Bahubritta: Personified Verses: From Mute to Motion

Dr. Dipsikha Bhagawati

"We do not know where this act of travelling ends in the meadows/

Green and lush or in some remote dock of a settled river/

Where the bones of the dead animals lie together/

With the human remains and burned charcoal."

('We do not know' by Bireswar Baruah, translated from Assamese by Gautam Baruah)

Verse in versatility, words in vibrant waves, guns and roses in traquilizing turbulence, eternal feelings in resplendent imageries framed in celluloid – this is 'Bohubritta' (Circles).

The razor sharp siren with which this 9 minute venture is triggered is the acute metaphors of emergence – of restlessness – of vulnerability of contemporary urbanism. Men is lost even in its own axis, life is the cardinal sun, we rotate, still stagnant, alienated. Contemplation has become sallow. The "She" in the motion takes a book "Age of Extremes", touché sit and keep sit incurious. The shelf is stunningly showcased with books, but her wobbly fingers scroll over the ipod.

The busy streets with the common humdrum, glazed and deemed lights all bring in to force the fast and furious oppidan schedule so poignantly through pristine urbane imageries.

The camera and the sequence move lento to portray the fantasies of the prima donna from the frenetic cadence of modern life to the virididescent canvas with her mused partner, whose face seems to be confused and discontented.

The lady and her mate are wrapped in red and black respectively. Red, the colour of fertility is projected in the midst of aquamarine and foliage. Their union, the very in built instinctive gravitation between 'Prakriti' and 'Purush' is displayed by worshipping the fertility God. The imagery of the burning earthen lamp, the red thread, the word – 'writushraab' that is menstruation stream – all are the metaphors of fertility, with a moderate reference to Goddess Kamakhya, whose feminine biological circle is worshipped in 'Ambubachi'. 'Nanglor xirolut pua xitak pujo' is the another dimension of the same heart. Soil, air and water are the roots of topographical reproduction leading to concrete demography –the cities – the hemlets – the civilization.

In Mathew Arnold's tour de force 'Dover Beach', the sea of faith is displayed to be sinking like the ebbing tide, like of people's isolation and exile from nature and one another as well as spawning religious, social and existential crisis. The male protagonist ponders haphazardly over the chessboard, that symbolically presents the chaos of modern civilization. Too much of rapacious aggrandizement has destroyed the belle of human parallels.

"Here is no water but only rock/•••

The road winding above among the mountains/ Amongst rock one cannot stop or think•••"

- (T.S. Eliot in "The Waste Land")

The co-protagonist of the narrator is seen walking with a long cane, blindly in search of love – the world appears to be sunken, the man is not physically blind, but the doors to heart are blocked, love is lost in the hurtled cave of a farcical endowment.

Earth, with all its verdure, marine with myriads of solitary components – banks, heels, sounds of lapping breeze on the leaves and the cool splashing tune of the river water – all are the pictorial adaptation of serene poetic imageries to replenish the fragmented mutilation caused by the malignant urbanization. Water is always the best pilgrim, that flags its own way against all hurdles.

Life is lucrative here with all its materialistic luxuries, but peace is missing, bed and lust is pervasive –just like "Women come and go, talking of Michalengelo" (Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred. Prufrock)

Love is in exile in the hostile hazard:

"Na jaha bheer ho/ Na jaha bhar ke log/

Na sheher me base lakho logo ka shor/

Chand lamhe inhe mujhse tu door kar/

Chal chale apne ghar/ humsafar"

(Wo Lamhe, directed by Mohit Suri, 2006)

Translation:

(Let not be any hazard/ let not be people around/ make me free of this for sometime/ let's go home, my love)

House is there, not the home.

The fertile waves of nature, the saudade of the cardinal female character, her despairing

Frustration while massacring the chessboard – all have been personified through her exuberant dance moves desperately worshipping mother earth for some happy miracles.

"Bohubritta" (Circles) or to be meticulous, the vicious circle of modern life and its schism from

the roots, are displayed through explicit imageries, bold metaphors and personification – the powerful components of any literary fashioning. The soul of the poem is beautifully framed through compact picturization. Director of Photography Nagen Baishya deserves eulogy for his arresting cinematograhy. The portrayal of day and night, the blending of colours, movement of camera and shifting of focus, everything is effortlessly sheeny.

Sound desigining of Amrit Pritam Datta has added another dimension to the images. For example, the sound of the siren at the outset, though the source is absent, creates an atmosphere of emergence.The sound of water, clock, city, rusticity, everything have supported the sub-text of the poem enhancing the depth of the images.

Pranami Bora as the prima donna is just effortless in her play. Her inner struggle, her conflict, her intentional split forms are performed through vivid facial expressions and body language within a minimum space. Udayan Duarah's stubbornism is flashed in his face when he plays the game of chess. Simultaneously, his helplessness is so clear in his blind steps in search of love. Two contrasting traits of his character – vanity and vagueness are well complimented through silent visual display and inclusive expressions, as there is no male voiceover in the entire narrative. The co-ordination between both the protagonists are well-balanced.

The entire narrative of the film is predominantly based on visual and contextual contrast and editor Aseem Sinha has crafted a flawless current with his lyrical editing.

Not the least, this short motion display is a piece of literature in transportability. Utpal Datta's flawless direction and search for a new film narrative, Swapna Datta Deka's poem and her voiceover it, as well as the entire team have just nailed a new trend in the cinema of Assamese to make a poetry a celluloid luxury, myriads of sound effects, the visual comfort and personifying verses from mute to motion.