In this This Day That Year feature Subhash K Jha looks back at Chingari, starring Sushmita Se, which ompletes 17 Years On February 17th.
Kalpana Lajmi’s Chingari about oppression and justice boasted of an interesting central performance by Sushmita Sen. Reformist cinema seemed to be the order of the day. First, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s chic spin Rang De Basanti on the cult of political radicalism. Far away from home, Deepa Mehta has styled a lucid, lyrical drama on female rehabilitation called Water. Kalpana Lajmi styled a clarion call for socio-religious reform in the nexus between religion and sexual oppression in Chingari.
Based on a short story by composer-lyricist Bhupen Hazarika, Chingari brings Lajmi back to form in the ferociously flaming colours of black blue and dread. Set in a village, the film’s excellent though uneven cinematography (by Vishal Sinha) revolves around a group of prostitutes. Though the camaraderie in the brothel cannot equal what Shyam Benegal depicted in his ribald and rhythmic Mandi, Lajmi’s whore house is a feast of raunchy repartees and terrifying sexual innuendoes that reach a blood-curdling crescendo every time the village priest(Mithun Chakraborty) pays a visit to the star-whore Basanti (Sushmita Sen).
Admittedly, some sequences of sexual repression shared by the astonishing Sushmita Sen and the villainous Mithun Chakraborty are way too repressive. A bit of subtlety in depicting their sexual friction would have gone a long way in giving the film that much-needed quality of lyricism that it sorely needed.
Sushmita Sen, known to have lent her striking presence to a whole lot of escapist drama, comes into her own with a dramatic performance that’s striking in its velocity by anything seen so far. In her key confrontation sequences with her tormentor and rapist, Sushmita pulls out all the stops to deliver a powerhouse performance of volcanic proportions.
In a lengthy one-shot sequences, Sushmita goes beyond the boundaries of cinematic acting to stare straight into that emotional space which most of us don’t even know how to connect with. Her dialogue delivery, ranging from a hushed whisper in a romantic moment to a raging other-worldly growl in the climax (when taking on the avatar of the Mother Goddess, she vanquishes the modern-day demon), Sushmita takes her prostitute’s character to a dimension that would appear practically impossible for any actor to achieve.
To watch Sushmita Sen at work is to forget some of the film’s more definable blemishes. The plot about female oppression and the right of dignity for the sex worker has been done in the past and with greater finesse. Where Lajmi scores is in imbuing unconventional mannerisms and expressions in her heroine to the extent that we cease to see Sushmita Sen . Only Basanti is visible on screen.
The brutality and oppression of her life are charted with more gentleness and affection than visible in any of the director or the actress’ works. Chingari is a worthy comeback for the Rudaali director at every level.
While going into a microcosmic representation of female oppression and gender discrimination in the hinterlands, Lajmi uplifts her universal tale into a tale of acute suffering. Like Prakash Jha’s recent Apaharan, the treatment of the story of rural oppression is distinctly ‘commercial’. Though songs, dances, rustic colours of riotous and raunchy merry-making are integrated into the plot; the narration in no way suffers from the inclusion of these elements.
The large ‘epic’ canvas allows the director to dabble in the most basic colours of existence.
The recesses of anger and angst, desperation and despondency that Sushmita expressed on screen were dismissed by some critics as “over-the-top” acting. But for an actor to over-act, she first needs to know how to act. There’re so many actors who pass off their lazy languorous non-performances as “spontaneous acting” Sushmita in Chingari is a volcano. And a lot of that rage she expresses comes from within her. She has always had this volcanic effect on all her co-stars. If she managed to make Mithun insecure in Chingari, in an earlier film (which I won’t name), she was pitched against a formidable National award-winning actress. Throughout the making of the film, the reputed intense actress would take the director to a corner to inquire not about her own lines. But her co-stars.
Kalapana Lajmi had fallen in love with her leading lady. “You can’t imagine how hard Sushmita worked on this performance. I pampered her to the core. But finally, it was her take. In my six films so far, this is the only actor who has given me all that I wanted and more. This is the best performance I’ve got. A lot of people told me that Basanti isn’t Sushmita; it’s Kalpana Lajmi. I told Sushmita not to give me a single expression or body movement that she has given in any of her popular films. I told her to apply Johnson’s baby lotion to soften her jawline. She doesn’t look harsh anywhere. She never ever disobeyed me. She’s a genius. In her confrontation sequences with Mithun Chakraborty Sushmita, she did something remarkable. She asked me to let her do an entire take without rehearsals. I agreed. When she gobbled up Mithun-da, he didn’t know what hit him. That stunned look on his face was real. He never expected her to be so gifted. They have equal footage. I made it into the story of the prostitute and the priest because the actor playing the postman let me down so badly. Mithun-da came on the sets nonchalantly as someone whom Sush and I admired for years. He never ever imagined Sush was a volcano waiting to erupt. For the confrontation scene between them, my brief to Sush was, “The predator becomes the prey, and vice versa”. And she took off… She gave me tonal variations that even the awesome Shabana didn’t give me in Ek Pal. I made her do unbelievably long shots, which pissed off Mithun-da. She completely ate him up. Twice with Mithun-da, I had to show what a prostitute goes through. I’m very grateful to Sushmita for breaking the mould as to the way prostitutes are shown in our films. I asked her to let me film two scenes of sexual crudity. She thought about it and trusted me. Sushmita truly went beyond the script, even in the crude scenes. I’ll never stop loving her for what she has given to my film. What Meena Kumari did in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, Nargis in Mother India and Shabana Azmi in Arth, Sushmita has done in Chingari, and more. And to think she’s only 29. She told me she had become Basanti for five months and was scared she would ever be Sushmita again. She understands the film in all its nuances, like a true critic.”
