| Custom, whether based on norms of social etiquette or rules of religious authorities, can empower the few and make life miserable for the many. The Indian film The Fire and the Rain (Agni Varsha), directed by Arjun Sajnani, presents a case in point. The story is an adaptation of Girish Karnad’s play based upon “The Myth of Yavakr” from the Mahabharata, a Sanskrit epic that consists of legends from about 500 BCE that were brought into a unified text by 350 CE. The story occurs in a small region of India long ago that has experienced a lack of rain for ten years; the set, the ruins of Hampi, suggests that the time is the thirteenth century. The high priest of the temple, Paravasu (played by Jackie Shroff), is eager to perform a ceremony to bring rain when a drama troupe arrives in town, pleading for an opportunity to put on a play that might also summon rain from the heavens. Meanwhile, Paravasu’s younger brother Aravasu (played by Milind Soman) is romancing Nittilai (played by Sonali Kulkarni). Aravasu is a Brahmin, but Nittilai is of a lower caste, and the unlikely pairing requires approval from the elders. Paravasu has marital problems of his own, having abandoned his spouse Vishakha (played by Taveena Tandon), who is establishing a liaison with Yavakri (played by Nagarajuna Prabhudeva), Paravasu’s first cousin. Yavakri, who has just returned from ten years of meditation, believes that Paravasu is unfit to be the high priest. Blind Raibhya (played by Mohan Agashe), the father of both Paravasu and Aravasu, summons a demon to kill Yavakri, who is upsetting the tranquility of the region with his dissension. Soon, Paravasu reacts by slaying his father and then ordering Aravasu to handle the cremation immediately. But that is the day when Nittilai’s father has summoned the villagers to meet Aravasu in order to approve of their marriage. Because cremation duties and other family matters delay Aravasu’s arrival in Nittilai’s village, her father loses patience and hands her off in marriage to the first volunteer. When Aravasu finally arrives, marriage preparations are irreversibly underway. After the marriage, Nittilai meets Aravasu outside the village and urges him to return to his brother Paravasu. However, when Aravasu does so, Paravasu accuses him of murdering his father, orders him ejected from the temple, and he ends up near death in an encampment of poor people. On hearing of Aravasu’s plight, Nittalai abandons her husband to comfort Aravasu, who is then nursed back to health by the leader of the drama troupe with Nittalai by his side. When Aravasu regains his strength, he performs in a play wearing a mask in front of Paravasu, the priests, and the villagers. At a dramatic point in the play, Aravasu deviates from the script to burn down the temple, killing Paravasu, while villagers from Nittilai find her in the audience and slay her. With dying Nittilai in Aravasu’s arms, the god Indra (played by Amitabh Bachchan) suddenly appears, offering to grant Aravasu a single wish. Although he could ask for rain, Aravasu clearly wants Nittalai alive. Indra says that such a wish would reverse time, but ultimately the same events would repeat. Then the demon who killed Yavakri appears, begging Aravasu to ask Indra for his release from a condition in which he can neither live normally nor die peacefully. Aravasu then asks Indra for the demon’s freedom, reasoning that Nittilai would have made the same decision. Rain then falls in abundance. The Fire and the Rain is not only a classic story but also a statement to contemporary Indians about the adverse consequences of following custom blindly. Presumably, filmviewers in India will learn the lesson that caste snobbery is harmful, women should be liberated to save men from their own folly, and that marriages should be based on love rather than arranged by relatives for mutual aggrandizement. MH |