Cultural Identity and Identity of Culture

The film “Dhulaki Taari Maaya Laagi” is about the girl from Rathwa community. The film was a very big hit in areas like Chhota Udepur, Pavi Jetpur, Bodeli, Naswadi, etc. these are all Rath areas. These are the theaters in which a film runs for three days, but this film stayed there for two to three months. But, some of my informants believed that this film is not about the Rathwa community. Then, how did the film become such a big hit in these specific areas? This paper will try to discuss some reasons behind the success, and how Rathwa identity is portrayed in the movie? Second aspect is the idea of moving upwards from a socially less favored position to the socially more favored position, which is the undercurrent in the main stream of the story. And, we will also look at the relationship between the oppressors and oppressed in the film and in the society.

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A human being is above all a human being, the caste, religion, ethnicity are secondary aspects of one’s identity. Casting this wonderful message the film “Dhulaki Taari Maaya Laagi” is a love story. Dhulaki, a young girl of Rathwa community, loves a beggar, Nathyo, who is not from Rathwa community. On the other hand, the head of the community, Vitthal Rathwa, loves Dhulaki. Dhulaki’s father, Bhomlo, believes that Dhulaki herself should select her life-partner. Vitthal tries to kill Nathyo; injured Nathyo was saved by Chandni, a daughter of a rich person who lives in town. Nathyo loses his memory, Chandni teaches him everything. Nathyo becomes a sophisticated person Ketan, now he can speak English as well. On this side, Dhulaki is crying day and night. Chandni and Ketan come to village at their farm-house. Dhulaki recognizes her love. She plays Rawanhatho, listening to which Nathyo recalls his past. Both the lovers elope in jungle and hills to save their lives. On the other hand, Vitthal collects people to kill them. In the end, Bhomlo kills Vitthal in front of the community and the lovers get the authorization from Dhulaki’s father, Bhomlo.

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This film is talking about the Rathwa community. Generally, Gujarati films are about the villages, here, village is not specified, but the community has been given importance. In a way, this is a direct target to the community. They are the primary audience for the film. The film-makers have identified the culture of the community, to make it a commodity. Now, the question is how audience, Rathwa community, will identify themselves in the movie. The film-makers have used certain strategies to create this effect.

Rathwas have been influenced by Hinduism, and there are two religious sects (Rathva, 2004: 2). Among them the Bhagats are considered the members of the ‘higher’ sect. they are a priestly cast and they abstain from consumption of flesh and alcohol. They worship Hindu deities. The Jagats are considered to be members of the ‘lower’ sect. They freely consume alcohol and non-vegetarian food. This film talks about the Jagats; most of the characters in the film consume alcohol. Dhulaki’s mother, Bhagli, advises his son not to drink too much, but he is allowed to drink. Even the head of the community, vitthal, drinks in public. And of course there is a song, “thandi thandi taadi ne mahuda no daru.”  Thus, for them, there is no harm in drinking.  We have characters from three different classes in the film. First and foremost class is of Rathwa people, there are characters from upper class like Chandni and her father. They are Hindus, but their cast is not specified. Nathyo, his sister and fakirababa, are beggars and do not believe in cast or religion. There is very little or no difference between Rathwas and Nathyo at the economic level, they are different because of the caste. All these characters are differentiated on the basis of linguistic variety they are speaking. Bhomlo is educated; he is able to read newspaper and consequently his linguistic variety is marked by standard Gujarati words, rest of the Rathwa characters speaks Rathwi, except Dhulaki. Their clothes are another distinctive feature. All the Rathwa male characters wear shirt or short kurta and dhoti. Their shirts/kurtas are generally in dark red, dark blue or green color, dhotis are always white. They tie a cloth around their stomach, which they call kediyu. Nathyo wears dhoti and long kurta; he ties a green cloth on his forehead. All Rathwas wear a turban on their head. Apart from clothes Rathwas have a typical weapon in their hands which they called Dhariyu. Nathyo has his musical instrument ‘rawanhatho’ in his hand. Now, in characterization, clothes give characters explicit identity which audience can recognize. The others, Chandni, her father, Nathyo, etc., have not given any identity. Only Rathwas are foregrounded.

