Who killed Archie and Parshya?

As I argued in my previous post –  Sairat – movie review –  how remnants of “cesspool of cruelty, caste, prejudice & communalism” (B. R. Ambedkar said this about villages) occasionally rear its ugly head not only in villages but also in many prosperous regions of this country and how eloping of the couples constituting differently placed members of the social hierarchy gives those remnants the opportunity to strike.

When Archie and Parshya’s love was on its summit they utopianly dream about their future –

Archie – We should have a small house right alongside a river, beautiful soothing, flowing water and a big garden in the front

Parshya – I’ll work

Archie – I’ll cook

Parshya – I’ll bring home woods for the kitchen

Archie – I’ll wait for you at the door

But one daring act lands them into trouble and circumstances force them to elope. As the film progresses after the interval I was convinced that something tragic is awaiting on their path but they battle out all the odds with the help of a kind woman.

When they land in the slum, Parshya is calm and composed. He is used to the conditions of the slum. His makeshift house in the village is almost similar to the houses of the slum. But Archie is not used to the life of a slum and she does not want to live like “filthy-creatures” but over the time, she learns to adjust, finds herself a work and moves on for the sake of their love.

They shift from their makeshift hut to the modest lower class colony and they are about to book a flat in an apartment with their earning of 40,000 per month. And of course apart from all these materialistic things, the most precious thing they have is a toddler named Aakash.

So they literally build their life from scratch and of course not at par with their Utopian dream but considering their situation, they make themselves a life which millions of people struggle to achieve. And all through this journey Archie longs for the love of her family and remain hopeful that with the passage of time everything will be alright.

When her brother along with his men arrives at her place, I dismally thought now is the time for the tragic turn to their hitherto happy life. But by showing smiley faces of those men, their body language, gifts they brought and the way they were looking at the set of pictures depicting ‘Archie-Parshya’s hard earned but happy life, Nagraj Manjule persuaded me that how wrong I was in my thinking. Archie is so happy and she is blushing at the prospect of reuniting with her family. She makes them Tea and tells Parshya to serve them. When Parshya hesitates, she insists – “GO AND SERVE, THESE ARE MY PEOPLE”.

So I got relaxed. And the moment I put aside my dreadfully guarded anticipation, “heartless” Nagraj Manjule let those reprehensible “remnants” strike which left me almost devastated for a moment. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I was asking why?, why Mr. Manjule?, why? you just destroyed the lively life of a couple in which I was seeing my own life. It took me a while to come to terms with the reality.

As I was coming out of the theatre, totally numb, I recalled numerous headlines such as “a couple was hacked to death in a suspected honour killing” which I would have neglected in normal times. But by telling the – lively-love-story – cut short by hate – of one of such unfortunate couples , Nagraj Manjule forced us to ponder beyond those melancholic headlines. It is not Nagraj Manjule who killed them but the parochial section of Indian society did.

It is that section of the society where those “remnants” still reside and rear its horrific head when someone go against their patriarchal wishes. It is so insular that it still treats women as objects. If she crosses the barriers of caste made by men and marries to someone belonging to some other caste but she is happy in her life, they don’t give a damn. They take it as an insult. They are so parochial that they always see things through the prism of caste and respond by either cutting all relations with her or some extremists go one step ahead and always try to find a chance to kill their own flesh and blood and they unhesitatingly strike at the first chance they get notwithstanding the happiness of their child. And unrepentantly think, they have restored their so-called honour.

For those who think caste is not a major player these days and are questioning the modus operandi of those killers. Read this – A Time to Love and A Time to Die

There are many who cannot exercise their right to choose and right to live due this caste-ridden parochial mentality. Nagraj Manjule has masterfully shown in this twenty-first century how we as a society curtailing the core individual rights of our sons/daughters to be happy. For us (society) man-made caste is more important than our self-made sons/daughters. If we as a society continue to play our caste card in everything, many more toddlers will have to walk that path with their bloody footprints. I sometimes wonder, will that time ever come when we will understand there is no honour in an honour killing?

With the powerful portrayal of one of the evils of Indian society, Nagraj Manjule has done a great service to our society. I would say he is the best thing happened not only to Marathi but also Indian cinema. With the soaring box-office collection, shows running at midnight and 3 AM in Satara and some special shows only for ladies, Sairat has reached to the more common than common people. We should see this unprecedented thing beyond the box-office collection. Those village people who usually don’t go to the cinema hall, they are going in large numbers. Sairat has the power to force people to think about the evil of an “honour killing”.

I am not a naive person to think that after Sairat the “honour-killings” will become the thing of the past. I know society affects cinema greatly but the other way around is minuscule but that minuscule has a potential to save many lives. I will stop by narrating one incident involving Ashish Jadhav (Political Editor, Maharashtra 1 tv) and an Auto-rikshaw wallah.

Ashish Jadhav was travelling in an Auto-rikshaw. As the Sairat is the hot topic these days, people ask – did you watch Sairat? and if the answer is in affirmative the long conversation begins. So in one of such conversation – Auto-rikshaw wallah told Ashish Jadhav that he has watched Sairat thrice, he has a sister who eloped and got married to a man who does not belong to their caste, he and his family looked for the girl but failed.

“Had she been found, we would have cut her into pieces”. “But after watching Sairat, I am thoroughly searching her, as soon as I find her I would ask her for forgiveness and I will try to negotiate with my family for her well-being”, Auto-rikshaw wallah told Ashish Jadhav.

Considering the vastness of our society this is a very small incident. But I am an optimistic person so I would say – little drops of water make the mighty ocean and as in ‘Shawshank Redemption’, Andy rightly says to Red – “hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things and no good thing ever dies”.