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From 'bhoot' to 'chudail', Bollywood's 'spirited' tryst with the supernatural!

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Saonli Hazra
Saonli HazraJan 16, 2019 | 16:48

From 'bhoot' to 'chudail',  Bollywood's 'spirited' tryst with the supernatural!

A TV channel is gearing up to broadcast four of Ruskin Bond’s ghost stories under the title Parchayee: Ghost Stories by Ruskin Bond. This will include The Ghost in the Garden, The Wind on Haunted Hill, Wilson’s Bridge and The Overcoat. Bond himself is easily one of the most prolific writers we have, with great acceptance across a varied demographic. Bond’s love for the mountains is apparent from his stories, the mountains, with their foggy, shaded, somewhat mysterious, beautifully dark, brooding manner, serving as the perfect backdrop for his ghostly tales. Dramatisation promises to bring out the phantoms lurking in the shadows so deftly captured by Bond.

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Movies on the supernatural have always done well both in Bollywood and Hollywood.

As a Bengali, I loved the motley group of ghosts in the horror-comedy, Bhooter Bhabishyat, (2012), loosely translated as The Future of Ghosts, directed by Anik Dutta. The plot, the characterisation, the issues came together to create what can only be described as one of the most intelligent and satirical comedies seen in a long time.

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Bhooter Bhabishyat appealed to every single stratum of Bengali society. (Source: Twitter)

It paved the way for Gang of Ghosts by Satish Kaushik, but it was no match for the Bengali version. Bhooter Bhabishyat's portrayal of everyday life and issues in Kolkata, albeit through the prism of comedy, did the near-impossible — it appealed to every single stratum of Bengali society, even as it raised issues of old architectural splendours giving way to glitzy malls and towering high-rises. Progress and prosperity rising out of razed traditional manifestations leave one wondering about the future. In that sense, Bhooter Bhabishyat mirrors the future of humanity as it hurtles forward.

Bhooter Bhabishyat provoked the Bengali to think even as it entertained — but through the years, the English-speaking audience has had many dates with an array of ghosts. Who can forget Ghost (1990) starring Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze, or Ghostbusters, a 1984 Bill Murray starrer sci-fi comedy, or Casper (1995), which led to the widely accepted Bollywood version, Bhoothnath (2008), starring Amitabh Bachchan in the title role?

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While these filled the heart with a warm and fuzzy feeling, others — A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), The Conjuring (2013), The Exorcist (1973), Poltergeist (1982), The Sixth Sense (1999), the list is long — replaced that with absolute terror.

In the Indian context, most of the celluloid interpretations follow stereotypes, with a haunted mansion, creaking doors, flying bats and prowling black cats which pounce on unsuspecting modern visitors (mostly a couple).

Throw in a waif in a white wispy saree walking around in the dark shadows, singing of betrayal and hurt, and you have Mahal (1949) or Kohra (1964) or innumerable other ghostly celluloid tales.

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Spooking guaranteed: How early Bollywood dealt with ghost stories. (Source: Twitter)

Mahal was a watershed moment in Indian cinema for several reasons — firstly, it gave us as skilled a director as Kamal Amrohi; secondly, it marked the debut of Lata Mangeshkar, and thirdly, it catapulted leading lady Madhubala to the top.

Mahal dealt with reincarnation and the ghost of a woman who waits for her lover. Aayega aane waala, the song speaks of love’s faith which travels beyond the realms of reality and life. Dark shadows in a sprawling castle, the call of love in the thickened darkness, fleeting glimpses of the ghost and the face of the protagonist matching that of a dead person, made for a hair-raising story.

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Kohra, starring Biswajeet, Waheeda Rehman and Lalita Pawar, was adapted from Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (1938). Of course, the film gave its own twist to the novel, and supernatural effects were added from another spooky thriller, Psycho (1960). But it was the music that the audience lapped up. O Beqarar Dil by Lata and Yeh Nayan Dare Dare by Hemanta Mukherjee still make it to playlists. 

Bees Saal Baad (1962) also spooked the nation with a woman walking around in the darkness, singing Kahin deep jale kahin dil. The film was loosely based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles and managed to keep the audience on the edge of their seats — just what a ghost story ought to.

The horror genre in Bollywood thereafter underwent a transition — with ghosts looking like pathetic caricatures, wearing loud make-up, garish costumes and indulging in over-the-top acting. Raaz (2002), Shaapit ( (2010), Ragini MMS (2011) are some examples that failed to impress at the box office, owing to a poor storyline, unconvincing acting and the sheer fact that cringe-worthy moments replaced true scary moments.