Second important aspect presented in the movie is the music of the movie. The Rathwa music and their dance, timli, have been incorporated in the movie. Music is always the best device for publicity. There are seven songs ion the movie, two of them are based on Rathwa music, and in the publicity of the film these songs have been forgrounded. I have seen audience dancing in the theater on each song; of course they were dancing timli. There is a sequel of this film released in 2006 entitled ‘Timli’. They portrayed two haats (weekly fair) in the film, once it was the title, audience can see the titles and in the background Rathwas are dancing timli in the haat. Second time, it was a dream sequence in which Nathyo dreamt that he is a Rathwa person and sang song in haat with Dhhulaki.

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If we distinguish them as different social groups based on their financial standard, we have two distinct classes and generally, the financially powerful group governs the society. Here, Chandni’s father is a sheth, a master; Rathwas serve in his farm and farm-house. He sits on chair or sofa, the Rathwa people do not sit in front of him. But, the film-maker hasn’t given him the superior position by using camera work or dialogues, the sheth is always good with all the servants, and helps them. All the financially powerful people have got neutral angle in the entire film, except in the introducing scene, where tribals are shown inferior with high angle camera and the city-dweller in powerful position with lower angle camera. In the movie, two characters are always portrayed powerful with low angle camera, first is fakirababa who has been revered by all the people. He is spiritually higher than anybody else. The second character is Vitthal; the most powerful person in the community.

The Character of Nathyo is also a noticeable narration in the movie. He has two identities; one is of Nathyo, who is a beggar, uneducated and underprivileged, while other is of Ketan who is in rich family, can speak English, lives in city and belongs to privileged class. This is not the case of double role in which one character complements the other; this is the case of double identity. The second identity fulfils Nathya’s dream. Education means, at least in the movie, to be able to speak English. Half of the dialogues spoken by Nathyo and Chandni are in English in the second half of the movie. This mind-set to move from socially not favored position to socially favored position is referred to as Sunflower Syndrome by Bandhopadhyay (1997: 16). Mention of Dhulaki’s brother to send him to city so that he can become a responsible person, is again an example of the syndrome, as if villages do not produce responsible persons. This is the exact position of most of the villages. People want to move to the city to earn money or to study in English medium schools.

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The title of the movie “Dhulaki Taari Maaya Laagi” (Dhulaki, I love you.) deserves some attention. The subtitle is “Baby, I love you”. Here, the subject of the statement and auxiliary are missing. We know from the vocative Dhulaki that the object pronoun Taari refers to Dhulaki. It is not just the object of the title but also the object of the male gaze in the movie. Here, Dhulaki loves Nathyo and Nathyo loves Dhulaki, then there is no problem. That means the missing subject in the title is Nathyo. But, if one puts the same words on the lips of Vitthal; now, Vitthal has become the subject of the title. The movie is all about this problem; Nathyo’s love for Dhulaki would not be a problem if Vitthal is not there.  Vitthal is not just the lover, but the lover within the Rathwa community, if there was no candidate in the community for Dhulaki, then her love for Nathyo is not a problem. Thus, it is not just the love, but the boundary of the community for love is also important. Title creates this ambiguity and prepares the audience for further course. Here, Rathwas, more specifically Vitthal, are oppressors and Nathyo is oppressed.

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Majority (almost 95%) of the Gujarati films is about villages, and they are love stories. There must be something that distinguishes this film from other films; here in this film that distinctive feature is Rathwa community, which is almost unknown to the most part of the country and the state. Through out the film, the most noticeable aspect is the Rathwa community. They are portrayed in their entirety. Their clothes, music, dance, etc. are presented in a very clear manner. Thus, film makers have identified a new culture to tell the age old story in a new context. They are creating a new market for their product, and they are successful. To create the identity they have used some signs, like clothes, music and linguistic variety, etc. The success of the film is the evidence that the targeted audience has identified him/herself in the movie. The film makers have used Rathwi variety for some important Rathwa characters, but other characters are using standard variety, so that the non-Rathwas can also enjoy the film. Very simple kind of English is used by the characters of Chandni and Ketan which is intelligible to most of the spectators. Thus, film makers have taken care of the audience which is not Rathwas.

