Displacement Theory

In literature,Bengali immigrants and their offsprings continue the path of assimilation that the likes of Jhumpa Lahiri describe in their works,the Interpreter of Maladies being one of them. They are exiles who straddle different countries,different cultures,but never belong- too used to freedom to accept the rituals and conventions of home,and yet too steeped in tradition to embrace America/UK/Canda/Australia. In cinema however,the Bengali Diaspora takes a backseat to its North Indian cousins. Indeed,if we were dependant only on cinema to shape our perceptions then our version of the Indian Diaspora would reek of sarson da saag and bhaaji on the beach. Sangeeta Datta’s Life Goes On will probably end up making up amends. “My film can also be taken as a comment on the Bengali immigrant experience. I have talked about various incidents that I have seen around me in the Bengali community in England,” says Datta,who participated in a special discussion arranged by Weavers Studio Centre for the Arts last week in honour of theater legend Girish Karand,who also happens to be the protagonist of her film.

Datta is a lecturer with the University of London and has lived in London for almost a decade. Life Goes On,which is a freewheeling adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear, is her tribute to Shakespeare. “I studied literature in Jadavpur University and as a student of literature I know that you can always take Shakespeare’s works and contextualize them. Look at what Vishal Bharadwaj did with Macbeth (which was adapted as Maqbool) and Othello (Omkara). These films were of course,scrupulously close to the text,in terms of narration,my film takes off from the basic premise of King Lear.

Sharmila Tagore,Girish Karnad and Soha Ali Khan star in this ensemble piece,which has been shot extensively in England. “The film narrates the stories of a host of characters but its crux is the conflict between the father (played by Girish Karnad) and daughter (Soha Ali Khan).

The sense of displacement,the feeling that make the exiles always experience themselves as standing slightly apart,given more to melancholy observation than wholehearted participation,will probably be the dominant mood of the film. “Girish Karnad’s character is someone who straddled with the fact that he has been twice displaced- first when he migrated from East Bengal to Kolkata during the partition and then when he moved to England from Kolkata to pursue a better life. That affects him a lot,” she says.