Masaan 2015 Directed by Neeraj Ghaywan

Synopsis : Three lives intersect along the Ganges: a low caste boy hopelessly in love, a daughter ridden
with guilt of a sexual encounter ending in a tragedy, and a spirited child yearning for a family, longing to
escape the moral constructs of a small-town. (Cannes Film Festival)

The word Masaan refers to the place where dead bodies are cremated. The movie begins with a
quote on the screen that means “What is life; a delicate balance of the five elements,
What is death; a slight disturbance of this equilibrium.” It sets out the tone for the movie. Just the
opposite of the modern day dross and gloss, "Masaan" portrays the hardship of life at the edge
of Ganges in Banaras(so called ghats). The story revolves around ordinary human beings who
make a living in this ghat burning the dead or making small business, and the problems of
poverty, casteism, inequality and corruption they face in the society. The film presents two
distinct storylines that unfold simultaneously. The first one is of a girl, Devi and her father,
Vidyadhar who are both tormented when the boy commits suicide by slitting his wrists, and the
corrupt police extorts money from them. In a parallel track is a young man, Deepak, a lower
caste boy, who spends most of his life at cremation grounds. He is preparing for an engineering
job to escape his fate at the Ghats, but happens to fall in love with an upper caste girl. One
evening, he finds the love of his life atop the funeral pyre on his family's cremation grounds. In
the end, the stories intertwine.
The 109-minute film reflects the brutal truths of Indian society – sexual repression, the caste
divide, financial hardship, limited mobility – through individual philosophical journeys. The
characters in “Masaan” are not mere individuals but embodiment of societal conflicts and
cultural paradigms that the film seeks to examine.

The place where the film is shot “Banaras” is itself an important character in the story. It is a
place of life and death. It is depicted here as a repository of old-fashioned values and a cauldron
of unfulfilled desires. The visuals of burning bodies at the ghats is the process of salvation for
the soul – “break open the skull so that the soul can escape”. At the ghats, the ‘low’ caste - men
from Dom caste, and ‘high’ caste men - pandits performing the last rites both have an important
role to play.

Devi, played by Richa Chadha, is a metaphorical

name for the character, since she is no devi because of
what she puts her father through. The character is
portrayed with striking vulnerability, and helps
examine gender, autonomy and oppressive stigma of
scandal. Devi commits a mistake while bridging the
gap between love and lust when she falls for Piyush,
one of the students at her coaching class. This
tragedy leaves Devi and her father tormented when a
corrupt policeman tries to extort money from them.

Devi, though, survives. She does in fact make it through. I found Devi's lack of emotional
outburst following Piyush's passing to be really strange. She was also not given much time to
process her feelings by the policeman who was extorting her because her main priority was
figuring out how to pay the bribe.

Devi carefully uses her "silence" card to get through the daily grind, avoid eye contact while
crossing the street, and change employment if her past catches up with her. She stays apart from
people to prevent a relapse of her history. She is quite transparent about her choices in life,
though. She answers bluntly and without blinking an eye when her father chastises her for the
disaster, asking "How could you do such a thing?" “I liked him. It was fun to chat to him. And we both
put our all into anything we did. I lived, he died. Was I to blame for his actions? ”

A part of her wanted to admit her part in his death even though she wasn't to blame? She was
obviously experiencing a great deal of internal strife. However, she attended his university,
turned in his thesis, and even made an effort to get in touch with his family. She was not even
permitted to be present at his funeral. With time, all of these unresolved emotions and the guilt
of not contacting his family started to come to the surface.

At some point, she confronts Piyush's parents. I appreciate that the events inside the house at
the time when what occurred were not presented to us. Since it was something extremely
personal to Devi, we were considerate of the family's privacy and felt that it wouldn't have been
appropriate for us, the audience, to pry. Devi discovers that Varanasi's small-town mentality will
prevent her from forgetting what has transpired. She therefore departs to enroll in a course at
Allahabad University in an effort to better herself in every manner. Devi's boldness in
attempting to understand love and lust for herself comes with a heavy price, both materially and
metaphorically.

Once a professor, Vidyadhar Pathak (the father of

Devi, played by Sanjay Mishra) now works as a
pandit on one of the ghats, performing rituals and
selling puja supplies while also doing occasional
translation work to supplement his income. He
arrives at the police station to free Devi. Oh, the
scene where Devi and Vidyadhar are seated next to
each other in two seats in front of Inspector Mishra
is so intensely emotional. For someone like
Vidyadhar, social regard is really important. The
embarrassment of Vidyadhar and Devi is evident in
their body language. Even after they return home, Vidyadhar confides in Devi silently,
expressing his anguish, shock, and embarrassment.
One would have expected Vidyadhar to hold Devi accountable for all that transpired following
Piyush's suicide and the policeman's extortion of them. He sought to hear her side of the tale,
which surprised Vidyadhar given his first outburst. His connection with his daughter was not
defined by this episode. He allowed his kid to make her own decisions and was a decent dad. She
was probably also raised in a way that prevented her from allowing such a horrible event to
define who she was and destroy her confidence. I started to cry a little when he sobbed when
Devi told him she was going out. Their entire connection surprised me by being so tender and
sentimental.