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If we see at the movie from political perspective, there are certain glaring problems. Here, politics means politics of superstructure, dominant class. Overt class conflict is inhibited through ideological mechanisms such as media (Edgar, 1999: 65), which we can notice here through the medium of this film. Rathwas are lacking their basic requirements, like education and work. But, in the movie, nobody is worried about these things, even the beggar Nathyo is always happy. What about their daily needs? This is not a reel-life but a real-life problem. Entire Rathwa community gathered to kill Nathyo on Vitthal’s call, as if they do not have anything else to do. The sheth is portrayed very humble and humane, who loves his servants. But, he never advocated for their upliftment, or for their education. Thus, he took care of his servants to keep them as servants.

There is not a single person in the entire team of film who is Rathwa in origin. They are from upper and middle class. Rathwa people are now becoming conscious about their social and political rights. The film is an attempt to include Rathwa community. The film talks about everything related to Rathwa community but there is no reference to their real life difficulties. They talk about education, but again they portrayed educated people who are bad, which gives negative impression of education to Bhomli, Dhulaki’s mother, and she was against education. Bhomlo was able to read newspaper and because of that he could not do his daily works properly, again this gives negative connotation. Their acceptance of Nathyo and contaminated linguistic varieties of Dhulaki and Bhomlo, reflect that they are actually loosing their unique cultural identity.

The term Rathwa refers to Rathbistaram; hilly and forest areas (Singh, 1998. cited in Parakh, 2000: 2). Thus the name itself refers to their identity, people living in these areas. Now today, we are cutting down the forests, and consequently, Rathwas are loosing their habitation. Their life was dependent on jungles, animals, etc. now because of the lack of the jungle they are facing problem of survival. Now, they are moving towards big villages or towns, they are working here at construction sites. Their day is full of hard work and struggle. Now, the films will help them to forget their problems. Such films never come in multiplexes, and one can not find its standard DVDs or VCDs. The main reason is that the targeted audience is unable to spend large amount of money for a film. 

Thus, the film-makers are successful in creating a really big market for their future projects, by identifying this culture. But, they do not speak in favor of the betterment of the community. If Rathwas life remains struggle then it is fruitful for film-makers, because their films will help them to escape from their problems and not to solve them. At last, I would say in words of Barthes that this film is “Not a ‘just’ image,” it is “just an image”. (Barthes, 1993: 67)

References:

Bandhopadhyay, Debaprasad (1997) Folklore and Folklanguage: Myth or Reality? West Bengal: Kalyani University.

Barthes, Roland (1993) Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. (tr.) Richard Howard. London: Vintage.

Edgar, Andrew (1999) “Class” in Key Concepts in Cultural Theory (eds.) Andrew Edgar & Peter Sedgwick. Pgs. 65-66. London & New York: Routledge.

Parakh, Mona (2000) Segmental Phonology of Rathwi. Unpublished dissertation. MSU: Baroda.

Rathva, Parsing (2004) A Small Dictionary of Rathwi. Unpublished dissertation. MSU: Baroda.

About the Film:

           

            “Dhulaki Taari Maaya Laagi” (2004) Running Time: 2 hrs. 36 mnts

            Lakhan Films, Vadodara

            Direction & Screenplay: Keshav Rathod

            Producer: Magan Chauhan

            Story, Dialogues & Songs: Bhailal ‘Kagda’

Khatri, Javed (2008) “Cultural Identity and Identity of Culture”.  Paper presented at the National Conference on “Region, Literature, Culture: Issues & Stakes”. Organized by Department of English, the M. S. University of Baroda. Supported by UGC SAP DRS-I.

A modified version of the article id published in  Culture and representation: The emerging field of media-semiotics as chapter seven: 84-95. New Delhi: Rubi Press & Co.