Gender, Trouble and Love: From Anarkali to Leela
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” — — — Thomas Jefferson
Set in the infamous fictional Gujarati village of Ranjhaar and directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, the film Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela (2013) tells the story of love that was not meant to be. It deals with the ancient rivalry between two enemy clans, and how this age-old hatred manifests itself fatally in the lives of two people from the opposite clans. While on the other hand, there’s the classic Mughal-E-Azam (1960), directed by K. Asif, set in the Royal Mughal Court, when Akbar was the Emperor of India. Even though these two films are set in almost diametrically opposite settings, they are similar in their plots: in both of them, we find the story of love that the world meddled with. However, there’s more than one similarity and dissimilarity, and these have significant narrative implications in the films.
Something rather curious happens the moment Leela (Deepika Padukone) starts performing Garba in the music video of “Nagada Sang Dhol Baje” of the film Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela: it is eerily reminiscent of the music video of “Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya” of Mughal-E-Azam:
The music video of “Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya” begins with Anarkali (Madhubala) dancing to a taan in Raag Darbari, a Raag meant to be sung in the dead of the night, its essence that of royal solemnity and intimidation. After this taan is over, Anarkali breaks into the song, set in Raag Durga. This Raag is named after the same goddess who is said to have defeated a notorious demon that no male could overpower. This positioning or rather the synchronisation of the two Raagas in a single song is indicative of a conscious choice: Anarkali dances to Raag Darbari for Emperor Akbar as a courtesan and then dances to Raag Durga which she sings herself, uttering words of defiance directed to Akbar, the enemy of her love. The first part of the dance represents her living her life conforming to male authority because she dances to the tunes of Tansen. And in the next part is symbolic of her living on her own accord: she sings her own song, a particularly rebellious one, and dances to it. The first line of her song means “I have fallen in love, I won’t be afraid, for love is not stealing”. Singing this to Akbar is a rather serious form of defiance, given the social positioning of both parties: Akbar the disapproving father of the man Anarkali loves, and worse, the Emperor of India while Anarkali is a mere courtesan. While she continues singing the song, a point comes when she sings the following lines:
“Ishq Mein Jeena Ishq Mein Marna,
Ab Humein Aur Karna Kya,
Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya.”
These lines say: I’ll live in love, die in it too, what else is to be done? It is love that I have chosen to pursue, I won’t be afraid. She sings these lines after she skilfully snatches away a dagger from Salim (Dilip Kumar), her lover and Akbar’s son, seated beside Akbar, and offers it at Akbar’s feet as an open challenge: kill me if you must, but you can’t kill my love for your son. As it turns out at the end of the film, Akbar does try to kill Anarkali but is stopped when her mother reminds Akbar of the vow of granting one wish to Anarkali’s mother. Consequently, Anarkali and her mother escape the capital and go to a faraway land where no one would recognise their real identities. Thus, Anarkali dies: her body lives on, but it is the social death that strikes her. This escaping of bodily death is worth further investigation; it is important to notice that it was the difference in social positioning at the base of Akbar’s disapproval of Anarkali’s love for her son. Because Anarkali was a courtesan, almost a public “good” in the objectifying eyes of the elite men in Akbar’s court, he objected to the love shared by the pair. Also, a recurring dialogue in the film, said by several characters is something like this: a courtesan cannot be the emperor’s wife, hinting towards marriage as the climax and epitome of love’s success. Thus, even if Anarkali and Salim’s marriage had been a success, Salim’s identity would have been imposed on her. Therefore, her escape and spending the rest of her life in anonymity was the death of Anarkali the courtesan (which would’ve been the case even if she had married Salim) but the survival of Anarkali, the woman. However, the difference between the escape and the marriage is that this escape gave her a chance to construct an identity on her own, likely unmediated, unlike the construction of the Malika-E-Hindustan (Empress of India), which she couldn’t have taken part in, because those rules were set in stone.
