Reimagining: Part 1
No Man is an Island
As the needle pierces through the cloth,
the lines of colorful threads come together to form an intricate, beautiful
design. Not distant from that, our lives are weaving numerous stories, joined
by the threads of romances and tragedies and leave their marks on the landscapes
of soil and flesh. Ananya Chaudhury, through her poignant words, tells the
story of ‘Dor’, exploring a web of relationships,
struggles of value and tradition, strung together by the lives of two women and
the travel of their story through space, culture and time. The serene hills and
the scorching deserts are bridged together with the story of Zeenat and Meena. Through
Ananya’s article we go through the motions of life as told by Bollywood and is
a beautiful example of the silver screens capturing the scenes of life in rural
India.
“If
I were asked under what sky the human minds has most fully developed some of
its choicest gifts, has deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and
has found solutions, I should point to India.”
-Max Muller
The ‘Dor’ of Land, Love and Life
The movie “Dor” (literal meaning-string)
unveils a bouquet of emotions- intimacy, grief, hope, resignation, oppression,
guilt, greed, contempt, liberation, and most of all love.
This is the tale of two women from
diverse regions and backgrounds, coupled with the same aspirations. But while
one has the courage and confidence to make her own choices, the other has
resigned to her fate. Meera, a young woman who becomes a widow shortly after
marriage, is trapped by traditions of her little village and community. Zeenat,
on the other hand, faces the daunting task of saving the life of her husband,
who is on trial for murder. A “bahuroopiya” helps
her reach Meera, who holds the "string" to Zeenat's hope. The
companionship that develops between Meera and Zeenat results in redemption for
both.
That Chit of Friendship: Bonded for Life
The movie starts by showing the hills of
the Himachal Pradesh, where nature is so kind that she gives her best, the lush
green grass, green forest and never ending flows of water, better to say rivers
and springs. In contrast, the desert of Thar, Rajasthan, where Mother Nature is
harsh, her beauty is a bit brutal; scorching heat, the vast ragged desert, and
her beauty is dangerous here.
Lands that speak our stories
In these two lands two separate but
interdependent and unique cultures has formed. But the ‘string’; a “dor” attaches
two lives so perfectly, that no one can break it.
The opening dialogue of the movie is
symbolic and it defines the culture and changeable time aptly, “Har cheez ka ek waqt aur muqam hota hai,
agar waqt pe kaam na karo to afat tut padegi.”
The dialogue reveals the ‘unique’
colourful identities of our life. From birth to marriage and death, how they
are related and how one event changes the other. It also gives a very important
lesson of life ‘it is necessary to change some values and beliefs before it too
late and affect your life’.
The trust and bond between each other
and finding new happiness in life, the romance of marriage, and the diversity
of cultures is beautifully portrayed in the marriage system of two different
religion; Hinduism and Islam. But the desire of everyone is to live ‘happily ever
after’. To fulfill this wish two men leave for Saudi Arabia in search of bread
and butter from two distant places, leaving behind two young women. The first,
Zeenat, who is a fiercely independent woman from a small town in Himachal while
the second is Meera, a traditional Rajput bride who is content to live most of
her life behind the veil.
Bollywood Unlimited: India and its cultures
As the movie progresses, it starts to
unveil different dimensions of the Indian culture like the houses which varies
from one region to another. The houses of the hill region are generally small
and made of wooden roofs and the walls are made of rocks, whereas, the houses
of desert region, Thar Desert, are relatively big, or the rich people owns
‘havelies’, which are mainly made with lime stones. In the desert region, every
region has their own architecture, own traditional houses. But, the general
houses of the desert region are made with straw and also have straw roof.
The Haveli of the High and Hearty
The movie made a perfect picturization
of the houses of these two regions, mainly the class difference in Rajasthan
and the house patterns are well shown. In one scene of the movie, a photograph
of Meera and her husband was shown, the background shows ‘blue houses’, which
signifies that the photograph was taken at Jodhpur, the well known “Blue City”,
same as the “Pink City” Jaipur. The
architectural difference in different places is not only ‘exotic’ in eyes of
the foreigners but ‘we’ the countrymen also adore them too.
The movie ‘Dor’ is a perfect example of
a slice of India. Not only the natural beauty and the architectural value of
different regions but also shows the diversity in the occupation.
