Dialectic of Public and Private R e p r e s e n t a t i o n o f W o m e n i n Bhoomika a n d Mirch Masala

Ranjani Mazumdar

The post emergency period in India witnessed the production of a number of films dealing with women's issues particularly by those who came under the category of New Wave directors. This article attempts a textual and contextual reading of two New Wave films, with the objective of proving or disproving the argument that cinema on women within this category is constrained by dominant ideological discourses on women and falls prey to the liberal epistemology of mainstream feminism which has always tried to perceive the women's question as only a gender war

ANY genuine attempt to understand and analyse the representation of women in ar­tistic practice must insist upon the social character of all practices. Cinematic prac­tice like any other form of artistic practice is also shaped by concrete social relations and works within and on socially produced ideologies. Cinema is a complex structure which brings together various elements in a dialectical unity, ideas, themes, composi­tions language, etc' Therefore the relation­ship between the formaJ mechanism of film to ideology must be considered seriously. The representation of women in cinema has been a major issue of debate amongst feminist film theorists. In India the post-emergency period witnessed the production of a number of films dealing with women's issues, particularly by those who came under the category of the 'New Wave' directors. This essay is an attempt towards a textual and contextual reading of two New Wave films, Bhoomika (The Role) and Mirch Masala (Spices). The primary objective is to prove or disprove the arguments we are trying to raise that the cinema on women within what is considered the Indian New Wave is constrained by dominant ideological discourses on women and, that in spite of their feminist aspirations they fall prey to the liberal epistemology of mainstream feminism which has always tried to perceive the women's question as only a gender war. (Mirth Masala is possibly one of the few exceptions.) While recognising the contribu­tions of the liberal feminist movement in focusing on the specificity of gender oppres­sion, a Marxist feminist analysis operates within a wider notion of the 'social* where gender oppression overlaps and is informed by that of caste and class.

As we proceed, we will try to show how in Bhoomika, the 'act of liberation' is not ony distorted but reduced to the struggle of the individual. The process of self-liberation involves simultaneously both individuals and groups. It is absolutely central to political analysis to understand that while the strug­gle for women's emancipation also takes place at the level of individuals, this strug­gle is one which cannot successfully be com­pleted by individual women in isolation since it is the identity as members of social groups which are under attack. Bourgeois feminism has successfully managed to ignore this by creating a dichotomy between the 'public' and the 'private' : the public domain being the world of waged work, industry, produc­tion for the market, politics, warfare, etc, and the private domain as the domestic world of the family and self. A study of the use

of public and private space both in terms of style and content in the lives of the pro­tagonists will show us if such a dichotomy is created consciously or unconsciously. Such analyses will enable us to grasp in the fullest sense, the importance of what Partha Chatterjee says:

politics necessarily operates in an ideological world in which, words rarely have unam­biguous meanings, where notions are inexact and have polit ical value precisely because they are inexact and hence capable of sug­gesting a range of possible interpretations, where intentions themselves are contradictory and consequences very often unintended, where movements follow winding and un­predictable paths, where choices are strategic and relative, not univocal and absolute. And still this inexact world of ambiguity and half-t ru th , of manipulat ion and deception, of dreams and illusions is not wholly pat-ternless, for here too objectives are realised, rules established, values asserted, revolutions accomplished and states founded.2

Bhoomika is the story of the Marat hi ac­tress Hansa Wadkar. The film was acclaim­ed as one of the major feminist films of its time. Using the traditional narrative format, Benegat traces the life of Hansa from her childhood to her acting days. The main focus of the film centres on her relationships with different men and through each of these relationships, he tries to show the psychological conflicts that Hansa under­goes, between her role as breadwinner, her sexuality, her image as an actress, her cultural and traditional background, etc Sexual difference and female subjectivity are the pillars around which Benegal situates his analysis of women's subjugation. He moves from an exploration of the self to an explora­tion of subjectivity. The relationship between self and society seems to get deliberately subverted and here lies his failure to com­prehend the complexities and the essence of women's problems and see only the pheno­menal level of what appears to be the issue at stake. What Benegal fails to realise is how a woman's gender identity has to be viewed and understood through an array of social categories, the most important of these being class (and in the Indian context caste). In Malini Bhattacharya's words

