Dharm

Director: Bhavna Talwar
Producer: Sheetal V Talwar
Cast: Pankaj Kapur, Supriya Pathak, Krish Parekh, KK Raina, Daya Shankar Pandey and Hrishita Bhatt

Dharm’s DVDs are out today and I can’t help but reiterate my disagreement with the many positive reviews that the film got. It’s incredible that this embarrassment of a film actually managed to argue its way also towards India’s nomination for an Oscar (not that Eklavya was any better, but that will be stepping away from the point).

'Come, question your faith' cannot be a very inviting tagline, I thought as I went to see Dharm, a film by the debutante Bhavna Talwar. In the film, Pandit Ram Narayan Chaturvedi (Pankaj Kapur), the head priest of a landlord’s family temple in Banaras, is made to take a stand on communal riots happening around him and finally gets to protect a young child that he had adopted as his own but given up on finding that he was born a Muslim.

Chaturvedi is both a scholar of Vedic scriptures and other Hindu texts and also a karm-kaandi Brahman who ministers prayers and other rituals for his clients (usually these are two different tasks and not done by the same person). Talvar has also decided to disregard the codes and mores of the jajmani system in Hindu households of today where family priests cater to the common ritualistic needs of their patron households, and do not form the moral core of their universe. Instead, Pandit Chaturvedi is received like royalty in their house and is considered the last authority on dharma. In moments of doubt (his own and his client’s), the pundit is promptly seen referring to the written word, oblivious of real life’s experiences. The film presents this situation in the very beginning when it aptly posits 'kaghaz ki lekhi' [the written word] against 'aankhon ki dekhi' [the experience of lived life]. Dharm, then, is Pandit Chaturvedi’s inner journey, his transition from an idealized scholar to a human being with common decency. The film uses the microcosm of his personal conflicts to reflect on the larger social issues- the Hindu-Muslim conflict or more particularly, communal riots.

The Hindu-Muslim conflict has never ceased to fire the imagination of artists in India. The violence, cruelty and inhumanity associated with this conflict have been reproduced with amazement, pain and anger. Apart from those on the Partition, we also have films and writings on recent conflicts, like the one in Gujarat and Bombay. Unfortunately, these works are often insipid and simplistic. In the case of Dharm, the reference to Hindu-Muslim conflict, that was supposed to strengthen the narrative, actually weakens it. The analysis of communal violence in this film is one of the most facile that I have come across.

For one, what has communal violence got to do with the practices of a priest in Banaras? It is only convenient to situate the narrative (and the crisis) of a subject involving the Hindu-Muslim conflict in a conservative Hindu priest’s household (and the holy city of Banaras). To suggest that violence happens because one interprets the religious scriptures too literally, and it will stop as soon as one finds the right interpretation, is to simplify the problem to the point of absurdity. The Hindu-Muslim conflicts that have often resulted in violence in the past are not only about religion or faith but also about power. To ignore the role played in these riots by political and other vested interests, as well as by local power structures, commercial concerns, unemployment or a misplaced sense of purpose, would be like seeing the world in monochrome. Dharm takes a similarly skewed view, where the only factor in communal riots is religion and how one interprets religious scriptures.

So I was left very skeptical when, at the end of the film, Pandit Chaturvedi successfully stops fifty-odd men, from further killing Muslims, by simply quoting two lines in Sanskrit and explaining that dharma does not allow this bloodbath. The men with bloodied swords are made to stand in statuesque poses while Chaturvedi takes away a child to safety (one suspects that after clearing a distance, Chaturvedi might have made a dash with the child before the stupefied crowd came to its senses and followed him). The child is his adopted son Kartikeya, who had to be given up earlier. It is not clear if he is then saving a child he had come to love like a son, or a Muslim. The writer and director cannot show this juvenile understanding and have it as the basis of their hope that better sense will prevail between Hindu and Muslim communities (the end credits starts with this plate).

The problem with Dharm is not just thematic. The film is painfully slow, where daily rituals in the life of a priest (like bathing and praying) are played upon like home video for anthropological records and repeated beyond their narrative point. I wished that some of the well-intentioned points – xenophobia seen in hatred for the white boyfriend of the landlord’s daughter (Hrishitta Bhatt), commercialization of priestly practices, and the status of widows in Hindu Society – that the subplots referred to, had played out better.

Most of the actors, except the redoubtable Pankaj Kapur, are theatrical (a more layered treatment to Kapur’s character was sorely missing). Other supporting characters are flat and lackluster. However, the child actor palying Kartikeya shares some graceful on-screen presence with Kapur. Hrishitta Bhatt is as weak as the sub-plot she inhabits. The dialogues in the film are uneven and often expository. At times they show understanding of the characters they were written for, and at others they are grand-sounding Hindi and Sanskrit lines that fail to get the audience involved. One person who deserves praise is the cameraman, Nalla Muthu. Though the frames (which are director’s prerogative) are often unimaginative, the camerawork, especially the lighting, is good. Shooting on location in Banaras is surely an advantage, and the film has made the most of it, including the use of ghats, the serpentine lanes and the palace of the former Maharaja of Banaras. The art director and the costume designer have also done a decent job.

Finally, what is Dharm’s Cannes connection’? I wished the promoters had translated 'tous les cinemas du monde’ for people who don’t speak French, and wondered how the film read in translation to the foreign audience.

(This review had first appeared on www.upperstall.com)