Masaan

What a deeply touching movie. Two tender love stories set against the powerful and disturbing backdrop of the burning ghats and funeral pyres of Varanasi. 

Masaan, is a colloquial term for smashaan (crematorium). It's like the fire of the cremations burns itself through everything in the movie, the love, passion, anger, integrity or sorrow, they're all at intense levels. The first fifteen minutes is so dramatic, and so sad that I sat with palms on face and watched.

Devi Pathak (Richa Chadha) holds the fire even in her eyes. She was simply amazing. 

We have no background of the love affair, it starts with Devi getting caught in the act, police raids in seedy hotels. The boyfriend is so shaken that he kills himself. 

And we have a cop who's got enough photos there to blackmail. She lives with her ageing father who runs a small store on the ghats, and they both are up against the bad cop. She's a spirited and strong girl, speaks little, but you know she feels neither guilt nor shame. When the cop asks what she was doing in the hotel room, she throws one word at him "jigyasa" (curiosity). 

Her father and she struggle to pay off the blackmailer. She survives it against all odds, head held high, and after the ugly issue with the cop is done, she goes on in search of her boyfriends parents in Allahabad. The moral integrity there is just so so powerful. And therein she finds her redemption and closure.

A parallel story is a sweet love story that develops between Deepak (Vicky Kaushal) and Shaalu (Swetha). Vicky Kaushal was again simply amazing. You can see the process of his falling in love in just the way his face lights up when he talks to her, or hears of her, and his little gestures that make his joy palpable. 

That's yet another tragic end. You connect to him so much, that when he breaks down, you break down with him.

And hidden beneath all that is his angst. He belongs to the families who live on Harishchandra ghat, in the little houses that overlook the constantly burning pyres. The family is engaged in the pyre burning, piling up of the bodies, smashing of skulls and all the gore that goes with it. This is no Varanasi that we see from the boats on the Ganges, it's from within, life and death seen from it's closest. 

While it is the typical story of a lower caste boy in love with an upper caste girl, I loved how there was no glorification or drama attached. She's quite clear from the word go; says her family is still stuck in the ghissi pitti sonch ( the stuck up caste beliefs) 'so be prepared to run away and get married' she says. It's not even about her being prepared, she's willing to take on the whole responsibility. Bold and new age. 

There's also the role of new tech and social media that's so vividly brought forth. It's fb and coaching centers that enable bridging of the caste gap. Their paths would otherwise never meet. A meeting ground of what was (is) and what can be (is).

It ends with both the stories getting neatly woven in together. I loved the symbolism of them getting off the steps of the ghats and stepping into a boat in the Ganges..... to let a new flow begin.