Class is a category which enables us to historicise 'gender' to trace the development in time of the concept. The evolution of the man-woman relationship in society or of gender politics, while it has its own internal logic and seems at times to operate in ­dependently of class differentiations can nevertheless only be understood in the con­

text of the organisation of production rela­tions wi th in a particular social structure. Such a perspective enables us to specify gender relations. It also opens out continual­ly to include the complex interplay of gender relationships with other social relationships.3

hansa Wadkar came from a caste or com­munity whose cultural tradition totally dif­ferentiated their women from the women of the rest of Hindu caste society, and certain­ly from the Muslims and Christians. By the traditions of this caste, the women were not supposed to marry because their caste oc­cupation was a totally public one. This com­munity produced the singers, the musicions and dancers. This was their caste occupa­tion and the practice of this occupation meant constant contact with a primarily male audience. The traditions of marriage, chastity, etc, were in their case irrelevant. The women of this caste had their sexual lives but this was through temporary relationships with different men who occasionally set them up with properly. But being the mistress of a man was a secondary aspect of their lives, the primary one being their art which was a public occupation and yet they were a part of Hindu caste society, shared their religion and some of the other cultural norms. 'Akhand saubhagyavati' (the bearer of indestructible fortune) was the title given to the women of this caste because since they never married, they could never be widows.4 The children belonged to the women and so this was a woman-centred, mother-centred community. The women were also the main source of earning.

What Senegal tries to show as unconven­tional (Hansa's relationships with men) was in reality totally traditional by Hansa's caste norms. The tension begins in her life with her increasing entry and acceptance as part of the rising new middle class.5 The implicit acceptance of her public career being the most important thing in her life and every thing else as secondary begins to clash when she starts comparing herself with other middle class women. If Hansa faced con­flicts in her personal life, they were a result of the social expectations and value system of a particular class that she was becoming a part of.

Benegal fails to grasp this point and through a systematic manipulation of the link between the public and private space of the protagonist removes her and the audience from relating her experiences with the enormous web of many different social relationships. However, he prevents himself from entirely ignoring the public space-issues of what is considered the public arena

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are introduced in many places but their breezy appearance and disappearance make it clear that they are introduced only to give the backdrop to the narrative of the fi lm.

Bhoomika's claims to representing images of women then becomes highly ambiguous, because representation of women is always linked in varied ways to a broader chain or system of signification and to historically constituted real relations. Michelle Barrett explains lucidly and convincingly how the means of representation become equally im­portant in the area of cultural production. She explains for example how forms of representation are influenced by genres, con­ventions, the presence of established modes of communication and so on.6 This takes us into the uneasy and controversial terrain of'realism'. Bhoomika's form can easily be categorised into a broadly realist framework, however weak it may be. But even in this ef­fort it fails miserably. Lukacs, possibly the greatest promoter of realism, said:

True great realism thus depicts man and society as complete entities instead of show­ing merely one or the other of their aspects. Measured by this criterion, artistic trends determined by either exclusive introspection or exclusive extroversion equally impoverish and distort reality. Thus realism means a three-dimensionality, an all roundness that endows wi th independent life characters and human relationship.7

From this understanding of an, it follows that the essence of man is destroyed if the human personality is divided into a public and private sector.8 But in Bhoomika Senegal does not even try to situate Hansa's life in the context of her situation. This lack of an overall, holistic representation of the public and private spheres of her life is the most limiting aspect of the film.

Bhoomika opens with shots of dancing feet, the camera tilts and zooms out to introduce Hansa (acted by Smita) dancing provocatively, singing a lusty song. These shots of dancing feet appear several times in the film and a close look at the camera angles and movements (eg several top angle shots) makes it obvious that Benegal certain­ly has a weakness for the image of woman as spectacle. The audience is given ample time to watch Smita dancing extremely well, wriggling her hips, shifting her eyes pro­vocatively. Even in these dance sequences where for a moment we are led to believe that one is outside the domain of her per­sonal space and out in the public space, the images only help to reinforce the centrality of sexual difference and the woman as 'other".9