In the music video “Nagada Sang Dhol Baje”, when Ram (Ranveer Singh) enters the enemy’s territory: Dhankor Baa, (Supriya Pathak) the Sanera chieftain’s residence, the chorus sings:
“Leeli Lemdi Re, Lilo Nagarvel No Chhod,
Parbhu Parodh Na Re, Maare Gher Utaara Karta Jaav,
Utaaro Nahin Karu Re, Maare Gher Seeta Jove Vaat,
Seeta Ekla Re, Jove Raam-Lakhman Ni Vaat”
These lines say: Green are neem’s leaves, Green is the Nagarvel’s Chhod, my Lord be a guest at my house. I can’t be a guest sorry, Seeta [my wife] is waiting for me at home, Seeta is all by herself, she’s waiting at Raam and Lakshman’s home.” These lines are taken from a rather old Gujarati Bhajan and are a dialogue between Rama and Bhava Shabari, who is said to be a woman from a lower-caste, who waited for Rama’s arrival, at her place all her life, during his exile. As is evident from the lines, there’s an invitation given out with great hopes that is not to be fulfilled in the entirety, there is however a glimpse of the beloved [Ram], which Bhava Shabari cherishes, all while understanding the temporariness of her bliss. Maybe this is what is signalled, as a foreboding, when Ram enters the rival territory during the Navratri celebration, exactly at the moment when the Garba at the Sanera courtyard is at its rhythmic peak. Ram is a member of the Rajadi clan, who are bitter enemies with the Saneras, whose chieftain’s daughter is Leela (Deepika Padukone), Ram’s lover. After Ram sits beside Dhankor Baa, Leela does something very similar to Anarkali: she takes some vermilion from the plate of ritual offerings on her mother’s hands, applies a red tilak, on Ram’s forehead, touches his feet, and resumes ger dance. Thus, leaving Dhankor Baa in momentary startle and the audience in awe of their sizzling chemistry. Leela does this quick act while singing the following lines:
“Pal Pal Re Pal Pal, Beeta Jal Jal,
Naach Ab Chal Aajaa,
Re Thar Thar Kaanpe Re Thar Thar,
Haa Darr Darr Jee Se Darr Ab Naa Naa
Baago Mein Bola, Bola Re Bola,
More Badlaa Re Dil Ka Buhgol,
Nagada Sang Dhol…”
In these lines, Leela echoes Anarkali’s message: I refuse to live in terror, even though my body is shaking from strong feelings, I’ll not give up my love; my heart’s landscape has been altered: I am a lover. Thus, we find an obvious conflation between the two stories: things as benign as a pooja-ki-thaal and as fatal as a dagger, both become objects used by these courageous, madly-in-love women to establish their agency, who in both the stories are slowly walking towards their death. I argue that in employing these similarities Bhansali tries to put forward a greater point about the nature of defiance that women in love pose to authority. Found first in Anarkali’s story, Bhansali appears to use the narrative template of a woman singing and dancing to make her voice heard, albeit the purpose of the performance is entirely different in both stories. Even though Anarkali’s expertise is customarily meant for the emperor and his court to enjoy, it is the setting of a festival in which Leela performs. Despite these situational dichotomies, love’s expression is passed through song and dance, notably in front of seated authorities. Even though Dhankor Baa’s gaze isn’t objectifying, it is still angered by Leela’s disobedience. Defiance is gendered: a woman always sings and dances to speak of her rebellious love. Not only that, it is stealthily taking away objects from one seated powerful individual and offering them to another, which becomes a ritual these vulnerable women perform to establish their agencies. Something distinctive about these objects is that they aren’t safely kept beyond the women’s reach, which is why snatching them is easy. This is symbolic of their very limited agency: the most part of it is kept where they cannot reach, while the option to die is kept near, and they choose it. This is a perverse and twisted mockery made of these women: they are teased into embracing death because at least in death they can put foot on the ground and refuse to conform.
However, there’s something massively different in the narrative tropes of the two films, despite all the similarities I have pointed out, and maybe that’s the genius of Bhansali’s direction of his film. In Mughal-E-Azam it is the man’s father who actively tries to prevent his son from marrying a courtesan because it is against the royal rules. In contrast, Bhansali’s film features the woman’s mother going as far as chopping her daughter’s finger off, to express disapproval of Leela’s love. Here’s the catch: how smooth was Dhankor Baa’s ascension to power? The same film depicts the celebration of Ram by the Rajadis, because he “soiled” Leela, the Sanera chieftain’s daughter’s reputation. In a setting where both clans actively commodify women and locate their “honour” in a woman’s body, also weaponizing sexual violence, how can it be that Dhankor Baa was made the undisputed chieftain? It is only obvious that Dhankor Baa’s ascension to authority was her pushing back to patriarchal norms that eternally question a woman’s worth. Dhankor Baa must have faced attacks even in her younger days when she was yet to be chosen as the chieftain. However, after her pioneering act women occupying authoritative roles becomes slightly more normal: Leela’s story doesn’t speak of her spending considerable effort in retaining her power.
Akbar and Dhankor Baa can’t be more different; their stories are different and as individuals, they are social Others to each other. However, it is the tragedy of Ram and Leela’s story that even if it is a woman who holds power, whose ascension to power was rough, she still fails as badly as Akbar to realise the all-transcendent nature of desire: that love doesn’t care about social boundaries. This does reveal something fundamental about oppression: even the victims become perpetrators of it. If not anyone else, Dhankor Baa should’ve realised that it wouldn’t be a defeat for the Saneras if her daughter spent her life in love with a Rajadi man. She failed to see that the same barriers she pushed back, she ended up imposing on her daughter, and by the time the epiphany had struck her, it was too late: the lovers had killed themselves. Even in its death, repression curses the victor into mindlessness and renews itself. Dhankor Baa’s struggled and won against patriarchy, only to impose her and her clan’s honour on who her daughter had chosen to love, pushing her to death. In contrast to Anarkali and Salim’s story, where both of them live but are separated, maybe it is this curse of the repression Dhankor Baa won against that came back to claim the lives of both her daughter and lover, thus haunting the chieftain’s life forever. Societal power relations inform gender politics, even after powerful women crown themselves.
This is Bhansali’s observation of oppression made alive in his film. The tragedy of our times is that we never learn: we keep making the same mistakes. If only Dhankor Baa had thought about the root of her disapproval, she would’ve realised the pain she was causing her daughter was eerily similar to her strife. So is the world and so are its cruel tragedies: the oppressed choose to forget the pains they suffered, and not think before inflicting the same pains on the less powerful.