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Bollywood underwent a transition with ghosts looking like caricatures wearing loud make-up. (Source: Twitter)

The theme of revenge marked most ghost stories.

Time and again, female ghosts were shown seeking revenge, entering the bodies of mortals and tossing them around like puppets. Justice complete, movie over, and one would often come away wondering whether this remained the only way in which women can hope to get justice — by becoming vengeful spirits?

'Restorative justice' is often more crucial to victims than the justice handed down by the judiciary of the country. 

Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007) also worked on a similar theme of vengeance.

However, what was an obvious departure was that the film gave a plausible explanation of Avani’s spooky behaviour, putting it down to a form of psychosis — Dissociative Identity Disorder — which is marked by two or more distinct personalities homing inside one individual. In popular parlance, it goes by Multiple Personality Disorder and was highlighted to great effect in the movie Raat Aur Din (1967), starring Nargis, Pradeep Kumar and Feroz Khan. A traumatic event generally leads to the cleaving of the personality into distinct and disparate types. In Bhool Bhulaiyaa, protagonist Avani assumes the personality of Manjulika, the ghost intent on wreaking revenge on the cruel king who had separated her from her lover. Avani’s childhood was marked by loss and trauma and her mind was unable to deal with it in an adequate way. The ghost of Manjulika is exorcised when Avani — as Manjulika — kills the king.

This was certainly a ghost story which gave a perfectly acceptable and rational analysis of why some people come to be ‘possessed’ by spirits of the yonder realm.

Stree (2018) too made a statement with its storyline of a 'chudail' who seeks justice by terrifying men. There was an attempt to deal with the psychological issue of ‘crowding’ on women’s lives (where women are forced to stay in cramped domestic spaces and cannot venture out due to the presence of predators, leading to psychological repercussions, like uncontrollable rage or depression).

The presence of the she-ghost restricted the movement of men, especially at night, and forced them to comprehend the stifling effects of crowding. However, the item song, with a scantily clad Nora Fatehi shaking her Kamariya for the obvious pleasure of a roomful of lustful males, turned the feminist deal right on its head.

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'Restorative justice' is often crucial to victims who don't get fair treatment from the human world. (Source: Twitter)

Talaash’s ghost Rosie also sends out a strong feminist idea as she points out the lack of respect society has for sex workers. They are dehumanised into mere commodities. Rosie is left to die because ‘she doesn’t count’ and the basic overtures of humanity are withheld from her. In her mortal life, she finds plenty of takers as she is physically attractive — but that is where it ends. Ultimately, she is of little social value, and we see that in the men running away, leaving her to painfully bleed to death.

Ghost stories doing well on celluloid points to a belief system which assigns equal weight to God and Satan.

It is in our cognitive instinct to arrange vague, wispy shapes into an identifiable structure. This tendency is perhaps manifested in our seeing faces in clouds or assigning shapes and forms to dark empty spaces. According to psychologists, ghosts are born out of impressionable minds which seek to give certain shape and voice to the subconscious, often repressed emotions born out of trauma or guilt.

Religion too gives us our ghosts — almost every religion does derive its legitimacy from a face-off between God and Satan where the former emerges as more powerful, handing out rewards and punishment of death.

Death becomes the ultimate terrifying event thus and organised religion uses it to advantage by a successful dissemination of abstracts as hell, purgatory and heaven. Those presumably on the 'deeply religious side' of the spectrum do not fear death for they live virtuous lives, assured that their souls will find a place in God’s heaven. Non-believers do not give such religion-based ideas much thought. Those caught in the middle are invariably plagued by the idea of ghosts and demons.

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Ghost movies doing well on celluloid points to a belief system which assigns equal weight to God and Satan. (Source: Twitter)

Every religion has its own system.

Hinduism doesn’t give much weight to ghosts (evil rakshashas find more space), but ghosts are nevertheless a part of popular religious belief. Buddhism talks of ghosts as those who have unsorted karma, while in Islam, the closest one gets to ghosts is in the construction of Jinns which are a mix of the supernatural and the spiritual. As long as humankind remains suspended in its belief system, ghosts will continue to be part of folklore and grandma stories.

Whatever it is, ghosts are not meant to be analysed, seen through a scientific prism and scoffed at. Ghosts — and fairies, elves, pixies, ghouls, all the creatures that make up this labyrinth of fantasy — are meant to thrill, entertain, enthrall without us breaking our heads on their place in the firmament of reality and science.

As the Shah Rukh Khan movie featuring ghosts tell us, these constructions are largely a Paheli. 

Isn’t it?

Last updated: January 16, 2019 | 20:14
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