In purely cinematic terms Benegal uses various methods to individualise Hansa's story. The split between the personal and the public is successfully depicted through the use of carefully thought out sets, shot com­positions (camera angles) and certain techni­ques used primarily to advance the narrative. For example, exactly seven times, he uses the image of Smita looking at herself in the mir­ror as a device to either reflect back on her past or to draw strength for her future actions. The first time he uses this method is when she enters her house at the begin-ning of the f i lm. As she climbs the stairs, she meets Amol (husband) at the door who

makes his displeasure obvious (he knows that Rajan, her co-actor has given her a lift home). In the drawing room,- Sushrna (daughter,) is sitting with a worried look on her face and Sulabha (mother) is near the kitchen door with a grim expression. The tension in the room is obvious to the audience. Smita goes straight to her room and is followed by Amol with a question: "Why have you come late? Who dropped you?" Smita's shown looking at herself in the mirror ami then suddenly turns to snap at him. The look in the mirror is very signifi­cant here, because Benegal wants to show Smita's reaction and courage to leave the house following the argument to be a result of her inner strength and development. It is her very 'being' which is driving her to take such bold steps and only by looking at her own image can she realise and understand her situation. The use of this imagery in many other parts of the film establishes its conscious use.

In a flashback sequence after her marriage with Amol , Smita is again in front of the mirror before she accuses him of using her grandmother and mother as an excuse to persuade her to continue working in films. Later in a hotel room after her exit from her house, she is shown looking at her mirror reflection. From this shot Benegal cuts to some of her film clips. Here the act of look­ing into the mirror develops another meaning—a reflective look at her roles in different films, where the most conservative traditions of the Indian social elite are seen as the greatest values a woman can possess (Agnipariksha, Savitri Satyavan, Pativrata, etc).10 This conflict and contradiction bet­ween her real life actions and the roles she plays in films is again realised by her after she sees her own image.

In another sequence Smita has an argu­ment with Rajan (her co-actor). Here again, her attack on him starts after she has seen herself in the mirror. Even when she wants to commit suicide (when she is with Naseer) she takes the pills standing in front of the mirror. Here the act of taking the pills is clearly shown as a courageous act by Benegal and hence the effort again requires self-introspection by her. Almost at the end of the film Benegal uses this device again. In Amrish's (the landlord's) house, Smita spots Amol arriving with the police. She knows that her parting with the family is inevitable. Walking up to the dressing table she sits down in front of the mirror and again looking at her image starts removing all the jewellery she is wearing, the jewellery that was given to her by Amrish. This pur­poseful act symbolises her complete rejec­tion of him.

The result of this conscious use of a par­ticular kind of imagery seven times in the film to be precise is ultimately the distortion of the relationship between self and society. Benegal's mirror sequences initially appear as an expression of self-reflection at different vantage points of her life. We agree that self-reflection (that is the capacity to periodically subject one's own views to a process of critical questioning) is vital for any critical practice. Nevertheless the crucial point that Benegal misses is that self-reflection takes place in the context of a social world, a

world which is increasingly marginal as the film progresses.

Splitting the connection between the public and private is also achieved through Benegal's clever use and placement of the radio news which'is heard four times dur­ing the course of the film. But again, here the news items, e g, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, the death of Joseph Stalin, the Five-Year Plan, etc, seem to bear no rela­tionship with the story of Hansa. Instead of relating the experiences of Hansa to the social milieu and context of the period, Benegal places the news items only to ad­vance the narrative of the film period-wise, to merely give the backdrop to the narrative in the foreground.

The depiction of Smita''s relationship with Amrish Puri is in many ways very impor­tant to the story of Hansa's life. It is also the section in which Benegal tries to criti­que both the caste and class background of Amrish, who is not only a rich landowner but also a brahmin. When Smita enters the house, a long shot reveals the vastness of the palatial home of Amrish. Huge pillar-like structures, winding staircases, etc, loom large on the screen. Immediately one gets the feel­ing of being trapped. Benegal's creative use of the internal space of the house gives it an almost ominous quality and the vacant anonymous reaches of distance are converted into meaning for the audience," However, the following sequences dislocate this em­phasis on class and power and shift to the usual opposition between the three women of the house and the man. When Smita's conflict with Amrish begins the sympathy she gets from the wife and mother-in-law is quite implicit. Amrish's house becomes the site where Smita is torn between the freedom she enjoyed as an artist and the middle class urge to become a good housewife. In fact until the conflict starts she does all the things that are experted of a good housewife. By creating only an essentialised man/woman opposition here, which could have been avoided if Benegal had tried to venture into the public space of Amrish's life, he avoids attacking the value system and culture generated by upper caste and class domina­tion prevalent in India even today,

