Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Ma

But Naxalbari was a long time ago. And as a character in the film says, many would still dub it as the handiwork of “a bunch of misguided youths clouded by romanticism”. Today, more than 20 years later, the Naxals are a spent force — disillusioned and divided. In West Bengal, the movement is practically non-existent, and perhaps the only “factions” still following the ideals of “armed action” and guerrilla warfare as a means of revolution are the PWG in Andhra and Party Unity in Bihar.

Naturally, coming as it does in the Nineties, the relevance of a film like Hazar Chaurasi Ki Ma is called into question, especially when both writer and director have juxtaposed a primarily agrarian movement in an urban milieu, choosing to see things through the eyes of a mother. Her son Brati’s sudden unexplained death jolts Sujata Chatterjee out of a cozy middle-class life packed with household chores, and forces her to find out how, what and why. So, is it just a simple mother-and-son story that happens to have the ’70s Calcutta as the backdrop, or is it a political film that fits into our contemporary reality? “We cannot confine ourselves to labels. Yes, at one level it is a mother-son story, but try to see it within what is happening around us, and then everything falls into place,” claims Nihalani.

In fact, that is precisely what many viewers failed to grasp. First, there is this problem that there is not enough background as to how and under what conditions the Naxal movement came about, and second, the over-all look is not of Calcutta in the ’70s. “While I understand and appreciate the curiosity of the viewer, for me it is important to show that the circumstances that gave rise to the movement are still around us. It was Naxalbari yesterday, it could be any other movement today,” says Nihalani.

He defends the film further by saying that the genesis of the movement is by no means the subject of the book. The story involves a lot of junior, street-level cadres for whom the blur of idealism has clouded all forms of so-called conventional wisdom. The main theme of the book is not Naxalbari per se, but the politicisation of an apolitical person. “And both Mahashweta and I agreed that the film just can’t talk about the ’70s, it had to say something of the present times.”

And perhaps it is with this in mind that we have the climactic scene where the mother — Jaya Bachchan puts in a stellar performance — jostles with a killer on a bike ultimately leading to his arrest. While there are those who agree that this and the one scene where the mother goes to meet Brati’s close friend Nandini ably mirror the changes in attitudes of his family, and ultimately salvage the film, there are yet others who feel Hazar Chaurasi Ki Ma is far too long.

Nihalani of course dismisses this criticism and falls back on Truffaut’s oft-repeated statement: “Even 10 minutes can be cut from a classic”.Classic or not, this is one definitely not in the same league as Tamas, Aakrosh or Ardh Satya for that matter. But then comparisons are not entirely fair as each one of these films is rooted in a specific time-frame and context. The fact is that Hazar Chaurasi makes an attempt to transcend the ’70s to make it relevant in the ’90s. And if one considers the ultimate objective — that of creating an environment of artistic expression without having to compromise on integrity — it is a step forward.