Masaan: Pyres, Romance and Change

Masaan. (शमशान, the site of cremation). Masaan revolves around the ghats of Banaras. It’s a story… well let’s call it a story. There are two, in fact.

And in those two stories, there is one. A screech of tyres as India takes a turn towards modernity. In an era when women go out to study and work, they have affairs. But in the mindset where affairs and sex have dirty, shaming connotations, there remains a friction between reality and societal norms.

A working woman, played brilliantly by Richa Chadha, goes for a tryst, and it turns bad. She is then blackmailed by a cop. Not for any crime, although that is used as a pretext. She and her father, the always great Sanjai Mishra, are threatened with her defamation, “exposure”. The threat of a video going viral. The father, a priest at the ghats performing last rites, keeps risking more and more to arrange the bribe. And the girl refuses to suffer indignities for the same.

And then there is a story as old as times. Love across barriers of society. A guy from a family burning funeral pyres meets a girl from a traditional “upper” caste, and the romance is etched beautifully. Meeting, talking in secret. And non verbal flirtations, with hearts soaring like the balloons do in one scene. Vicky Kaushal and Shweta Tripathi play the couple well.

What I like was the society this film portrays. The realism of the commonplace. The houses, and the decor, of course, but also the way the characters interact. The guy has been burning pyres since he was a child, but is now an engineer. Straddling two worlds, he feels alien in his family as well as in front of his girlfriend from the other side of the town. The bunch of friends that both hell him soar and keep him grounded. Even in his worst moments he is seldom lonely because of them.

The character played by Richa Chadha, however, is totally alone. Distant from the father who loves her even as he blames her. Blamed and shamed in the circles she runs in. Her utter loneliness and her mixture of guilt and grief over the fate of her partner is painstakingly sketched. And her utter defiance and complete poise is fantastic.

Her quest to be independent. His quest to be someone. And the losses they suffer along the way. That’s the essence of Masaan.

And while the story is told expertly, especially given this is Ghaywan’s first film, the story itself is sparse. Meandering all too often. The payoff was incomplete. Maybe it was meant to be, a parallel to what happens to our leads. But unlike the experts at Cannes I didn’t feel the need to stand and applaud for several minutes.

Cremation is not just about an end. It’s also about a transformation. Whether reincarnation, paradise, or just a return to dust. And unlike the change in a burial, this is fast, graphic, and in your face. It also involves active involvement. And a lot of pain. Masaan is about that transformation in our society. It’s not about the story. It’s about the change.