Benegal succeeds in his project of individualising Hansa's story by the skilful use of internal space throughout the nar­rative. Barring a few exceptions, the entire story is depicted within the four walls of a room or a house (to be precise, we are always indoors). This becomes particularly jarring because Hansa's life time was a period of tumultuous change and struggle, lb never see even a glimpse of it during the course of the film suggests only one intention—to isolate Hansa's story from the context of her time and present a universal, timeless female subject devoid of any class or caste identi­ty. The danger in such an analysis is that it unconsciously produces the ideology of mass market romance. Cora Kaplan states this point very sharply in her book, Culture and Feminism:

In that fictional landscape, the other struc­turing relations of society fade and disappear, leaving us wi th the naked drama of sexual difference as the only scenario that matters. Mass market romance tends to represent sex-

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ual difference at natural and fixed—a cons­tant trans-historical femininity in libidinised struggle w i t h an equally 'given' universal masculinity.12

Like Kaplan and many other feminists we feel that an analysis that privileges gender in isolation from other forms of social deter­minations presents us with a biased reading devoid of the most troubling and contradic­tory meanings. Concepts of natural, essen­tial and unified identities, a static femininity and masculinity prevent us from getting to the core of the issue. Masculinity and femininity are not pure binary forms but arranged, organised and situated through various social, cultural and polit ical categories. To quote Kaplan again:

Class and race ideologies are conversely steeped and spoken through the language of sexual differentiation. Class and race mean­ings are not metaphors for the sexual or vice versa. It is better though not exact to see them as reciprocally constituting each other through a k ind of narrative invocation, a set o f associative terms in a 'chain of meaning'.13

A T T A C K I N G ON A V A L U E SYSTEM

In this context Mirch Masala proves to be extremely interesting because of the multi­dimensional critique that it attempts. Mirch Masala is the story of Sonbai and her strug­gle against the village 'subedar' (tax collec­tor) in a small village in colonial India. Through this conflict the film identifies the complexities of women's perceptions and at­tempts to establish the relationship between women's subjugation to wider social and historical processes. Ketan Mehta clearly does not view women's subjugation as in­herently a male drive to dominate women Sonbai, the main character in the film who defies the sexual advances of the subedar does not limit her attack on just one man but hits out at a whole value system and ideology which legitimises the subordinate position of women. The subedar and the village 'mukhi' represent much more than just their male identity. The subedar is a symbol of colonial rule, the tax collector who works for the Britishers and the mukhi is the village chief, the head of their hierar­chical order. Mehta maintains his steady connection between the public and the private and radically differs from Benegal in his understanding of women's issues. Where Benegal sees the feminist aspiration as a very personal and individual process, Mehta situates it in a much broader context of different social, political and economic factors without losing sight of the gender question. Mirch Masala is much more a film raising women's issues than Bhoomika which ultimately remains only a narrative description of an individual actress.

Through Sonbai's struggle against the subedar, Mehta reveals the complex interplay of power relations in a small village in col­onial India. Sonbai works in a spice mak­ing factory with other women. When she escapes from the subedar's soldiers and runs into the factory for shelter she receives the sympathy of most of the other women workers. Subsequently however, her refusal

to succumb to the pressures of the village people puts her in a position where she en­counters the anger of the other women. The initial sympathy of the women, followed by their anger and finally the revolt—through each of these stages we are introduced to the complexities of women's consciousness. The realisation that they suffer is very clear, but there is no faith in their ability to fight back. The reference to the gang rape some years ago highlights what the older women have been through, yet fear of what the future has in store for them holds them back. A com­bination of the ideology of dependence and the acceptance of their powerlessness pro­duces the change in their reactions to Sonbai's situation.

