When a horror story begins with the promise that it is based on true events, it sends a chill down your spine even before anything terrifying has happened. Vaikom Muhammad Basheer’s short story Neelavelicham unfolds with a note by the acclaimed author that the story he’s about to write captures an “inexplicable experience” he once had. He goes on to add that he’s tried to analyse the phenomenon scientifically but got no answers. The phenomenon of the blue light or neelavelicham.
The story, published in 1952, was made into a film with an extended screenplay written by Basheer in 1964. Directed by A. Vincent, Bhargavi Nilayam is considered to be the first ever horror film in Malayalam, and starred Madhu, Vijaya Nirmala, Prem Nazir and P.J. Antony in important roles. It was recently remade by Aashiq Abu, a faithful adaptation of the original screenplay that stars Tovino Thomas, Rima Kallingal, Roshan Mathew and Shine Tom Chacko.
But the short story and the films differ in a crucial aspect – the text is about a lonely writer’s growing attachment with an idea and an unexpected acknowledgment that he receives; the films, on the other hand, are a lot more dramatic and externalize his conflict, offering a narrative with a hero, heroine and villain. In other words, the ghost in the short story haunts the reader with her absence while in the films, it is her presence that is meant to jolt us.
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Basheer’s story, written in first person, is about a writer in a spooky bungalow where a woman is believed to have taken her life. He describes himself as a restless person, a nomad who moves from one house to another, never satisfied with where he was staying. When he moves into Bhargavi Nilayam, he does not know of the rumours that swirl around the place. It is when he tells the local people that he resides in the house that he notices their fear and unwillingness to go anywhere near it. Slowly, he finds out that Bhargavi was a young woman who drowned herself in the well that stands in the compound after her lover broke up with her.
Is this true or is it the eagerness with which society gossips about a woman’s morality? We don’t know.
Basheer’s hero is a man of imagination, and it doesn’t take long for him to resurrect Bhargavi in his mind. He talks to her, calls her “Bhargavi Kutty” affectionately and treats her as a companion. He plays music for her on his gramophone. He is no longer spooked by the possibility of her presence. But he is aware of his spiralling mind – “I was speaking to an idea”, he acknowledges at one point. He tells his reader that he has led a lonely life. Perhaps this is why he empathizes with Bhargavi so much – the idea of a woman who felt so alone that she decided to end it all in a moment of great sadness. And perhaps, this is why he is so sure that Bhargavi will not harm him though she has a reputation for killing men who step into Bhargavi Nilayam. They are kindred souls seeking each other out.
The horror in the short story arises from its ambivalent treatment of Bhargavi. Is she really there? Is it all the writer’s imagination? Nothing gory, violent or unpleasant happens in the story. Yet, you feel a flicker of fear when the writer catches sight of a light – only for a second – as he stares through the window. It’s so quick that he can’t determine its colour. The moment foreshadows the ending when he returns home on a rainy night and finds his room bathed in blue light. Was it Bhargavi? Or did the lonely writer’s mind conjure it once again? Is she reciprocating his affection? Did the construct of Bhargavi leap into the real world because of his angst?
Also read: Malayalam movie watchers keep pushing us filmmakers to reinvent: Director Aashiq Abu
It is interesting that Basheer chose blue and not any other colour for his story. It is a soothing yet melancholic colour, and it captures the surreal duality of the story perfectly. There is loneliness and friendship, light and darkness, life and death.
The first film, made in the black-and-white era, is understandably called Bhargavi Nilayam because it wasn’t possible to show the tantalising blue light that streams through the house as in the story. Aashiq Abu’s remake, with the advantage of technology, makes good use of Basheer’s blue light, creating a magical experience for the audience. However, the intimacy that the reader shares with the narrator of the short story is lost in the screenplay of the films. Here, there is conclusive evidence of Bhargavi’s presence and what happened to her. There are red herrings and a villain. Bhargavi isn’t just an idea, she is there in flesh and blood, walking around in a white saree with long, beautiful hair.
It’s not surprising that Basheer refashioned the story to suit the medium of cinema in the 1960s. The screenplay has more drama, more characters, more events and incidents. While the story doesn’t fall into the binary of good and evil, the screenplay does. But one can’t help wondering why Abu didn’t make use of the remake opportunity to imbibe the ideas in the short story while recreating Neelavelicham. Why make the same version again?
Over the years, there have been plenty of psychological horror films (which is what the short story would fall under), and the audience today is far more receptive to such ideas than they were decades ago. Such an attempt to reinterpret the screenplay of Bhargavi Nilayam shouldn’t be seen as sacrilege but as homage since that was Basheer’s original vision.
Clearly, the author lived with this idea of communicating with an unknown, unseen woman for many, many years. His 1965 novel Mathilukal, for instance, is based on his real-life experience of prison, and is written in first person. Here, Basheer falls in love with a female inmate across the wall that separates the two prisons, and has conversations with her. They don’t see each other till the end. Once again, loneliness and the idea of a hostile outside world as opposed to the comfort of a smaller, intimate space where the writer shares his thoughts with a female companion run through the novel. Mathilukal was made into a film by Adoor Gopalakrishnan and starred Mammootty and KPAC Lalitha (we only hear her voice).
Is Bhargavi’s story better when we see her and know what exactly happened to her? Or is it more human to feel for her when we don’t know – and yet, she haunts us because she’s a reflection of our own sadness and disappointments? In the blue light, whose face do we see?
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