Village capitalises on film shooting

People discuss 'Rudaali' even two decades after release

Women in ghagra-odhni, carrying water-filled matkas (pitchers) on their heads, amble across wavy dunes as their shadows appear on mud walls. They stop near a kair (capparis) tree where cattle and camels are resting. Suddenly a sand storm covers everything. Men quickly clutch their colourful turbans while women hold on to their veil tightly.    “Dilhoomhoomkare, ghabraaye ... Ghan dhamdhamkare, darrjaaye...Ek boondkabhipaani ki moriankhiyonsebarsaaye". 

 The scene and song by well-known singer the late Bhupen Hazarika stand out in the Hindi movie Rudaali, which was made more than two decades ago.  A visitor to the village even now is sure to come across a woman stepping out of a thatched hut, balancing a matka on her head and clutching a child who is fiddling with a mouth organ. It reminds one of a scene in which Shanichari (Dimple Kapadia) comes out of the hut with a child in hand.  But the only difference is in the movie Dimple playfully dances to a tune from a mouth organ played by her son Buddhua.

 The movie was shot in Barna, which is about 40 km from Jaisalmer. Villagers still remember the shooting of the film. Not much has changed in the village, barring an occasional vehicle passing by and antennas dotting the thatched huts.

 Barna is difficult to spot from a distance as the dune camouflage mud houses. In the summer months, a smell of fresh coating of mud welcomes visitors. The village is dotted with clean mud houses with an interspersing of semi-concrete walls here and there. Barna boasts of two open wells, which go dry in the summer. Farmers grow bajra as the main crop.  A sort of Rudaali tourism thrives on in this small village, which has a population of 820.

 The movie is a generation old and the tradition showed in it is not followed anymore. But the memories of the shooting days, even the dialogues and names of characters, are fondly remembered by most  villagers. They recollect the names of the cast by their characters in the film. Raju, who was not even born when the movie was shot, gives details of the hut in which Bikhini (Rakhee Gulzar) and Shanichari stayed. His friend Kalu says that there was a cot on which the two would sleep in the night and starts singing a song from the movie.

  Kalu, who has downloaded the movie on his smart phone, says, “We take tourists for a tour of the village on camels and then narrate the corresponding scenes from the movie.”

Almost everyone in the village has watched the movie at least once and some many times. Even those who were not born at that time explain to tourists about what happened during the shooting with clarity and confidence of experienced and professional guides. They have inherited the skill from their parents and elders who witnessed the shooting and life of the cast and crew involved in the movie-making for about a month in 1993. Some villagers also claim they played a small role in the movie—could be bystanders and passersby but it does not matter to them.

People in Barna wait for the cloud cover. When it rains, the entire village celebrates. Sharda Devi (49) explains the situation as she hums the song “Jhooti mootimitwaaawan bole” that celebrates rain and the joy it brings. The song has Dimple dancing in the rain, but ruing the absence of her beloved who keeps on making false promises and doesn't come to see her.

 Like villagers some of the actors also remember their desert experience fondly. Noted actor Mita Vashisht, who played the role of a mistress of a rich man who dies in the movie, gets nostalgic while sharing her experience. She told DH, “It was my first visit to Jaisalmer. I cannot forget that pristine image of a village. People were humble and nice to us. Barna really looked like a village! There were no dish antennas no bill boards and no concrete walls. Dimple and me used to take a Jeep and drive in the dunes. One could not spot anything around us…just the pristine dunes.”

 For Mita, both the movie and her character are close to her heart. “My role was very short but I still remember my entry where I approach the body of my lover. As a mistress she wants to weep over his death and she is not allowed to do so,” she adds.

 Rudaali, directed by Kalpana Lajmi, is based on a short story written by famous Bengali litterateur the late Mahasweta Devi. The title refers to a custom in certain areas of Rajasthan where women of  lower caste are hired as professional mourners for upper-caste men. They are referred to as Rudaalis (roo-dah-lees) or female weepers. Their job was to publicly express grief of family members who were not permitted to display emotions due to their status in society.

Nand Kishore Sharma, a noted historian and founder of the Desert Culture Centre Museum at Jaisalmer, says that the tradition of hiring Rudaalis no more exists. He says, “A hundred years ago, women of the house were not allowed to mourn publicly due to the tradition. So, kings and Thakurs (feudal lords) used to call women dressed in black to mourn the affluent. They used to wail, beat their chests and roll on the ground in front of a body.”

  However, some critics believe that Rudaali is just a fiction and such a tradition never existed in Rajasthan. Rajendra Bora, a noted writer and film critic, said, “Hiring of Rudaalis for weeping or mourning has never been a culture in Rajasthan. There is hardly any mention in books that justifies women in purdah system in Rajasthan were not allowed to mourn their dear ones. This fictionalised tradition has become a myth after Rudaali, whose script  was written by Gulzar sahib. Film is a strong medium and we often take fictions as reality.”  

 The complexity of this issue of exploitation of private emotions and turning them into saleable commodities has been poignantly handled by Mahasweta Devi and Kalpana Lajmi in the short fiction and film respectively. It has also been adapted and produced as a play in Hindi by Usha Ganguli of theatre group Rangakarmee.