Ketan Mehta also counters the notion of the homogeneous female subject. The women in the factory have an identity other than their gender identity—i e, their labour. This aspect is presented rather creatively in the sequence where all of them are working together. With some music in the back­ground, Mehta portrays them at work—low angle shots against the sun of women work­ing with the pestle and the mortar, close-up shots of hands working on the grinding stone. He rejects an individual identification and presents the self in terms of a group (class, caste, etc). The importance of such a presentation is explained well by Christine Gledhill:

.. .a feminist theory and cultural practice that seeks practical political effectivity must be able to take account of the intersection of gender wi th class and racial differences amongst others. In polit ical terms it would seem essential to have recourse to some form of recognition through which women can identify with themselves as women and as an oppressed group, yet at the same time relate this to their class experience.14

In Mirch Masala, the mukhi's reaction to his own wife is very different from his reac­tion to Sonbai's plight. He is clearly possessive about his wife but does not hesitate in persuading Sonbai to give in to the subedar. The fact that Sonbai can be sacrificed very easily is because of the class she belongs to. The plight of one woman, her very 'personal' crisis is constantly turned into a political fight which involves many others.

In Bhoomika we saw a lack of any kind of spatial tension with the surroundings.15

The only point where there is some expres­sion of energy is when Smita is dancing. But again because of the sexual innuendoes of the song and the provocative nature of the dance, she is ultimately a spectacle for the director's (male) gaze whose point of view merges with that of the audience.16 Mirch Masala stands in sharp contrast to this— there are sharp movements of energy—the dance sequence, the chase, the work in the factory, the symbolic protest of the village women, the villagers march to the subedar, the tussle of the three prisoners with a pole, the final revolt, etc. Secondly, barring a few exceptions most of the action is conducted in the public arena. The most brilliant exposition of the connection between the public and the private is done through

Saraswati's character. Saraswati's initial conflict with her

husband (mukhi) is because he has a mistress and very often does not return home, However, the conflict takes on a different expression when she comes into contact with 'master sahib' (the Swaraj activist) and influenced by him admits her daughter to the village school. Saraswati's daughter is the only girl going to school. Mehta relates Saraswati's subordination at home to the overall subjugation of women. When the mukhi gets to hear of this, he is furious and drags his daughter back home. The pan-chayat meeting at her house to discuss Sonbai's plight seems to be Saraswati's final undoing. Mehta visualises this brilliantly.

Since only the men are allowed to attend the meeting, Saraswati watches through the heavily gril'ed window. The impotency of the panchayat forces her out of her house to organise the other village women. She is able to feel a sense of solidarity with the women trapped in the factory. The symbolic protest of the women making a noise with (he rolling pin and steel plates is evidence of their utter contempt for their husbands, who drag them back home. The mukhi throws Saraswati into the house and locks it from outside. But the protest remains a courageous act. When the men are leaving the village to talk to the subedar, Saraswati hits the grilled window in anger and frustra­tion. With dramatic lighting, Mehta shows her profile in the foreground and the men walking past in the background, she is inside the house and they are outside. This focus on her aggressive action reveals Saraswati's final realisation that as long as she is locked in the house literally or figuratively there will be no change in her situation. Only by relating and associating her experiences with those of others can she have any hope of changing her life,

Mirch Masala also introduces several techniques to draw the attention of the audience to the cinematic apparatus. Mehta uses effective distancing devices to make the spectators conscious that they are watching a film. When Sonbai is at the river washing clothes, the subedar comes on his horse and looks at her through a telescope. Mehta cuts from a shot of the subedar to a shot of the telescopic view of Sonbai focused on her back. The subedar's gaze which sees her only as a sexual object is obvious, but Mehta also makes another point about the gaze of the cinematic apparatus itself.17 By doing this he tries to keep the narrator of the text alive so that the audience is never confronted with images that give the impression of 'reality' or 'truth'. The illusion of reality is created when the narrative or the film which should act as the mediator between the audience and reality seems to disappear. This creates a transparent style which diverts the atten­tion of the spectator from the 'mediating narrative' and produces the effect of the spectator being directly confronted with reality.18 Mehta successfully avoids falling into this trap. He uses slow motion and dissolves as specific techniques in cinema to foreground the cinematic specificity of the film. Theatrical acting, unreal pretty clothes,

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stylistic editing are some of the other methods used to break the illusion of reality. In his own words:

. . . speed, rhythm, colour, flash. I have used these deliberately, at the same time taking care to short circuit them before they become benumbing19

Even the makeup of Abbu Miya—his beard and general appearance—seems quite odd. When he is shot at the end of the f i lm, the blood from the bullet wounds is a strange mixture of red and orange. We im­mediately notice this 'unreal' element and are made conscious of the whole process of film-making.

