What is the point in making a film in Sanskrit in our times? The most obvious answers would be either one’s deep passion for the language or to pander to ideology. For sure, G. Prabha’s Ishti belongs to the first category. But more significantly, it stands out also for its deep empathy for the critical traditions within it. This, in fact, is what makes Ishti a contemporary film.
Films in Sanskrit are far and few between and among them only a few like G.V. Iyer’s Adi Sankaracharya have made their mark as cinematic works. Moreover, Sanskrit not being a spoken language, seldom lends itself to ‘contemporary’ narratives. The films made in that language naturally tend to take refuge in its assumed ‘natural habitat’ of ancient times and mythological themes. Ishti (Search for Self) steers a radical move within that film tradition. It deals with a historic moment in Kerala history, when the tradition-bound and ritual-ridden community of Namboodiri Brahmins rose up to break the shackles of the past and dared to imagine an egalitarian, humane society.
Inspired by visionaries like V.T. Bhattathiripad (VT), the youngsters in the community fought against obscurantist beliefs and redundant practices in their community. At the centre of it all was the freedom of women, who were denied the basic right to live as human beings. Imprisoned within the walls of their illams , most of them were married off at a very young age to old men, who married several times for monetary and other reasons. Only the eldest son in the Namboodiri family was allowed to marry and so the younger brothers were forced to live the lives of ‘seed bulls’ (a term used by VT) courting women from other castes to satisfy their needs. This system forced many young women to spend most part of their lives miserably as widows. It was at the behest of reformers such as VT, Premji, M.R. Bhattathiripad and so on that such practices were challenged through widow remarriage, modern, secular education and the like.
Ishti ’s narrative is firmly set in this socio-historical context. At the centre of the narrative is the 70-year-old Ramavikraman Namboodiri, a Vedic scholar who has just completed a soma yaga and been elevated as a ‘somayaji.’ His only dream in life now is to conduct agni yagna and become an ‘akkithiri.’
Overcoming the indifference and protest of his first wife and son, and despite his dwindling family wealth, he pursues his dream, for which, he enters into a third marriage of convenience with Sreedevi.
The entry of this young and rebellious woman turns everything in that decadent world upside down. She stands up against the patriarchal tradition and even inspires the son (Anoop Krishnan) to wake up to the call of the times. The scene where she teaches him to learn and write Malayalam is resonant of a similar incident in VT’s life. In the end, she walks out of that wedlock and the house, telling the orthodoxy that ‘learning vedic hymns and wearing sacred thread have no meaning. First be a human being. Without that, how can you practice truth and dharma?’
Her exit also extinguishes the fire of life from that house; to his utter despair, somayaji finds that the sacrificial fire he had kept alive for a lifetime is extinguished, leaving only ashes behind. Ishti follows a minimalist aesthetic in its visual compositions, which are more often static and wide, the subdued acting styles, and the sparse dialogues rendered with ease. The striking performances of Nedumudi Venu as the aging husband and Athira Patel as Sreedevi are ably supported by Lakshmi Gopakumar, Jijoy, Mohini, Vinayan, Vasan and so on. Eldho Isaac’s cinematography, finely tuned to the laterite hue of ancient illams, evokes the mood and ambience of the narrative. Seamlessly blended to it are the lyrics of Akkitham and V. Madhusoodanan Nair, rendered to music by Kaithapram.
Films like Ishti assume political significance in our times, when traditions are hallowed and asserted as unblemished, singular monoliths. This film demolishes such notions by asserting vibrant streams of dissent within the very same tradition, and also bringing to the fore the divergent regional voices within the subcontinent.
(A fortnightly column on cinema that veers away from the commercial format)
