A little over a
month and- one film seen, one shot, three plays seen, one read, and several poems
and blog posts read- it’s been a Manav Kaul overdose.
(Links: Manav's plays, poems and other writings.)
I had not heard
of Manav when I went to see his film- as part of the Osian’s Film Festival in Delhi,
and on a friend’s recommendation- it’s called Hansa and it’s one of the
loveliest children’s films I have seen. It has a simple story, just like
the people that it portrays- hill people, with their simple lives and simple
joys and sorrows (and I don’t mean that in a condescending way, far from it!)
It is full of heartwarming little details and characters that are quirky yet
believable, with their own little idiosyncrasies. More than anything else, it’s
a film that treats children as young adults, with respect for their
intelligence and sensitivity, and without mollycoddling or shielding them from
the realities of life. There is stuff in the film that parents may find hard to
explain to their children, but it is in no way stuff that they should shy away
from. It is also a film with some wonderful performances, especially by the
younger actors. It is a little crude, rough- at- the- edges so to say in its craft, but I am
more than willing to overlook that not just because it is Manav’s first film
but also because there is so much in the film that is beautiful and does work!
(Unsurprisingly it won awards at Osian's. Read about it here.)
I returned to
Bombay determined to see Manav’s plays, two of which were scheduled to be staged
at Prithvi soon after my return. He is primarily a theatre person and I was
excited about seeing his plays after seeing such a promising film debut. So I
promptly went for ‘Ilhaam’, the first of the two plays, the first day that it
was staged.
‘Ilhaam’ is a
story about a family man who attains enlightenment and what happens thereafter-
how he and his family cope with it. Here’s the official synopsis: ‘Bhagwan is
the epitome of the mundane – a middle-aged banker, married, with two grown up
college-going children. However, one day, while sitting on a decrepit park
bench he stumbles upon ‘enlightenment’. Therein begins the battle between the
world outside and his world inside’.
Let me state at
the outset that I had a problem with ‘Ilhaam’ from the word go, with it’s very
premise. The play basically seeks to engage with Bhagwan’s struggles post
enlightenment, without actually concerning itself with what the process of
reaching this enlightenment may have been. There are clues along the way that
seem to suggest, as does the synopsis, that Bhagwan literally ‘stumbles upon’
enlightenment, an idea that is as fantastic as it seems preposterous, though in
all fairness there are also clues that suggest Bhagwan always had a disposition
that made him a suitable candidate, including a history of talking to birds,
running away from home as a child and being untraceable for a year, and time
spent in an asylum. And yet there is little to suggest that it was a conscious
process, nor is the process or enlightenment itself accompanied by a better
understanding of the world, a fact that seems blaringly contradictory to the
idea of ‘enlightenment’, whatever it may be (since we can only conjecture.)
Manav seems to
have limited his own canvas by resorting to clichés- in his journey towards
enlightenment and thereafter, Bhagwan sits in a decrepit park bench for hours
on end, watching children who don’t exist, at play. He talks to birds and can
converse with a mute beggar. He dances without music (a graceless dance with
staccato movements… because Nature is so graceless?!) All the while that he
finds himself closer to Nature, he also finds himself further away from his
family and friends, at one point reaching a stage where they become totally
unintelligible to him. For some inexplicable reason, his ‘enlightenment’ is not
accompanied by sensitivity towards his own family nor understanding for their
concern. I find this conceptualisation puzzling- I can understand the
difficulty in portraying a sense of detachment- and therein lies the challenge.
But should this detachment have been devoid of love and compassion and a deeper
understanding of the ways of the Universe? Did Bhagwan really need to be so
perplexed by all that was going on around him? If the intention was to portray
Bhagwan’s internal struggle, would that not have been better served had Bhagwan
been a little more aware? He might still have found himself to be equally
helpless, but would have been more believable as someone who did indeed attain
some kind of enlightenment.
The play is
peppered with philosophical questions, (and references many authors) which are not just perfectly legitimate, they are of a
high intellectual caliber, something that one can expect of someone as well
read as Manav. But then it seems to be precisely that- an intellectual response to a
concept that can perhaps only be understood or believed in if one has faith. In
my limited experience, I have come to recognise and accept the difference
between intelligence and wisdom. Manav seems to be coming from a place of
intelligence and attempting to tackle questions of wisdom...
Having said that,
I did find his take very interesting. According to Manav, enlightenment is a
reversible process, ‘curable’ by the force of will and medicine. Such is the
fate of his Bhagwan, who goes through psychological treatment- willingly it
would seem- for he makes a choice to return to family life over staying
enlightened, which seem, according to him, to be mutually exclusive states of
being. This is a choice he makes in a conversation with his ‘Chacha’ (who the
Chacha turns out to be is a delightful surprise in an inspired piece of
writing)- a conversation that is the high point of the play, and one which
encapsulates its essence.
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