In Bhoomika on the other hand, Benegal had the golden opportunity to critique the gaze of the cinematic apparatus, but chose not to. As an actress, Hansa was continuous-ly dancing and acting for a camera, yet we only see her dancing and acting on screen for the audience; at no point does Benegal present a view of her through the lens. Having confined himself to a rigidly realist framework, Benegal refuses to draw any at­tention to the construction of Hansa's per­sonality and character by the cinematic ap­paratus, for fear of breaking the illusion of 'reality'.

In Bhoomika, the space provided to Hansa and the space given to the audience are both restricted and limited. Just as Hansa is deprived of her interaction with her public space, similarly Benegal applies the same conception in the technique he uses in the film. Bhoomika has a sense of closure, that gives it an illusion of wholeness, a kind of complete entity.20 This arouses a passive reaction from the audience because it becomes a very individual process of iden­tification and leaves no scope for interaction, participation or alternative action, Mirch Masala on the other hand deals with both the public and the private space not only in the fi lm but also introduces alienation techniques (drawing the audiences' attention to the filmic process) to move away from the concept of 'closure' and 'wholeness'. Mehta's style is an open-ended form attacking the illusionist tradition so that the audience is moved towards creative participation.21 The audience in that sense is the public, so the public/private interaction is never negated, on the contrary it is consciously established The last part of the film highlights this method most explicitly.

The subedar comes with his soldiers to break the gates of the factory Sonbai and the other women are locked inside When the factory gates are opened, the women run for shelter and Abbu Miya is shot. Mehta cuts from the killing to a shot of Radha (Supriya Pathak) screaming in anguish at his brutal murder. Abbu Miya's murder becomes the turning point. It arouses the anger of the women against the subedar and also makes them realise that their last shred of dependence was no longer there. Now the factory which is the work place and therefore the public space of the women is turned into the site of struggle and it is no longer Sonbai alone but also the others who decide to fight. The 'masala' (spice) that they make, the commodity that is produced for the owner of the factory is used as a weapon in their

final attack on the subedar (he is blinded by the stinging from the spices that the women throw at him). Mehta uses slow motion and dissolves to show the pain he is going through and also to foreground a particular f i lm technique. As the subedar collapses, screaming in agony Mehta cuts to a close-up shot of Sonbai looking straight at the au­dience, with a slight smile on her face. The audience at this point wants to know what happens after this—do the soldiers attack? What do the village people do? What hap­pens to Sonbai? But Mehta consciously breaks the narrative, to leave it open-ended so that the audience is able to participate and reflect on the issues being raised.

To conclude, while Bhoomika is unable to transcend the phenomenal reality of its object' Mehta consciously engages the audience in the construction of a new 'reality'. Bhoomika's 'reality' alienates the audience, Mirch Masala involves the au­dience. In Bhoomika the public/private dichotomy tends to leave the women's issue as a virtually unresolvable problem, as a con­flict which tears the woman and others apart in the process of its development, Mirch Masala22 on the other hand links women's issues to far deeper and broader issues of social conflict, throwing out possibilities of solutions in which the audience can also participate

Notes

1 Karel Kosik, The Dialectics of the Concrete Reidel Publishing Company, Boston, 1982, p 78.

2 Part ha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse (see Preface), Oxford University Press, Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, 1986.

3 Malini Bhattacharya, 'Women's Studies and Textual Evidence: Some Preliminary Notes' in Samya Shakti: A Journal of Women's Studies, Vols IV and V, 1989-90, CWDS, p 277.

