Three domes clearly in need of a whitewash and a bit of repair. Some roofs which have probably not been visited for a while. A man sleeps on a coir cot, his wife sits close by. It is not quite dawn yet. The muezzin calls out for prayer: “Assalato khairum minanar” (Prayer is preferable over sleep). The little prayer at the beginning of the James Ivory-directed film The Householder set the tone for rest of the proceedings at India International Centre in New Delhi where the connoisseurs of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala are paying their tribute to her with a slew of films. The films, starting with The Householder and on to Mr and Mrs Bridge and The Golden Bowl, etc, form part of a retrospective celebrating Ruth, distinguished author and screenplay writer who remains the only writer to win both a Booker Award for her novel Heat and Dust , as well as two Academy Awards for her adaptation of E.M. Forster’s novels, A Room with a View and Howards End.
Incidentally, The Householder was the first cinematic association of Ruth with Ismail Merchant and James Ivory. Made in 1963, it set in stone Ruth’s bond with films. Interestingly, Ruth initially was not enthused by the idea of a film on her book. Even less so with the choice of the so-glamorous Shashi Kapoor as the lead. A self-effacing writer who brooked no disturbance while she wrote, from nine in the morning to around 1.30 in the afternoon, Ruth finally agreed to the choice made by producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory. It was a choice she lived to love: films like A Room with a View, Heat and Dust, Shakespeare Wallah, Bombay Talkie came about due to this association. It all began with The Householder which was, interestingly, the first time Ivory and Merchant came together too. The film, a black and white saga, also starring Leela Naidu, Asha Sharma, Achla Sachdev, Pahadi Sanyal and Durga Khote, was shot largely in and around Delhi.
The film narrates the story of a newly married man with an independent wife. They live under the same roof but share very little with each other. Both take recourse to nostalgia. He seeks help too; from his fellow teachers in college, his mother who does not quite know how to let go of her son, and others. Without realising it, the man’s life becomes a prayer, a constant search for a better tomorrow. With symbols and silence, the film progresses. And it is only after a while that one realises the importance of the call for prayer at the beginning.
As I step out of the hall after taking in the film which is around a hundred minutes, the dawn is still way off. Yet the film has done its bit in throwing light on Ruth all over again. A shade over 50 years after she did her first screenplay, Ruth’s work continues to engage, evoke, even provoke. She deserves attention. The ongoing retrospective at IIC will, hopefully, go some way in filling the vacuum.