Deepak, played by Vicky Kaushal, is no deepak who

lights up others' lives, instead he lights the pyres of
the dead ones. He hails from the Dom community
and resides in Harishchandra Ghat with his parents,
brother, and sister-in-law. He is also attending a
polytechnic institution to complete his final year of
engineering. Masaan depicts the daily struggles that
members of his community have in dealing with
fatalities and how they use them to support
themselves. For him, the City of Lights is a terrible
city of funeral pyres and burning bodies. It is stated
in a scene in the film that there are only two
monarchs in Banaras: Kashi King and Dom King. This statement is accurate. The majority of the
time, the Dom community is in ghat with the funeral pyre.

Deepak falls in love with Shaalu Gupta, played by Shweta Tripathi, an upper-caste girl who is an
avid poet and is well-versed in the works of Mirza Ghalib, Akbar Allahabadi, and others. She has
the innocence of someone who has never been exposed to the darker side of life. Deepak's
feelings for Shaalu are always complicated by their social and economic caste and class divides,
and their relationship is viewed as unrequited by both families because it does not fit into the
society framework.

When Shaalu leaves for the trip, she asks Deepak to pledge to find a suitable job so they may
both move to a different place. Shaalu's death and the fate of being incinerated by her own lover
is similar to the jolt felt when a thunderbolt strikes the earth. Just as Ganga takes all of Shalu's
ashes and combines them into itself; the profound sorrow of her death, the uncomfortable
anguish of this heartbreak, is now a part of Deepak.

As Deepak recovers from his loss, he yearns for a liberating identity and attempts to rediscover
himself. He eventually gets a government position. His story depicts the struggles and sufferings
of lower-caste people as they seek to break free from the social constraints of bondage. Deepak
is a beacon of hope for his family. As he copes with his loss, he brings his dreams to fruition.

Jhonta played by Nikhil Sahni, is an adorable orphan

kid who assists Vidhyadhar in his shop at ghat.
Vidyadhar assuages his guilt about failing as a
husband and father by becoming a caring father figure
to Jhonta. Vidhyadhar does not allow Jhonta to dive
into the river to participate in collecting coins. But he
breaches his moral principles when needs to pay the
bribe to the corrupt officer to save his daughter. After
Jhonta almost drowns while diving to collect coins,
Vidhyadhar is filled with guilt, and realizes the
mistake he made and promises to be better.

The lives of Devi and her old father, as well as Deepak's, coil ever around each other like a
double helix DNA strand, drawing from the fatalistic idea that certain things are just meant to
happen, and everything occurs for a reason.

The central idea of Masaan is that life continues to go onward. A human, like a river, must
continue to flow towards the ocean. A person who quits moving or attempting to survive is
basically dead. Yes, setbacks can occur, and one may require time to recover. However, as the
water accumulates and rises until it can get over the barrier, so do the characters in Masaan.
Devi refuses to allow her freedom to be restricted. Deepak immediately returns to his studies,
knowing that he cannot afford the luxury of lazing around. The river represents letting go and
flowing through life. This is the film's core emotional struggle, as the main characters learn to
feel but not to cling to their emotions.

As said in the movie, “One needs to make two trips to the Sangam, where Ganga and Yamuna
meet. Once in company and once by yourself.” These two individuals, who have distinct
backgrounds and personalities, come together at the same location as the two powerful rivers
that have traveled a great distance and yet have a long way to go.

This movie explores the spiritual themes of life's connections and parallels. While the
characters may confront various issues, their situations are similar. Their shared experiences of
love, hate, powerlessness, sadness, hope, and tranquility while living next to the Ganga are the
same, and this is the root of their difficulties. The song "Mann Kasturi Re" makes reference to
this by comparing our thoughts to a musk deer that follows the pleasant fragrance, not
recognizing that it emanates from itself. Humanity has artificially established divisions in
society that are perception-based. "Ambar bhi hai geheri khai, ulta karke dekh sake to." meaning “If
flipped, the sky itself is an abyss.”

At the Sangam, water from the two rivers mixes to the point that it is impossible to tell whence
it originated. Which river, other than the Ganga, might best express this idea? Before being
scattered in the ocean, corpses of all ages, castes, and genders burn side by side in the Ghats'
crackling flames. We live, we die, in this blip we call home.