Divas of drama

Feminine touch

With Women’s Day round the corner, it would be interesting to see how the female folk have been portrayed over the years, on screen.Suresh kohli rewinds and reflects on how the Indian actress has evolved in cinema, and if she’s a patch on her western counterpart.

Although Indian cinema has drawn considerably from world cinema in the past century, there is a fundamental difference in the way women are perceived in each of these.

A close look would indicate that in its 100 years of existence, one cannot really zero in on an even number of films in the different Indian languages that could really be labelled as women-centric.

In the west, however, a female actor is not even considered for purely romantic roles (unless it is a teenage love story or pure fantasy), until she is in her late 20s, early 30s and so on. They would have to wait until their prime, by which time they would have experienced enough to bring life to a role on the screen.

In contrast, an Indian female actor would have invariably lapsed into the labyrinth of motherhood by then. And when she does re-emerge from the self-imposed exile, she is worthy only of secondary roles — that of a sister, mother or mother-in-law.

Indian women in cinema

Sai Paranjpe, one of the very few women directors who made a name for herself and then disappeared into oblivion, observed: “By and large, women have adorned the Indian screen in a decorative capacity. Seldom do we see a woman of substance in a film, a flesh-and-blood person facing real problems and trying to come to terms with her environment.” And whenever she does, it is always to bask in the shadows of failure or defeat. For example, Smita Patil in Jabbar Patel’s Umbartha, a Marathi film, or Subah in Hindi.

The only other contemporary director who has tried to consciously make good women-centric cinema based on literary works like Drishti, Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa and Deham is Govind Nihalani. Before that Basu Bhattacharya made a series of films that gave considerable space to the female protagonists caught up in the intricacies of man-woman relationship: Avishkar, Anubhav, Grihaparvesh, Aastha.

Indian cinema has remained the hunting ground for male stars alone, and women have largely been his muse in various forms, manifestations and relationships known to humanity. Even during the silent and early talkie era, women-centric films, if they can be dubbed so, hovered around the themes of mythology, history and adventure or fantasy.

Devika Rani came to be called ‘first lady’ not because of any sterling performances, but for the position she came to enjoy. Of the 42 Dadasaheb Phalke Award winners, only six are women, and a bare four, actors: Devika Rani, Sulochana, Kannan Devi and Durga Khote. No Nadia who captured the imagination of a whole generation of film-goers in the 1930s and 1940s. So, while an Amitabh Bachchan is likely to be bestowed with the honour at any point of time, the draw of luck will never favour Waheeda, whose achievements are no less.

Beginning with Hindi cinema, few names surface when it comes to great heroines: Meena Kumari, Waheeda Rahman, Sharmila Tagore and Smita Patil. There have been many other beautiful performances by women in iconic roles — Nargis in Mother India, Madhubala in Mughal-e-Azam, Nutan in Bandini and Rekha in Umrao Jaan.

One only has to rewind into the oeuvre to access their achievements: Meena Kumari from Sharda to Pakeezah, Waheeda from Pyaasa to Phagun, Sharmila from Kashmir ki Kali to Mausam and Smita from Bhumika to Waaris. Others deserving mention are Meenakshi Sheshadri and Madhuri  , who seized rare opportunities to put in substantial performances in women-centric films like Damini and Mrityudand. And Sridevi, if Sadma can be slotted as a Hindi film.

Though Shabana Azmi also finds a place in the list of accomplished Hindi actors, somehow she does not have a memorable role against her name. And, of the present generation, the only one who qualifies to be in the list of accomplished ones is Nandita Das.

Yesteryear performances

Kannan Devi, together with Chhaya Devi, ruled the roost in the thirties and forties with some sterling performances. In the post-Independence period, it was first Suchitra Sen, Sharmila Tagore and Madhabi Mukherjee to some extent, who gave some outstanding performances in challenging roles under brilliant directors.

Kannan Devi in P C Barua’s Mukti and Debaki Bose in Vidyapati, Harane Sur, Saptapadi, Saat Paake Bandha and Devi Chaudhrani are some other examples of exemplary performances. Madhabi Mukherjee’s performance in Satyajit Ray’s Charulata will suffice to find her a place amongst great Bengali actors, though Ritwik Ghatak’s Subaranrekha, Meghea Dekha Tara and Komal Gandhar were no less.

Not unlike the rest of the country, Southern cinema too is driven by the male factor. Unfortunately, it does not throw up any names that merit a mention in an august list of great performers. If at all there are names, they would include the likes of Vyjanthimala, Jayalalitha, Sridevi and Revathy from Tamil Nadu, Sharada and Shobana from Kerala.

None really from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab and other parts of the country. One of the reasons for this could be that unlike the Bengali filmmakers, and very much like Hindi cinema exponents (both mainstream and parallel) no conscious and serious attempt was made to dig into literary masterpieces in the respective languages.

As Shoma A Chatterjee once rightly concluded: “Whether it is the fearless Nadia of the Hunterwali genre of films, or whether it is Phoolan Devi of Bandit Queen, the fact remains that the male masquerade sustains the power-relationship in its status quo. This is because all these women are actually either seeking acceptance or protection from men, in the conviction that men are superior beings on earth.”

Sadly, it is a chicken-and-egg situation in so far as women-centric cinema is concerned. Somehow these films have never succeeded in recovering their investment, and those that did were strictly made within the accepted parameters of what Chatterjee has hinted. Fortunately, western cinema does not suffer from this malady and that is why it throws up films from time to time that are able to stir the male consciousness. And the filmmakers do not necessarily need to subscribe to prescribed social norms.