Masaan is less of a movie and more of a metaphor. The Ganga must move on between floating dead bodies and burning ones. Just like life must move on between death on all sides.
Death is the invisible, omnipotent character in this movie. Sometimes spoken about, mostly unspoken but recognized. Both protagonists lose a loved one: one lost her mother when she was just six years old and blames her father's negligence for her death. The other loses his beloved just as life and love was blossoming! Death, like life, has no rhyme or reason, and can come to anyone anytime.
Two parallel tracks show us the inner struggle of apparently modern India just like the stagnated waters of the Ganga in certain pockets during its continuous flow. It has become dirty and a sad reminiscent of its glorious past. This river, which is more than a river, is equated to the glorious Bharat of the past now trying to come to terms with confused modern India.
Facebook does not ask for your caste. But friends on both ends are aware of its implications. The male protagonist, who belongs to the Dom caste (burning human dead bodies has been their ancestral occupation; this is a most revered occupation as per me because they would have seen death from close quarters and the ones who do not lose themselves to drinking, am sure will become poets and philosophers) falls in his first love with an upper caste Gupta girl! Their old-school romance and courtship on screen reminded me of my first and second loves in school! Unrequited though they were, I must add!
The two parallel tracks do merge in the end and life goes on. There are two lines of poetry from the legendary Hindustani poet Dushyant Kumar that singe the heart... ""Tu kisi rail si guzarti hai, main kisi pul saa thartharaataa hun." Loosely translated to "You cross over like a train, I vibrate like some bridge..." Well, I have destroyed its essence in translation.
Poetry in movies elevates the movie to an altogether different heights. Though not many films have done this as much as Pyaasa, Udaan and Masaan come very close in Hindi cinema.
There is a background shot of a brightly lit train in the night crossing a bridge on the Ganga... That shot alone makes this movie a masterpiece. That one, and the one where two red balloons float up towards the sky... These scenes make your heart beat a bit faster! You feel the excitement that only your first love can bring.
Every character in the movie is struggling and coming to terms with death in some way or the other: the child Jhonta has an unenviable occupation that may brush him closer to death, the father, Sanjay Mishra, is coming to terms with his wife's early death (understated that he never remarried), the daughter coming to terms with her mother's death, the lover coming to terms with his first love's sudden death... Earlier, he was always face to face with death but never internalized it... Later, the same two lines of poetry pours out of him as rambling train while his body vibrates as the bridge...
This movie is a must watch; an ode to life, death, and love. To first love and then the ones to follow. As I said earlier, life must go on.
Death is the invisible, omnipotent character in this movie. Sometimes spoken about, mostly unspoken but recognized. Both protagonists lose a loved one: one lost her mother when she was just six years old and blames her father's negligence for her death. The other loses his beloved just as life and love was blossoming! Death, like life, has no rhyme or reason, and can come to anyone anytime.
Two parallel tracks show us the inner struggle of apparently modern India just like the stagnated waters of the Ganga in certain pockets during its continuous flow. It has become dirty and a sad reminiscent of its glorious past. This river, which is more than a river, is equated to the glorious Bharat of the past now trying to come to terms with confused modern India.
Facebook does not ask for your caste. But friends on both ends are aware of its implications. The male protagonist, who belongs to the Dom caste (burning human dead bodies has been their ancestral occupation; this is a most revered occupation as per me because they would have seen death from close quarters and the ones who do not lose themselves to drinking, am sure will become poets and philosophers) falls in his first love with an upper caste Gupta girl! Their old-school romance and courtship on screen reminded me of my first and second loves in school! Unrequited though they were, I must add!
The two parallel tracks do merge in the end and life goes on. There are two lines of poetry from the legendary Hindustani poet Dushyant Kumar that singe the heart... ""Tu kisi rail si guzarti hai, main kisi pul saa thartharaataa hun." Loosely translated to "You cross over like a train, I vibrate like some bridge..." Well, I have destroyed its essence in translation.
Poetry in movies elevates the movie to an altogether different heights. Though not many films have done this as much as Pyaasa, Udaan and Masaan come very close in Hindi cinema.
There is a background shot of a brightly lit train in the night crossing a bridge on the Ganga... That shot alone makes this movie a masterpiece. That one, and the one where two red balloons float up towards the sky... These scenes make your heart beat a bit faster! You feel the excitement that only your first love can bring.
Every character in the movie is struggling and coming to terms with death in some way or the other: the child Jhonta has an unenviable occupation that may brush him closer to death, the father, Sanjay Mishra, is coming to terms with his wife's early death (understated that he never remarried), the daughter coming to terms with her mother's death, the lover coming to terms with his first love's sudden death... Earlier, he was always face to face with death but never internalized it... Later, the same two lines of poetry pours out of him as rambling train while his body vibrates as the bridge...
This movie is a must watch; an ode to life, death, and love. To first love and then the ones to follow. As I said earlier, life must go on.