4 The word 'saubhagya' literally means good fortune. In common parlance saubhagyavati is used to describe women whose husbands are alive, since widowhood under patriar­chal dispensation is equated wi th the toss of all fortune. Ironically even a community which attached no significance to the institution of marriage sought to flaunt the status of its women as those who could never be widowed. One may read a symbolic defiance of the patriarchal norms of caste and class society in the adoptation of this title by a group considered to be on the margins of Indian society

5 The common tendency of upwardly mobile groups to imitate the social norms and values of the upper classes to which the former is seeking entry, in the Indian con­text is compounded by the wide differences in social norms relating to women's roles in different castes. Domestication is a luxury and a norm that was imposed only on upper caste and upper class women, expected to be emulated by upwardly mobile caste or class groups.

6 Michelc Barrett Womens Oppression Today: Problems in Marxist feminist Analysis, Verso Editions, London, 1980, p 9) .

7 Lukacs, Georgy, Studies in European Realism: A Sociological Survey of the Writings of Balzac, Stendhal, Zola, Tolstoy, Gorki and others, Mer l in Press, London, 1972.

8 Toril Mod Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist

Literary Theory, Routledge, London and New York, 1988, p 5.

9 Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex translated and edited by H M Parshley; Penguin Books, 1972, p 16.

10 These legends—of Sita going through a trial by fire to prove her chastity, of Savitri defying the laws of death to reclaim her dead husband Satyavan and Pativrata, the ideal woman whose life is dedicated to obey­ing her husband represent the most com­mon forms of patriarchal values which emanated from the upper sections of caste society. According to current historical i n ­terpretation these were adopted when social stratification and the decline in the status of women were fairly advanced. They never represented the customs or attitudes of the overwhelming majori ty of the population of the sub-continent.

11 Edward W Said Orientalism, Vintage Books, a division of Random House N Y, 1979, p 55.

12 Cora Kaplan Sea Changes: Culture and Feminism, Verso Publications, London, 1986, p 148.

13 Ib id , 149. 14 Christine, GledhiII , "Developments in

Feminist Film Criticism' in Revision: Essays in Feminist Film Criticism (ed) Mary A n n Doane, Patricia Mellen Camp and Linda Wi l l i ams ; University Publicat ions o f America I n c 1984, p 35.

15 John Berger, About Looking, Pantheon Books, New York, 1980, p 180. Referring to the tack of spatial tension in Rodin's sculptures, Berger says " A l l writers on Rodin's sculpture have noticed its sensuous or sexual character; but many of them treat this sexuality only as an ingredient. It seems to me that it was the prime motivation of his art—and not merely in the Freudian sense of a sublimation" (p 180). One can draw an analogy wi th the construction of Hansa's personality in Bhoomika not just by Benegal but all those who wished to see her in a particular way.

16 E A n n Kaplan, Women and Film: Both Sides of the Camera, Methuen N Y and London, 1987, See Chapter I, 'Is the Gaze Male'?

17 The understanding of the cinematic ap­paratus mentioned here should not be equated wi th the projections of the Struc­turalists, e g, Comol l i , Baudry, etc, with their Althuserian defini t ion of ideology. Class structure and a historical overview are the poles around which any theory of the cinematic apparatus must be grounded. It is not what films tell us about society that is important but also what an understan­ding of society can tell us about films and the nature of their representations. The cinematic apparatus must be interpreted in terms of the groups and viewpoints wi th which they arc connected.

18 Margit Koves and Shaswati Mazumdar, 'Utopia and Despair', review article in Social Scientist Vol 18, Nos 6-7, June-July 1990.

19 Mi ra Reym Binford, T h e Two Cinemas of India', in Film and Politics in the Third World (ed) John D H Downing, Automedia Books 1987; p 155.

20 M a r t i n Wal ih , The Brechtian Aspect of Radical Cinema (ed) Keith M G r i f f i t h ' ; BFI Publishing, 1981, p 18.

21 I b i d . 22 There has been a lot of criticism about why

Mehta uses Mirch Masala as a ti t le since it carries sexist overtones. In my opinion it has been deliberately used because he manages to subvert and crush its other connotations by turning it into a weapon for the revolt at the end of the f i l m .

WS-84 Economic and Political Weekly October 26, 1991