Goutam Ghose’s Yatra, released on May 4, 2007, is the story of a creator's journey. It could be seen as a metaphor for the fairly prolific director's own journey across the oscillating oceans of the motion picture. And never mind the rough patches and the debilitating turbulence.
Gautam Ghose, who spearheaded the avant-garde movement in the cinema of the 1970s, has never been too comfortable with making films in Hindi, though he did make that masterpiece Paar—describing the metaphorical journey of an impoverished couple, played by Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi, across a river with a herd of pigs.
---Advertisement---
Piggish behaviour we see in plenty in Ghose's new Hindi film, and some of it comes from the protagonist himself. Dashrath Jogelkar (Nana Patekar) is one of those bull-headed writers who sees himself as a harbinger of socio-cultural change even as his own domestic domain disintegrates in front of his cynical eyes.
---Advertisement---
Many of Dashrath's responses to the world around him are so naïve in their apparentness you wonder if Ghose shares his protagonist's incredulity at the consumerist takeover of the middle class, or whether he would like to keep himself distanced from Dashrath's obstinate disregard for a social structure outside the domain of his imagination.
The ceaseless debate between the creative forces and the brute force of the reality outside the imagination is not fully harnessed in Yatra.
In spite of some lucid camerawork (Ghose himself), there's an unfinished though fascinating aura to this modern, somewhat suspended rendering of the Devdas tale shifted to a domesticated domain and driven by a cultural diversity that often borders on chaos. In one sequence we hear Dashrath listening to classical music, his son (Romit Raaj) playing the drums, wife (Deepti Naval), a portrait of indignant docility, immersed in the kitchen sounds and the rain outside splashing into the domestic din.
This is a quasi-gone-corny classic rendition of Ghose's treatise on cultural confoundedness as perceived through the eyes of a self-righteous creative artiste, who thinks the world isn't good enough to accommodate his fertile faculties. The intriguing jigsaw about the life of the imagination moves through two cities—Hyderabad and Delhi. The characters appear to belong to a no-man's land and the train journey that Dashrath takes with a filmmaker-fan (Nakul Vaid, hardly there) seems more symptomatic of the writer's inner perplexities than a manifestation of the journey that takes man from his imagination to an indeterminate spiritual destination.
Expectedly, Rekha provides the most inspiring moments, and not just for the besotted protagonist. Having played the doomed tawaif innumerable times, Rekha can do the fallen woman act by heart. And she does.
There are some graphic scenes of sexual violence with an uncouth Hyderabadi zamindar, and a breakdown sequence at the end when Rekha pulls out all stops. Here's an actress for whom less is definitely more. The rest of the cast, including Nana, who has the author-'wracked' role, goes from profound emotion to keen disinterest.
There's an uneven quality to the narration, brought on partially by the proclivity to cram in a surplus of ideas on the moral and cultural downslide of a civilisation that has lost its balls and bearings. Stagnancy is the underlying idea governing Ghose's hazily mystical journey across a mind that sees only anarchy around itself. There are moments of self-defeating social comment...
The sequence where Dashrath, the writer, imagines himself as a suicidal farmer from Andhra Pradesh hanging from a tree (farm fatale!) diminishes the scope of the characters and their canvas into an amateurish morality tale. And yet, for all its creative failings, there's no denying the power and strength of Ghose's ideological comment.
Rekha was very happy with her yatra into Gautam Ghose’s creative kingdom. “Like every experience in my life, Yatra was a beautiful experience. I’ve the good fortune and the basic intelligence to view all my experiences in a kind light—whether it’s my producers, directors, films or the weather. I always look at them positively and always learn something from them. Yatra was an exhilarating experience. It was very interesting because I always enjoy things that are out of the ordinary. Goutam Ghose has experienced many shades of life. They’re all there in Yatra. The film comes from his heart rather than his imagination. It’s very challenging for an actor to recreate the truth about the writer-director’s life. All the actors in Yatra—Nana Patekar, Deepti Naval—have something to teach me. I’m a great learner.”
Speaking exclusively to Subhash K. Jha on Yatra, Gautam Ghose says, “I think Yatra is still relevant. It dwells on the dichotomy of fact and fiction. Plus, everything is up for sale including human relationships. It was quite a yatra for me. The film was completed in September 2005. The first copy came out at the end of August 2006. Then for some reason the film was submitted late for censorship. There, the film got stuck with the animal board. They objected to three shots of a caged bird. It was an inconsequential shot. However, the reason given for the objection was weird. I was told I could show any other species of the bird, but not this one because it was an endangered species. Very strange. I'm just the creator. I really don't understand the intricacies of marketing.”
Also Read: Abhishek Banerjee Turns A Year Older, Talks New Film with Pratik Gandhi And Childhood Memories
Yatra, said Goutam, was a major film for all the four principal players—Nana Patekar, Nakul Vaid, Rekha and Deepti Naval. “They should have come forward to support it. Yatra needed nurturing. Which it didn’t get. I was really upset. But what to do? I guess every film has its own destiny."
Cutting down the widely held opinion that Rekha had a cameo in Yatra, Ghose asserted, "She had a major role. She was the protagonist Dashrath's muse. She was joking with me about how her role would be perceived. I told her to take it easy. The trouble with our actors is that they want to do so many things in one film. They want to sing, jump, dance and fly. Rekha has done a beautiful mujra and a beautiful item song Babujee dheere chalna, not to mention some Kathak dancing. Yatra is trapped between fantasy and fiction, between being and non-being. And Rekha represents that surreal quality."