IFFR 2024 | ‘Meera wanted Radha to exist, as a better version of herself, to reach Krishna’: Anirban Dutta

A still from Anirban Dutta's IFFR premiered film on Mirabai, Anubhuti.

Ek thhi Radha, Ek Meera/Dono Ne Shyam Ko Chaha/ Antar Kya Dono ki Chaah Mein Bolo/Ek Prem Deewani, Ek Daras Deewani. We have all heard Lata Mangeshkar sing, in the Mandakini-starrer song from Raj Kapoor’s Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985), about the duality of the form of love Radha and Meera had for Lord Krishna, one pined for his love and the latter, for a meeting with him.

Anirban Dutta’s sophomore feature Anubhuti, which recently screened at the Harbour strand of the prestigious International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), is a twist in the tale of Mirabai. This highly stylised choreography of a gestural film, an atmospheric experience based on the 15th-century Indian poetess and Krishna-devotee Meerabai’s literature, is very different from the screen adaptations of Meera’s biographical tale as one has seen in such films by Debaki Bose in 1933, Ellis R. Dungan in 1947 and Gulzar in his 1979 Hema Malini-starrer. Anubhuti, which translates to perception or experience, and has Odissi and Bharatanatyam dancers as emoting the characters of Meera (Aritraa Sengupta), Radha (Shamila Bhattacharya) and Krishna (Rittick Bhattacharya), is, like his first feature Jahnabi (2018), where a woman stands in as a metaphor for a river, both worshipped and polluted. Kolkata man Dutta, 35, who runs a small business called Darjeeling Walks, which he started during the pandemic, has made a documentary, Ghumjeeling: A Meeting by the Railways (2021), is working on his third film, an ode to Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, set in Darjeeling, says, “I’ll never try to make money out of cinema because then it will be compromising on my art and voice.” Edited excerpts from an interview:

Filmmaker Anirban Dutta

Why the subject of Meera/Mirabai?

I think Meera here is not the sole subject. The subject is basically the idea of devotees and their contribution to literature which was solely categorised as a devotional thing. Meera, the subject, is representative for many like her (like Kabir, etc. from the Bhakti tradition/movement) whose literary contribution was of devotion and their life was seen as a documentation of becoming a devotee. There will be many such people, such as Amit Dutta’s film on (Pahadi school painter) Nainsukh of Guler. Their contribution is something I’m really intrigued by. But what is this ‘bai’/mistress concept attached to Meera? That Radha is the only goddess who’s to be worshipped at the temple, alongside Krishna. At the Rotterdam premiere, I had an audience question on whether Meera also wrote about Radha, I said, of course, because if you look at the Kangra paintings, the Pahadi paintings, the Mughal paintings, who are these characters which are very symbolic alongside Krishna. Do you categorise them solely as Radha or can you make a symbol out of it? For me, that symbolisation worked than the whole subject of only concentrating on Mirabai.

You upend the trope by showing Meera as the goddess instead of the cowherdess Radha.

How I came to the story is basically a chance meeting with a colour-blind girl in the India-Bangladesh border village near Taki. I was then writing a different film. She was performing Jatra (travelling village dramas) and she didn’t know who Mirabai was. She said, which I found interesting, whenever I dress up, I consider myself as Radha. So, that is why I wanted to keep Meera as the goddess and not Radha, because the fulfillment is within herself. My film also has a lot of physicality. It has a lot of intimacy. It is not devotion from a distance, not from a temple alike. It cannot be like that because if you devote…for example, in Jainism, it’s part of nuns’ duties to go close to the masters. How can you avoid that? It’s in the practice. To me, Meera’s devotion was made very straightforward, singular that she has become a crazy devotee who wanted to live a very pompous life of a princess but just worship Lord Krishna. I’m pretty sure that because our documentation lacked for a long period of time, a lot of literature we might have already lost.

You are juxtaposing Radha and Meera anachronistically, they belong to different timelines, one is a mythological figure, another a historical one. And, you are bringing the distant devotee up and close with the subject of devotion. Do you think that can be seen as controversial?

