक बार अकेले, और दूसरी बार किसी के साथ”

Perhaps Grover summarizes what the movie tells—that more often than not, life gives you a second chance. When you get to visit life again, visit it with wisdom. Maybe it’s also a nudge to society to look at the hierarchies and how they interplay to affect lives, for some more than others.

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Ananya is a history graduate from Miranda House. Feminist, opinionated, and never shutting up about cinema, music, or caste politics. Usually powered by her 58,789th coffee, earphones always in, and constantly making yet another list that she will probably never finish.