At a time when female desire is finding a feeble voice in urban spaces, Leena Yadav is exploring its manifestation in rural India. After connecting with international audience, Parched found a release this week in India and with it female sexuality is making news for the second week in a row. But, be it Pink or Parched , Leena says, “The villain is not a man or a woman. The villain is our conditioning.”
Before we could move further, Leena, who studied at Delhi’s Lady Shri Ram College before moving to Mumbai to make a career in mass communication, goes back to what drew her to the subject after fiddling with urbane thrillers in Shabd and Teen Patti, works that could neither win her laudable words from audience nor three stars from critics. “I wanted to work with Tannishtha Chatterjee. We started discussing and she shared the conversation she had with the women in a village where she was shooting during the Road, Movie . The conversation revolved around sex which I found very refreshing. We decided that we should make ‘sex in the village’ but then the story became more intense as other themes came into play.”
We often get to hear about such liberating episodes from our aunts, who have spent a large part of their lives in rural India or the maid who hails from a rural space on the outskirts of the city. “Exactly, but it is not explored in our films. We are in denial of it. Actually, not just in villages, female desire is not even discussed in many city homes. I have had conversations with my friends but never find them being reflected on screen. I see lot of male bonding on screen where boys talk about their sex life but I hardly find women doing it on screen. So it was essential for me to bring all those moments on screen.”
It was not always the case though, as our literary works have dealt with female desire in detail. “What happened to us, why we suddenly exclaim hau when sex is mentioned? It is not just sex, we even shy away from the sense of touch. There used to be lot of sensuality in our interactions. Where has it all disappeared? I wanted to bring the focus back on that.” And once we talk about sex, Leena continues, we get rid of lot of repression that is caused by making it a taboo. “That repression leads to stalking, violence and all kinds of things. We all have sex, what’s the big deal,” asks Leena.
In times, when women who exercise their choice face acid and knife attacks, and films that take a stand against face the axe of the CBFC, Leena says it is the right time to initiate a dialogue. “The film has been passed by the CBFC. Filmmakers and audience need to have a perspective as well. The CBFC has certain guidelines that the members have to follow. There is no point in blaming one person. The system has to be cleaned inside out. We need to address a lot of things among ourselves.”
Talking of the Radhika Apte-Adil Hussain love making scene that got leaked and became viral on social media, she reminds it is people among us who get unduly excited when a ‘sex clip’ of the film gets leaked. “That talks of our repression. The word leak gets us so excited. We have moved forward as a nation then why are we holding on to these backward practices.” Instead of applauding actors for breaking barriers, Leena says, “We are castigating them and labelling them.”
Reflecting on the scene, Leena says she thought of it as a dance and that is why she put choreographer Ashely Lobo in charge after a number of workshops to take away the inhibitions.
Interestingly, she points out, physical violence is accepted but intimacy is hushed. “There is so much violence in many of our comedies, the imagery and the kind of sexuality used there is so much violent, and it is not even aesthetic. That is all right, but the moment you create something more real, it becomes uncomfortable.”
In film analysis, camera is also given a gender with a male or female gaze. “I don’t intellectualise these things,” interrupts Leena. "I feel if I am doing something for a particular reason emotionally then it will come across on camera. If I am doing it from a gaze perspective then that is what you will get to see. That is something you have to judge. I don’t shoot a film from a gender perspective but then it is a creative art form, and hence open to interpretation. I just go to a real space within me and do what feel is right.”
Leena comes from an editing background and her husband Aseem Bajaj is one of the finest cinematographers in the country. Still she opted for ‘outsider’s’ point of view in the form of Kevin Kent ( Nebraska ) and Russell Carpenter ( Titanic ) for a subject that is intrinsically Indian. "I am not talking about something intrinsically Indian; I am talking about something very universal," counters Leena. “These are themes which are needed to be discussed world over, and that is the kind of reaction that I have got. At the end of the day, language is just one part of communication. Emotions are such a bigger part of communication and that is what I experienced while working with Russell and Kevin. For them it is the first foreign film that they have done but the way they have transcended the barrier of communication is amazing.”
One reminds her of the role of aesthetics, which might alienate Indian audience. “When you are emotionally connected there is no limitation at all. The language expands. I felt when you come from outside you come with a learning eye. They see and watch things which we have stopped seeing. Kevin made me retain a crucial expression which as an editor I would have cut out. There is a scene in the bus which gets over when Radhika gives a weird look to the guy sitting behind her. I would have cut it before the look because it was not part of the screenplay. Kevin said there is a story here as well, why cut it out. So they made me see things which I had stopped seeing." Kevin also made an impact on her writing. “I had an opinion that editing is a stage where you can rewrite the script. Working with Kevin, I realised I need to sharpen my storytelling.”
It is fine to talk about sexuality in rural environment but the film demands a resolution and often filmmakers falter in the second half of such films. “In some ways, I am showing the mirror, you can take out of whatever you want to. I wanted to make a film on the women I met and these were not sad women. They were spirited women. I had to end the story with hope. I could not tell the audience that the world is like that and now you go home. I feel that life is about hope. Some people might find the end fantastical and some would say that it is absolutely right for the film.”
The cast and subject might prepare many to watch an art house film but Leena clarifies it is not in that domain. "It is something intense, treated lightly and beautifully." And for those critics, who might find the denouement unrealistic, Leena says, even they don’t know what will eventually happen. She says analysts have this habit to put everything in brackets. She goes back to the scene between Radhika and Tannishtha that some have described as having a homosexual undertone. "It is about how through touch two women feel about each other and share each other stories. One is the story of violence and the other is the story of lack of touch."
Leena had an eye out for Radhika for a while and Tannishtha picked herself. "I called them home for an informal audition, but finding Bijli was a task. Finally, my casting director Mukesh Chhabra suggested Surveen Chawla and she clicked instantaneously for the role which needed a particular kind of energy."
It brings us to her male characters. "As I said we have to get rid of our conditioning. The film talks about feminine politics and there are some amazingly conflicted male characters as well. For me the most violent men are actually victims. They live in a kind of macho society, where they could not show weakness and vulnerability. It is very difficult being a man in this society. The most violent ones are actually the biggest victims. The lines are blurred because some of the greatest supporters of patriarchy are women. So we have to fight it together."
