Society: Where Past Is Always Present

Recently, I watched a new short film “Society” in MX Player. Rajesh Mohanty from Odisha is the producer and Swapna Pati also from Odisha is the lead actress while Anwesh is the lead actor. I liked the story and the plot of the film. It is based on a true incident and opens up a deep running trauma which actually never heals. The wound stays unhealed. The scourge of casteism, even today has its deep running fault lines dividing our lives and destroying us.

Sagrika and Suraj are city-dwelling, newly married, much in love couple. Anwesh (Suraj) is haunted by the ignominy of being born out of the village landlord’s atrocities on his dalit mother. So Anwesh derives sadistic pleasure in his marriage with an upper caste, Brahmin girl Sagrika and when he is tipsy, he blurts out his angst. He becomes vengeful and starts ill-treating Sagrika. This reaches a climax when he misbehaves with Sagrika in the presence of his dalit friends. He boasts of being served by an upper caste girl. Sagrika is devastated and ends her life. After her death, Anwesh is in agony but his search for a domestic help ends with his deliberate choice of a Brahmin girl. The retribution never ends, and so does the cycle of discrimination. Casteism runs deep, in the veins of the society, even if we are in the high-risecondominiums with smart working couples trying to ring in a new society. Some things change but do not change.

The story is gripping, and the film is quite fast paced. There is not much jaded melodrama to portray the childhood psychological scar. But the film lacks sheen. Probably the director and the screen play writer decided to keep Anwesh (Suraj) a little gauche and yet an achiever. But the background colour of the screen/house which is of a newly married couple of three months was supposed to look more vibrant. His siblings are dark complexioned, but he is fair because he is supposedly the landlord’s child. The village women are the landlord’s victims and so is his mother. His family is not shown but it is Suraj who seems to have come far to the city and eke out a good life with Sagrika. But below the surface of a loving couple, lies the poison of caste hatred. There are some scenes in the movie which brazenly expose raw nerves, like the one where a drunk Suraj spits on the nameplate of the house where both their names are written. But Swapna’s Hindi diction (she is an Odia) is the result of her constant improvisation. Comes out clearly. 

Anwesh’s background score is quite spartan and interesting, with table and mridangam (murdunga in Odia) dominating, but is able to capture the moods and the psychological battles in Suraj. The lighting of the film fails to impress. With a frugal budget, the film has done well with the sharp story. Most of the shots are inside a couple of rooms and there is hardly any outdoors. The costumes are natural and relatable. They both are teachers and wear plain clothes, not the gaudy or blingy ones. This goes well with the backdrop of the story. Next time the producer should try to open another such social issue which could expose its presence is all of us and everywhere around us. We pretend to ignore but are mired in them. Our Society carries many afflictions, even if outwardly things are kept buried.

Overall I would rate the movie 4/5.

(DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are the author’s own and have nothing to do with OTV’s charter or views. OTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same. Charudutta Panigrahi is a polymath. Author, community worker, TED speaker, public intellectual & policy influencer. He can be reached at charu.panigrahi@gmail.com)

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