Twist to the tale

One who is familiar with Indian epics and mythologies would know the story of Ahalya — the wife of Sage Gautam and the most beautiful woman created by lord Brahma — and how she was cursed by her husband for giving in to lord Indra’s illicit advances. She was turned into stone and her curse was broken by lord Rama. 

Director Sujoy Ghosh, with movies like Jhankar Beats and Kahaani to his name, has given us a fresh and different perspective of the story, with his latest short film Ahalya. He veers away from the parochial pretext of the original mythology and reinvents the concepts of femininity and infidelity with his quirky modern characters. The 14 minute film released by Royal Stag Barrel Select large Short Films, features thespian Soumitra Chatterjee, Radhika Apte and Bengali actor Tota Roy Chowdhury. 

Since its release, Ghosh has been questioned by many as to why he chose the particular episode of Ahalya and gave it his own spin. When we echoed the same question he laughed and said that it was his own interpretation of the story. He told us that he finds it futile to present already popular stories. He added, “I wanted to tell a gripping tale which had every emotion in it — love, lust, anger, fear — in equal proportion with magic.” 

Although the format is that of a short film it has been treated like a full length feature. It was a challenge for him, to concentrate a story within the 15 minute boundary. “The format demanded all the elements that constitute a feature film. It had to have a definite beginning, middle and end without the luxury of time and length,” he said.

The director explained that there are endless stories in our epics  which are filled with philosophy, politics, envy and everything else but he finds excitement in the Indian mythologies. Their’s is a magical world, very much like cinema, he said. “It is only in myths that gods are presented as normal humans and behave like them, too, yet have the ability to do supernatural things,” he added.

If one observes closely, the three characters in the film are all namesakes of the mythological counterparts they portray. Chatterjee as Gautam Sadhu (reverse for Sadhu Gautam), Apte as Ahalya, Gautam’s young wife and Chowdhury as inspector Indra Sen (the representation of lord Indra). Forty nine year old Ghosh recalls the time he approached Chatterjee for the role. Not only did the veteran fit perfectly into the profile but also fulfilled Ghosh’s dream of working with him. “He brought an element of eccentricity and intrigue into the character,” said the director.

Apte sparkles with the right amount of seductiveness and deceit. According to the director, Apte was the only actress that he could think of for the role of Ahalya because of her “unconventional looks.” “She is not a starlet,” he said, “and that was what I wanted. The script required a face which looked like any other girl or woman one would come across but also had the potential to look like a seductress when required.”

Ghosh needed an excuse to shoot in Kolkata.The city, he feels, has an old-world charm. He feels that it is one of the few cities in which ‘para culture’ still survives, an aspect that he needed for the short film. That is why he chose a house in North Kolkata, which still retained its colonial structures. “For the backdrop of the story I needed a city that has house culture,” he explained, “Even though it is a metropolis, there are some parts in Kolkata, especially in the North, which are mysterious and lent the story its own flavour. It had the amount of mystery and suspense that was required.”

The film is also being said to be inspired from a Roald Dahl story. Ghosh dismissed the rumour, saying that he finds it amusing to hear people say that. “I’m amused by murmuring that Ahalya is ‘inspired’ from a Roald Dahl story because anyone who reads, knows that Dahl is an author of children’s books. My film, as is evident, is an age old myth, slightly adult in nature, adapted with a feminist twist. I am, however, flattered over the comparisons with Dahl’s work — he is of course, one of the greatest children’s authors of the 20th century,” he concluded, chuckling with delight at the comparison with Dahl’s work.