Deepa Mehta's _Fire_

[Michael Rabe]

In response to Sumedh Mungee [Mon, 4 Jan 1999 13:19:07 -0600]:

Believe it or not, the fear HAD crossed my mind, that discussion of _Fire_
might provoke a _flame war_.  But I took the risk, and would like to douse
whatever ill-will I can now, in hopes that we actually can have a civil
conversation about it.  And why?  Surely not to ferrett out dirt to
besmirch the good name of anyone or any national or religious group.  You
don't know me, nor Partha Banerjee who affirmed my positive response to
Deepa Metha's film [nor do I know anything more about him than what he
wrote] , so let me assure you that I for one do not wish to prolong this
thread for the purpose maligning you, or even those Hindutva vigilantes, if
I may coin a phrase, who have nearly succeeded by their threats and violent
acts to have the film withdrawn from public view in India.

Rather, I still want to participate in chaste academic discussion of her
film, _as an indological text_. Seriously.

So, next, it may be helpful to clarify the context of MY curiousity about
it.  It arose 15 months ago in the course of my indological labors,
teaching a unit on the Ramayana to an undergraduate class of American art
students. [I can't help it. It's my job, and I also take them most
semesters to the Rama temple in Lemont, Illinois
<http://www.ramatemple.org/>, a temple complex whose sthapati was the
esteemed Thiru Ganapathi Sastri of Mamallapuram. ]   I hadn't heard about
the film yet, when one or two students mentioned having just seen it at the
Chicago Film Festival [yes, in response to my slides of Vijayanagar period
mss. paintings and Thai mural depictions [among others] of Sita's _Agni
Pariksha_ [to use a phrase from Metha's film].   Naturally, I enquired too
as to whether or not the film touched on the subject of _kitchen accident_
deaths of under-doweried newlyweds!  Their responses were rather
imprecise--more disclaimers than affirmations, as I recall--as if the title
role of _Fire_ was more metaphorical than literal.

Now that the video has become available for rent, naturally, and with some
trepidation, given the recent news out of Connaught Place about the
trashing of Regal Theatre, I felt I had a professional responsibility to
see it for myself, despite any qualms about lesbianism I might have as a
heterosexual male.  Hence, it was basically with a sense of relief after
seeing how gingerly the film touched on all the above mentioned topics,
that I felt honor bound as a professional indologist [doing it for money
too, not just love] to alert others in this micro-universe that the film
is, in my judgement, extremely moral, artistically successful on many
levels and thus deserving of a large audience of informed viewers.  And
that's why I first commented on the genuine sympathy and humanity with
which even ostensibly villanous characters are portrayed: the
duty-demanding or pleasure-pursuing two brothers of the joint family, about
all.  To repeat: they are not portrayed as ogres...both seemed plausible
and attractive characters in many ways, and they too, like Nandita Das,
deserve plaudits for their acting [i.e., KULBUSHAN KHARBANDA as ASHOK, and
JAAVED JAAFERI as JATIN.]

A final point for this round:  the older wife, played by the unfairly
maligned Shabana Azmi,  is named Radha [not Parvati] and the name is not
idly choosen.  And so I close with this query:  can anyone clarify the role
played by a Radha in the famous Bollywood film of the mid 60s, _Sangam_?
There's an ingenious allusion to that film in _Fire_ that I wasn't able to
fully grasp, having only seen the former once [in Varanasi in '67!] and
remembering NOTHING about it except that refrain, _Bol Radhe Bol Radha,
Sangam ho na hin_ or something like that.

Please.  Anybody...I really want to know!
And trust others on this list won't mind learning either,

Michael D. Rabe, Ph.D.
Assoc. Prof of South Asian Art History
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
& Saint Xavier University

P.S.  to Sumedh:  the provocation of Christian sensibilites along the lines
you imagined has been done.  In a critically respected Greek novel [by
Kazanzakis, sp?] later brought to film by Martin Scorsese, _The Last
Temptation of Christ_.  Your point is well taken, insofar as offended
conversatives took to the streets and marched with placards of oppostion in
front of theaters throughout the U.S. [if not elsewhere?] when it came out
in the early 1980s.