The movie takes a turning point at the
entry of the ‘Bahuroopiya’, meaning one who changes himself into many persons
and mimics them. The Bahoorupiya shows the different cultures of India in a new
light. From the astrologer to modern day actor to Govt. clerk, all of them
captured so brilliantly in his mimicry. All the people he mimicked are from
different backgrounds but they are attached in the same ‘string’ of the
cultural value, their belief.
The Shape shifter: Bahooroopiya
The movie progresses with an insight
into the different cultures of our colorful country. In one scene of the movie,
where Zeenat searches Meeara, a photograph was shown, where the jewelry worn by
Meera suggests that she is from a particular clan of ‘Rajput’, the most
respected and the higher caste of Rajasthan, that the girl belongs to the
‘Agnibanshi’, other observation about that particular clan is the colorful ‘pagri’ (a kind of turban) worn by
husband of Meera. So, the colorful traditional cloths and unique traditional jeweler
says a lot about the culture and the uniqueness of their own traditional
values.
Tradition and culture does not mean to
adore all old customs and follow them blindly, it also means the change of
values and believes with time or ‘afat
tut padegi’. So, culture and
tradition is not all about the colorful and happy things; it also shows the
dark side or better to say some ‘unwanted’ twists. The twists and turns are at
some point losing treasures as well as gaining them. The powerful question was
thrown towards the people that ‘is it necessary to adore all those customs
which only give nothing but sadness in life’?
The twist in the plot which leaves us
speechless, when it revealed that Zeenat's husband was arrested for the murder
of Meera's husband and sentenced to death by the Saudi authorities. The
greatest treasure Meera ever had, as portrayed in the movie so gracefully and
beautifully.
Where Meera threw these inevitable
questions towards Zeenath, ‘have you ever possessed a treasure? A treasure that
only you found and which had a special value in your eyes, but, was taken away
from you. You did everything in your power, everything that you could possibly
do to save it for yourself. Selfishness isn’t it? Greediness isn’t it, when you
try to have it only for yourself with a hope that it will remain with you
forever. False hope. You stare helplessly; you feel something changing right
before your eyes. And before you know it, your ‘treasure’ is gone, vanished,
like it had never been there, only leaving an imprint on your mind.’ Just like
that, Meera, who lost her husband and become widow at the point of time, was
bound by so many customs. She is convinced by the fact that, a widow is
forbidden to be happy or show her happiness and if she did something like that
then she is nothing but a sinner. The ‘emotional flatness’ is the most painful
thought, that one who lose their husband are meant to suffer through their
entire life.
DOR: String of Romances and Tragedies
One scene of the movie, where Meera ties
a string around the sacred tree near a temple because she believes that one day
her husband will come back, though she knows that her husband was dead and it
is not possible. But sometimes we feel that, it’s better to ignore the reality,
‘kyon ki Asha amar hai.’ Hope, one word, keep faith on the single word the
distraught woman Zeenat came to Meera to seek her forgiveness, the only way
Zeenat can save her husband. The way
Zeenat convinced Meera to sign the clemency papers: that's the dilemma and the
drama of this mesmerising little parable on 'insaniyat' and women's
emancipation. All the time Meera forgets to believe in herself. She was lost.
Zeenat showed her the way the path, gave her the best lesson of the life,
“Believe that something good is coming your way…believing is half the work
done… believing is solving…I BELIEVE THEREFORE I LIVE.”
So, our belief & faith in the
almighty, shows us a unique way to have faith on ones’ own self. The religious
belief, the unique cultural facts conveys the same thought in different ways;
believe in other because, “no man is an island”. The name of the movie ‘Dor’
itself justifies the phrase out right & propagates that we are all attached
in the same string, of belief amongst each other & that, ‘hope never dies’.
The cultural heritage of India is not
separate islands, but ‘one’. All of them are attached to each other, with
belief, love and hope for a better future. The culture is ‘exotic’ in its own way;
it is undesirable to ponder the argument as to which is better, because
everyone is unique in their own way.
The
movie shows a slice of India. To know the culture of India we need to look into
ourselves because we are the product and a piece of this ‘unique culture’.
Picture sources: From the movie and Google images.
Author’s
Bio- Note:
Currently, Ananya is pursuing M.Plan from
CEPT University. She loves to travel alone and is an avid reader, especially of
'magical-realism'.
Series Editor: Arunima Ghoshal
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