I think it’s dogmatic enough to see our goddesses like…and even project women that they are very God-like, to be protected and revered. Whether it is an idol or a non-idol, in the beginning, the inspiration is very human because it’s someone that we can reach easily, we may not have a friend, but we can have a God to bank on. So, it is someone trustworthy, bankable. To me, that projection itself is very controversial. In the end of the film, I wanted to keep that last scene where Krishna is distant (not yielding to the love of either Radha or Meera). I’m not sure that whether Radha had achieved her fulfillment, but many like Meera or who became dasi and bai are just following the traditional devotion without knowing that they’re being instrumented towards patriarchy. So, I wanted to bring them on a platform and see them as regular human beings, where it can be also just a story of human experiences and expressions. That was my intent. If we just project them as godly figures, what is people’s take-away? To me, these figures are one of us, with easy (humanly) resemblance, easy to keep them close.

From today’s context, delving into India’s rich 7th-17th century Bhakti movement across India, how do you see a bhakt (devotee) and bhakti (devotion)?

It’s such a vulnerable question. The term bhakt has become, or rather is used as a kind of an insult nowadays, unfortunately. But, if we see bhaktas as someone to follow the Bhakti traditional movement, like the Vaishnavite in Bengal, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Bhakt is in a way is like in 18th century, if you call a Bengali guy as Babu, we know how babus were (sycophants), it is like becoming a bhakt in present-day, to be honest, sadly. But bhakti, of course, is devotion. So, to me, there is a thin boundary line between a larger-than-life, almost blinding, demonstrations of religious practices and keeping our gods and goddesses very close to us using our culture, people are unable to differentiate what is real and what is not. What culture dictates or what is the God’s decision. It’s a lack in our studies or our interest in our own culture which makes us follow the wrong path. Being a bhakt is nothing close to following the Bhakti tradition or the literature part of it.

From our society to our cinema, the times are becoming hyper-masculine and toxic, all that the feminine symbolise, nurturing softness, kindness and tolerance is vanishing. Are you consciously trying to preserve that in your craft?

Indeed. You know, I want to watch a happy Indian film, which is devoid of hatred and violence. These representations of masculinity, manpower being deployed through the instrument of hatred, religion…in whatever we see, whatever we observe…we are kind of attracted to the trash. We are very much subscribing the mainstream without our knowledge and because people have lost their senses to analyse things, whether it’s right or wrong. If we see a film like Anand, a very mainstream cinema, being made today, it would be called an art film. This comparison in itself gives us a study of where we have come from and in which direction are we heading to.

How is your non-linear, choreographed, highly stylised film different from previous iterations of Mirabai?

Making Mira very physical with Krishna. I wanted to create the visual sensuality in every single frame, making Mira very close to the physical aspect of Krishna and at the same time showing her as an innocent, vulnerable being, with the concepts of human jealousy, insecurity. The writing of the film is not based on action or dialogue but on gestures. So, we took some inspiration from Natyashastra, the abhinaya aspect and the non-verbal vocabulary when Radha is being touched by Krishna.

So, Krishna is the original lover boy, a polyamorous being?

Yeah, Krishna, to me, is no different than any other man. He did all that a man could have done. He did not choose a single partner or rather kept his diplomatic ties with everyone, pleased everyone while maintaining his godly position, and a certain distance. Enjoying all kind of pleasure being devoted to him yet remaining distant, aloof.

A still from Anubhuti.

In your film, I also felt a homoerotic strain in the love between Radha and Meera as mirror images, and Krishna as the medium to reach the other. If in one scene, one adorns the other in jewellery, readying her for Krishna, reminiscent of a similar scene from the film Utsav (1984), in another, where three pairs of feet are playing with Rangoli colours.

Absolutely. It’s very homoerotic in that scene where I wanted to project Radha and Krishna together as one team trying to colour Meera, as raga Desh is being played in the background, welcoming Meera. Their love is also sisterly. And also the insecurity and jealousy of two women pining for the same man: Mere toh Giridhar Gopal, dusro na koye. Radha existed because Meera wanted Radha to exist, as a better version of herself, who is goddess-like, for Krishna is unreachable for her otherwise. Radha is a dream motif for Meera.

Talk about the music composition and setting Meera bhajans to Hindustani classical ragas and alaaps.

