Produced and directed by Anirban Ghosh
Camera: Farah Ghedra, Anirban Ghosh
Music: Satchit-Paulose
Distribution funded by Pratyay Gender Trust
Screened at: Dialogues: The Fifth Kolkata LGBT Film Festival, 2011
______________________________________________________________________________________
Academic debate rages over the fact whether the subaltern can represent herself or is always represented by the bourgeois intellectual. However, Anirban Ghosh’s Diaries of Transformation: Work in Progress attributes sufficient agency to the gender subaltern, although the fact remains that Ghosh does represent the bourgeois intellectual. Interestingly, Ghosh is careful enough to address the issue in the film itself. Oishik Sircar, Human Rights Activist, talks at length on the English-educated bourgeois leadership in queer activism and the inaccessibility of many gendered subalterns to the discourses of contemporary queer politics. However, I felt that Diaries is interesting because it does not treat the sexual subaltern as a subaltern; in fact, the film is appealing because it narrates tales of victory, rather than victimization. True, both Rai and Suman have been maltreated by an insensitive employer and callous Kolkata police respectively; but, eventually, they emerge victorious. Raju, Bini and Pinky also have their share of misgivings; Sabir’s situation is even more interesting; for him it is quite difficult to reconcile his religious and sexual identities. Tista and Sudeb appear comparatively more enlightened, and talk at length on the politics of trans-identities and assimilation. But all of them are unpretentiously candid. Especially, Bini and Pinky impress with their warmth and their humorous, no-holds-barred derision of the hypocritical ‘straight’ population.
As one story effortlessly flows into and mixes with another, shots of the various nooks and corners of the metropolis act as means of transition, as it were. Kolkata is overwhelmingly present in the film. The gender margins are physically located at its centre: the Kalighat temple, the Howrah Bridge, the Book Fair, railway stations, markets and pedestrian alleys occupied by gully-cricketers. The hijra and the transsexual man are very much a part of everyday reality, yet invisible. Of course, the invisibility is not literal, but metaphorical: they are deliberately not seen. A shot of an elderly man, probably chewing pan, with a nonchalant expression on his face speaks volumes. He is standing on the veranda, the space that connects the home with the world, but is significantly indifferent to the world, as it were. Another marvellous shot is that of a little girl making an attempt to fly a kite, while the voice-over (Sudeb) talks about irrational gender construction.
Diaries is not only confined to the issue of transexuality; it also focuses on prostitution at length. Without this, the film would have been incomplete. While it sufficiently challenges the received notion of the transsexual as sexually promiscuous, it also treats prostitution as any other trade, dismantling the moral reservation associated with it. Raju, Bini and Pinky talk about their profession, the occupational hazards, and their aspirations with remarkable forthrightness, sometimes shocking the audience, sometimes drawing hearty laughs.
Family remains an important issue all through. Acceptance by the near and dear ones is at the end of the day important to each of them. Raju and Bini are particularly concerned about keeping their mothers happy, while Sudeb and Sabir are at pains to find acceptability within the family. Social humiliation is integral to their everyday existence, but none of them have given up. I would like to mention Suman’s mother in particular: delightfully simple, yet uncompromising when it comes to supporting her transgender son. Gender liminality is celebrated without any inhibitions, throwing to the winds the puckered brow of the moral police.
Technically too the film is quite brilliant. Ghosh has a keen sense of editing and of course a very clear cinematic vision. In association with Farah Gherda, he has done a commendable job with the camera. And finally, kudos to Pratyay Gender Trust and particularly, Anindya Hazra for promoting such a film!
No comments:
Post a Comment