To label this
film “misogynist” risks oversimplifying the subtle intricacies and elusive
complexities of the creative process as a whole. One could deduce that rather
than placing artistic creation as the climax of the film, it is, instead, the
cycle of inspiration to which preponderance is attributed.
The film
commences with a dismayed writer in an editor’s office. Having earned
phenomenal success with his first novel, he is urged by his editor to return to
the landscape of his childhood for inspiration. It is this localization and
re-interpretation of personal memory that had contributed to the success of his
first novel. Eager for success, he leaves “her”—a girlfriend, a live-in
partner, a wife, just a friend? “The need to be loved by all overwhelmed the
need to be loved by one.” His abandonment of this woman could be interpreted as
misogyny, selfishness, or a mere utilitarian outlook to human relationships,
which are made and broken according to the role they play in fuelling other
(perhaps less ephemeral) aspects of life.
Oh his return
“home”, he finds himself “an NRI” and “an outsider.” He begins to spend time in
market places, flyovers and parking lots, in search for inspiration. Grotesque
images of mass animal carcasses in the marketplace and a sterile existence
beheld in isolated public places seem to have a dual negative impact on his
quest. They reflect a certain uncaring and uninspiring monotony with little
room for creative stimulation, and in this monotony lies a harsh fact—he is not
needed. His being is immaterial to the cycle of life in this part of the world.
So, when he
finally catches sight of a solitary woman in a park with tears in her eyes, his
imagination is stirred by her vulnerability, which is perhaps his subconscious
realization that there was scope for his philosophy in her life. He approaches
her and begins a conversation, which becomes a routine affair. He keeps
speaking to her at length about literary theory, and finds an ardent listener
in her. When she tells him that he should have been a writer, rather than being
offended by his lack of universal recognition, he feels strangely relieved. The
burden he was endowed with about living up to expectations gradually erodes. He
now finds a space where he can begin from scratch—like a newborn. As opposed to
the editors’ “formula” for literary creation, which he finds ultimately devoid
of substance and his abstract theories, the woman he meets needs his company
and this “feeling” of being needed becomes his “home.”
His subsequent
writing is described with breathless fervor,”He stayed up all night
writing—first hesitantly then furiously. Her profound vulnerability had opened
up a world of fantasy for him…his mind enters a new space and the ghostly
emptiness began to relent…He spent his nights writing, and she spent hers
captivated by what she had inspired.” These lines seem to bear testimony to the
conventional notion of the muse. The woman merely “inspires” creativity. As
Robert Graves observes of the muse, “No Muse-poet grows conscious of the Muse except by
experience of a woman in whom the Goddess is to some degree resident. But the
real, perpetually obsessed Muse-poet distinguishes between the Goddess as
manifest in the supreme power, glory, wisdom, and love of woman, and the
individual woman whom the Goddess may make her instrument...”
The writer seems
to have a similar attitude—he is in love with “womanness.” However, the
subsequent narrative considerably alters this position.
As he finds
himself falling in love with this woman, the writer quickly withdraws and
eventually vanishes. The woman wonders how that “moment” could have slipped
away without her noticing. Just prior to his departure, when he finds the woman
growing happier and more carefree, he starts to move away. He is also usually
shown turning away from her while she eagerly stares in his direction. All these
incidents hint at misogyny.
However, at one
point in the film, when the woman suggests that perhaps “timelessness is a
place where time does not exist”, the writer is truly enamoured by the thought,
and compliments her for her word play. After his departure, she recalls her own
statement as she drowns in his memories. She also recollects how she had no
idea who Henry James was until she met the writer, and “her subsequent research
on the greatest contributor to literary theory.” This suggests that the woman
is not merely the doting maternal figure whose objective is to inspire the male
artist. He, in turn, inspires her, makes her ponder over the nature of time,
relationships, and philosophy. Hers is the philosophy of the “earth”, of the
everyday, and she connects him to the same, which becomes the source of his
inspiration. He urges her towards abstractions, distancing, and
transcendence—crucial to the conventional process of literature. Together earth
and metaphysics bond to engender art.
Indeed, one could
conclude that the capacity for creation is attributed to the male writer and
the ability to inspire to the pedestrian woman. However, I would venture to
suggest that the film transcends this stereotype, and attempts to suggest
through the simple man-woman dichotomy, arises a new formula for inspiration
and creation—the philosophy that arises from a deep pondering over everyday
life and the most ordinary of emotions and experiences, without which the most
profound knowledge is rendered hollow.