Vaishali Sinha (music director): Whatever compositions I’ve used, I’ve tried to improvise it. Like the music of Rajan-Sajan Mishra, Venkatesh Kumar. They are not from my gharana (Patiala), so I cannot say I was completely influenced by a certain gharana. I’d sit with Anirban and understand the scenes, which required a lot of lyrical take because the scenes do not have any dialogue, what kind of rasa or emotion is required, and find compositions which would complement the scenes. There is one song by Pt Ajoy Chakraborty.

About 30-40 per cent of the music production happened even before the actual shoot started. Some of the performances were choreographed, gesture-wise, action-wise, based on the music that we produced. The whole film took five years to make.

What all ragas have you based the songs on?

Vaishali: So, there’s Raga Desh, then Mirabai ki Malhar. Then Manj Khamaj, Darbari Kanada as well. The bhajans were actually done before the film was even shot because he (Anirban) wanted the actors to perform on those bhajans.

A still from Anubhuti.

You interweave your film with Pahadi and Kangra paintings, and Mughal miniature paintings that show Meera and Radha together. It reminded me a little of Amit Dutta’s film Nainsukh (2010). Was his style of filmmaking or that of others an inspiration?

Amit Dutta is, of course, a filmmaker who would surprise you with every new project of his. It’s difficult to define him. I’m fond of his films. And I’m a tremendous fan of Mani Kaul. His films resonate with me, Duvidha (1973), Siddheswari (1989), and Nazar (1991) especially is a very special film. I like the cinema of Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, G Aravindan, John Abraham I and Kumar Shahani, I love Shahani’s Char Adhyay (1997). The kind of poetry, gesture-driven production design that he used was really wonderful. I also really like Abbas Kiarostami’s style, for his wholesome approach to all medium of art, his approach to see life and death. He himself was a great painter and poet. He had an entire different synergy to go back to his characters, time and time again, in new films and show the same landscape in different time periods, in different productions…only a master can think of it. But I try to create my own voice. Before making/writing a film, I don’t like to watch a lot of films. I’d simply watch Mr Bean on loop, or Friends, which doesn’t leave any artistic and lasting impression on my mind.

Your next film, Road to Kiarostami, as the title indicates, will be a tribute to Abbas Kiarostami?

Yes. So, the protagonist Ram, who is also a filmmaker, is a huge fan of Abbas Kiarostami as am I. We started developing Kiarostami’s old films, which took a long time and it was expensive as well. And, so, he would find a wallet in the village which was left by me in one of the scenes (in the film). Ram would find the negatives in it, from which he will get the idea of a similar landscape he had shot in and would describe that to the farmer and how this man and the farmer bond like a father and son, thanks to Kiarostami. It is not totally conventional. It non-linear, non-narrative and has a lot of open spaces for audience to explore. It has a proper story, so it will definitely have more audience. And that is why I did not like the process: shooting with a very restrained script in 17 days.

Road to Kiorastami will be a trilogy. This film is autobiographical. The whole discovery of Darjeeling, beyond the touristic imagination and going into some 100-odd villages, with different cultures, tribal roots, was very profound for me and I wrote 29 poems in Bengali from my accounts and memories of that. A farmer’s philosophy of life, people in the forest, the migrant labourers coming to work as porters in the town…how life is very still, slow, can get abandoned, and upended in a fraction of second with a natural calamity.

In today’s hyper-content world, where do you see your kind of cinema surviving?

The right time for slow cinema is now because sensible people are looking for peace, a break from this hyper, vibrant, loud and very flashy films. I am not totally against what is happening now. But many Southeast Asian cinema had already started experimenting with this genre of films before even we started. We talk of a Darbhanga new wave now with Parth Saurabh and Achal Mishra’s films, it has a lot of linear as well as non-linear passive storytelling approach, very calm and composed. A film to me is an alternative world transformation. Violence to me has become a real-life phenomenon. I can see it outside my house. If I come to a theatre or sit down to even watch a film, it should have the ability to transform me to a peaceful world. I like classic films like The Godfather (1972) or (Andrei) Tarkovsky’s cinema. These films also had violence. Or take Once Upon a Time in America (1984), that was a classic film. The use of violence in those didn’t feel exaggerated, which is happening a lot in Indian OTT content, while in Bengali TV soaps, you have a female character who needs sympathy from all the males around her. This sympathetic-ist culture also feeds into the patriarchal world view.