Devil's Advocate | What jars in the otherwise radical Jalsa is reinforcing of the noble servant stereotype

Devil’s Advocate is a rolling column that sees the world differently and argues for unpopular opinions of the day. This column, the writer acknowledges, can also be viewed as a race to get yourself cancelled. But like pineapple on pizza, he is willing to see the lighter side of it.

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Ramu Kaka is back on screen again, and this time he is called Ruksana. She works for a wealthy journalist/television personality, Maya Menon. Unsurprisingly, Ruksana is sincere, selfless, and almost overcommitted to the Menon household. Where have we seen this before?

The history of Hindi cinema is filled with servants who serve their masters, good or bad, as if romantically inclined to the idea of servitude. It is a fragile but ultimately satisfying view of society where conformist, almost truthful slavery is framed as an honourable privilege. It is this status quo that makes this country of stomach-churning inequalities tick.

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_Jalsa_  is a tense, well-made film about similar class implications but while the film captures the shifting goalposts of circumstantial burdens, it furthers a time-worn cliché that could have been let go of for the sake of a more radical, breakthrough film – the good servant.

In Jalsa, both Maya [Vidya Balan] and Ruksana [Shefali Shah] are strong-willed women in their own way. While Maya is an elite, agency-equipped TV journalist with an ethical spine – take that with a pinch of salt by the way – Ruksana, her maid, is a doting woman whose teeth are hidden for the sake of her work. Both are, however, pushed to the brink with situations that demand they cross the line of convenience. Maya is forced to stray from the tightrope of ethics that embellish her work, and nearly the rest of her personality, whereas Ruksana must clutch life for once with her claws despite the conditioning of a job that requires her to leave her preserving instincts at home.

Stunning performances by Shah and Balan shoulder this film about desperate people bewitched by need and desire as compared to morality and alternatives. Despite its macro focus on the stuttering lives of those looped into the chain of events, the film, though slick, is a cop-out, at least socially.

The film relies on convenience a little too much, from the identity of the victim, the role of the investigating cops to the happy arrival of a young journalist who wants to crack her career on day one itself. But while implausibility can be papered over by stunning performances and technical brilliance, the film does not reengineer a status quo that has somewhat been challenged by international films like _The White Tiger_ and _Parasite_. The idea that the servant is subservient to the narratives of the master, invisible behind their desire and aspirations almost like the sheets they sleep or piss themselves in.

In Jalsa, Ruksana is forced to fuel the fire she has always carried within herself, but this fire, this unrestrained anger escapes her body only in the absence of her class-masters. She rages in front of her understated husband, attacks a group of runaway mechanics singlehandedly, and eyeballs scheming police officers with the steely eyes of someone who has made the last sordid deal of her life. And yet her fury is tempered, almost dialled down in front of the master even after her culpability has been confirmed.

Ruksana’s conditioning wins over her rage, but it is also the agreeable and ultimately softer route to take. One that reaffirms the nobility of the servant.

Ruksana’s etiquette, her selflessness might be a matter of conditioning as much as it is a matter of morality, but her reluctance to detach herself from her role even when irked, challenged or hounded makes her rather conveniently a righteous victim who will not act on her impulses. Even in a time of distress, Ruksana wishes to know if Ayush – Maya’s son - has eaten, which establishes her as the awe-inspiring employee who even though belittled by destiny, must rise to the occasion of her menial job. Whereas the elite scramble, half-undressed by the possibility of exposure, as if victims of their own moral worldview, wrong but by their own standards.  

You know where the heart of a film lies when its elites remember their maids even in the moments of a weak confession through the food they cook. “She makes the best food,” Maya says, teary-eyed, in a video that is supposed to about self-realisation, of wanting to finally do the just thing. And yet, the human she has charred, maimed, and moulded to deathly effect only manifests in her memory as the function she performs, and not the life she counts for.

To soften the core of a story that though seemingly gritty, refuses to really hit the wall with a brick, Ruksana teases vengeance, but chooses to comply with the humbling roots – the servant who will not do wrong by the master even if the master has done wrong by the servant. It is a mildly improvised version of Ramu Kaka that does nothing but reclaim his righteousness by the end. Nothing wrong with the depravity of that convenient worldview, except Jalsa wants us to care for both — masters who wish to heal and the servants who have no option not to. Thank god for good servants like Ramu and Ruksana. Divided by faith but united in slavery.  

Jalsa is streaming on Amazon Prime Video India.

Manik Sharma writes on art and culture, cinema, books, and everything in between.

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