Reading my initial critique on Memories in March (directed by debutant Sanjoy Nag) my friend film critic Suchetana mailed back - "Sahana is portrayed as the very psyche of our patriarchal society which only features women as commodity? Is sexuality more imporatnt than grief here?" It was a sharp incisive prick at the fabric of my review which I have to admit forced me to harp briefly on few ideas that crossed my mind. When I look back at Memories in March (henceforth referred here as MiM) again, it is apparent that the issues of gender identity takes centrestage in this film. So much so, that at times we tend to forget that Arati came to Kolkata from Delhi hearing the news of her only son's accidental demise. Apart from the initial slow built-up nowhere grief could stand besides the shock of truth that Arati discovered - her son Sid was a gay. In an interesting conversation Ornob, Sid's boss asked Arati which mattered most to her. It was no surprise that she was equally heart-broken that Sid was a gay. As the film progressed it was apparent that Arati and Sid had a relationship wherein Sid probably could open up his 'closet'.
Why didn't Sid tell his mother that he has a gay lover. Probably as George Orwell mentioned once, "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act"? Or there is a deep sense of guilt, of rejection that lurked in Sid's mind. Sid was never physically present, it was only through voice-overs he comes to us. So it is not fair to judge his positioning in the drama of same-gender love. However, Ornob seemed calm, poised, philosophical - above reasoning and beyond doubts. By elevating Ornob's psyche to a stature which normal humans may find difficult to achieve, the director tried to close few open questions on sexuality. However if we look at Sid's SMS which he drafted for his mother but couldn't send, its apparent that he feared that his 'rational' mother will also not accept. This brings us to the five stages of grief for a homo-sexual person as depicted in psychiatry - Denial, Anger, Bargain, Depression and finally Acceptance. These all are the steps towards the self. Ornob suggested that it was Sid who advanced him first, and Ornob only reciprocated. Is it then that Ornob didn't experience any of these stages of grief due to his sheer profound ideology? What about Sid then? He had the fear of the other (his mother here) - but isn't that actually a fear of the self? Isn't it that he himself denies his stature as a homo-sexual the reason for his delay in breaking it to his mother? The film's narrative however tells that he is the initiator. Probably the fine balance of love-tension got altered here a bit where it is more probable that Ornob, the initiated may have the fear of self and to the other more than Sid, the initiator. If we look deep into it, we hear Arati confessing that after her divorce with Sid's father she probably didn't spend much time with Sid - she was confused if that had some bearing on Sid's 'abnormality'. In his seminal essay Maternal care and mental health (World Health Organization Monograph (Serial No. 2), 1951) J Bowlby mentioned “the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment”. Do we hear Arati's concerns here? In Shame and Attachment Loss: The Practical Work of Reparative Therapy (InterVarsity Press, 2009) Joseph Nicolosi categorically mentions the different homo-sexual patients (more than a thousand or so) who tend to homo-sexual attributes, behave such due to want of recognition and in being an outcast in the mental space. The societal structure is such, he mentioned, that many of his patients have unanimously retorted that though their psychiatrists clarified that alternate sexuality is perfectly 'normal', they at times wonder why are they inflicted with this 'abnormality'. And they have raised concerns with the lack in biological construct in a man-man relationship. Was Sid a person like them or Ornob? We don't know what made them 'different' in their seeking of personal comfort and peace. By making Sid physically muted, the director tried to dissociate the sexual connotation if any that would otherwise resonate in the screen cohabitation of Ornob and Sid. Rather, he replaced it with the slanted Oedipal reference of Arati and Ornob.
The transition between the reel reality and the narrated reality play a duality here – the reel reality shows Arati, Sahana (Sid’s colleague who was interested in Sid) and Ornob. Ornob was the ‘feminine’ part in the Ornob-Sid chemistry and hence all the three characters represent the ‘lack’ whereas the narrated reality deals with Ornob and Sid who represent the ‘have’. This complete polarized representation surely makes the film’s texture vapid. As mentioned even if we take into account that the director’s intention was to address issues at a mental space, yet, in subjects of homo-sexuality, questions of libido and sexual comfort will come up naturally. To ignore that is trying to avoid the certain confusions in life. And in regarding confusion as denial!
In one of the initial interactions between Sahana and Arati, Sahana told Arati about her crush for Sid. Then she straightened her dress and quietly challenged Sid’s mother, “Do you think, I am upto the mark for him?” What Arati replied is un-important. What is important perhaps is the singular dialogue puts the matter of Gender in perspective – the patriarchal society looks at woman as a commodity even in an otherwise attempted asexual film. With this reading there rises obvious questions – firstly in shielding from accepting and hence showing sexual undertones between male characters and secondly in placing Sahana mostly as a subverted sex-denied woman. In this society, men play the sole role of the strong and virile – depleted of their own grief and extending care for their women. This film apparently showed signs of breaking from this norm to an extent but finally falls into the same trap of prevalent gender politics.
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