Why do women have to be morally superior: Aparna Sen

Aparna Sen’s latest film The Jewellery Box (Goynar Baksho) has a ghost at the heart of its plot, even though it’s really about three generations of women and their relationship to wealth. Still, talking to Sen in the gathering shadows, as dusk settled over Kolkata, it seemed only appropriate to start with the ghostly Pishima who is, ironically, the life of The Jewellery Box. You have said the character of Pishima who becomes a ghost in the film really haunted you. Why? Her zest for life, even after death, really moved me. In fact, after she died is when she really started living. She enjoyed being a businesswoman through Somlata and all the benefits of modernity with her grandniece, [like] riding on her motorbike. She had come to a stage where she didn’t care a fig for social customs. She thought all of it was made up and for the benefit of men. She was a very modern person. Did you know people like that? A friend of my mother’s had an aunt-in-law who lived with them and was a child widow. And at the end of her life she was supposed to have said, amidst a roomful of women, “Ei je aami shaara jeebon Sati hoye roiyloom, aamaar ki laabh holo? (I spent my whole life as Sati, what did I gain from it?)” Women didn’t normally speak about it, but it’s not that they were not resentful. What do you think the jewellery box in The Jewellery Box symbolizes? This film is about the economic transition of a woman from being a hoarder to an entrepreneur to having the wherewithal to give it away for a cause if she wanted to. It’s a transition – the changing position of women in relation to wealth. Were you ever a hoarder? Never. Look, everything does not apply to me. All these things I have done, these films I have made about women – none of these applied to me. People thought Paroma was about me. I was like, when did I ever have a problem with my identity? I was born a modern woman – a woman far ahead of my time right from my childhood because my parents were far ahead of their time. [caption id=“attachment_749925” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] The Jewellery Box comes at a time when there is so much talk about the responsibility of media and cinema in how they portray women. Your thoughts? I have never shown women in a derogatory light. I have always highlighted their problems or treated them as normal characters without denigrating them in any way. I think this comes at a particularly opportune time because in the recent reportage of crimes against women, this is a story where there is a lot of empowerment of women. The issue of sexual choice a woman can exercise is strongly addressed. I also think education needs to be responsible and show children films about women in more serious dignified roles where they are maybe the breadearner, not just item numbers. If for instance at school level they are exposed to a film like [Satyajit Ray’s] Mahanagar, it would be a completely different perception of women. I am not saying there is anything wrong with item numbers. “Beedi jalailey” is a lovely number, which I like very much but if that is all that is the measure of their exposure, then what kind of perception do they have of women? Unfortunately our children are only exposed to Bollywood or copies of Bollywood. But it’s not only Bollywood – it’s ads, it’s the entire media. On television you don’t have shows like Rajni anymore. We are celebrating 100 years of Indian cinema. How do you think the role of women in cinema has changed? I don’t enjoy answering these questions about how what has changed. That’s the role of a social commentator. My job is creative work. There are so many interesting women characters even in Bollywood. I don’t see so many more of these sacrificing martyr-like women anymore. When you were acting in Calcutta or Bombay did any of the roles make you cringe? All of them. I didn’t enjoy it. I did it for the money. But there was not that much choice. The kind of roles we had were more or less the same – women were always morally superior to men. I don’t understand why women have to be morally superior. In most people’s films, women were kind, more ethical than men, sacrificing. I played a number of women in Bengali cinema where I was the conscience. I find all that very tiresome, very predictable, very stereotypical. From 36 Chowringhee Lane to Goynar Baksho now, is it any easier to make a film with a woman as the lead? For me it was never difficult. It’s not having women as a lead character that made financing difficult. It’s because of the kind of films I made. The content was not the kind of content that producers thought would bring in money. Because you were pushing the envelope, right from 36 Chowringhee Lane with its depiction of premarital sex? And the kiss. For the first time I think, after very very early times, we had a kiss. But I have never thought I am pushing the envelope. It’s you who is putting the idea into my head right now. I did what the script demanded. You had considered making Paromitar Ek Din with Shabana and Tabu if you had made it in Hindi. But it was made in Bengali. Are you keen to work in Hindi? I don’t know. In Hindi it’s very important to have male stars. This waiting for dates, running after stars is not something I enjoy. It’s difficult to make films in Hindi without that unless you make a very small budget film. But there was Kahaani? Kahaani may be one film that has worked. But producers must have confidence in me. It’s strange that they don’t because they fund very strange films that sink without a trace, but they are reluctant to fund a reputed director who has proved herself over and over again. They say “Yes, we would like to make this film. It’s a lovely script but we need stars.” You can’t always get stars. Anyway those stars are very interested in their rom-coms. Not that I am salivating to do a Hindi film, just that the budget can be a little more. Well Shahrukh Khan says from his next film, the heroine’s name will come first. But the script is not changing. I don’t think everyone says everything in a serious vein. But yes, that’s not going to change the script. The kind of scripts that are funded a lot of the time are not even scripts, they are proposals to put certain stars together. This is the week of Satyajit Ray’s birthday.As the local actor, do you wish Ray had used you in more of his films? Yes. And I had said so to him. He said “It’s natural she might have abhimaan about that.” It’s not abhimaan. I felt I would have done a better choice in some films. Like Gharey Bairey? Yes. Though I would not like to hurt Swatilekha [Chatterjee] because I really like her. But I don’t think she was the right choice. For that matter neither was Soumitra [Chatterjee] in that film. Ray famously said there were no art films or commercial films; just good films and bad films. I don’t fully agree. I agree about good films and bad films. I don’t like to say art cinema or commercial cinema because we do want our films to be commercially successful. But I do believe in cinema that is artistically motivated or commercially motivated. Whether all the decisions are taken keeping commercial considerations in mind or taken keeping artistic integrity in mind – that is the dividing line.