Film:	Devi (1960)
Directed By:	Satyajit Ray
Screenplay:	Satyajit Ray
Story:	Prabhat Kumar Mukherjee
Cinematographer:	Subrata Mitra
Editor:	Dulal Dutta
Sound:	Durgadas Mitra
Music:	Ali Akbar Khan
Cast:	Soumitra Chatterjee, Sharmila Tagore, Chhabi Biswas, Karuna Banerjee, Purnendu Mukherjee, Anil Chatterjee, Arpan Chowdhury,Kali Sarkar, Santa Devi

 

 

  

Satyajit Ray’s birth anniversary is on the 2^nd of May and he died on 23^rd April 1992. I thought this edition of 4indianwoman would be an appropriate time to look at one of his less talked about films. Less talked about not because it is a lesser film, but because the trilogy (Pather Panchali, Aparajito, and Apur Sansar), Charulata, Jalshaghar and Aranyer Din Ratri will always remain as the more talked about films of his oeuvre.    

Devi tells the story of a human being burdened with the weight of being a goddess, and thereby being deprived of the right to lead a normal life. The story is set in rural Bengal, in the household of a rich landlord, Kalikankar Roy (Chhabi Biswas), who is so obsessed with the goddess Ma Kali (as she is called in Bengal) that he begins to believe that the goddess has been incarnated on earth as his daughter-in-law Doyamoyee (Sharmila Tagore). It seems that the entire village is willing to believe along with the landlord and a bizarre drama unfolds as, Doyamoyee (meaning, one full of kindness) is forced to spend all her time posing as a goddess, which entails sitting in one place and being worshipped. It’s a decadent feudal order and Ray captures the milieu so well.  

Doyamoyee is a doting daughter-in-law to Roy, a loving wife to Umaprasad (Soumitra Chatterjee), and is her husband’s nephew Khoka’s favourite person. When her husband, who is presently studying in Calcutta, asks her whether she would come with him overseas, she is worried about how her father-in-law would cope – she loves him that much. The father-in-law is also partial towards his younger daughter-in-law but the affection takes the dangerous turn into obsession as he has a dream one night that Doya is the goddess incarnate. As he lies prostrate at her feet, Doya scratches the wall with her nails even as she stands helplessly. The elder son is a wimp and follows the father in prostrating himself before Doya. His wife (Karuna Banerjee) looks on in anger at what is happening, and it is to her that Doya pleads for help, and it is she who writes to Doya’s husband Umaprasad, asking him to come back home. Doya is feeling so trapped and lonely, especially since her favourite nephew is now too afraid to come near her. Umaprasad is a rationalist, to whom all this goddess incarnate business makes no sense. He is horrified when he returns home to find the village paying obeisance at his wife’s feet. The villagers are even more convinced that Doya has divine powers when a seriously ill child recovers at her feet.   

Umaprasad realizes the futility of trying to make his father see sense and makes plans to run away with his wife. But he finds out that this is not so easy as Doya has started believing, or at least doubting that she may posses some divine powers. She finds herself unable to leave. In the meanwhile, things take a tragic turn as Khoka falls ill. Everyone – except the mother, and perhaps the village compounder – believes that the ‘goddess’ can cure him. The pressure is so intense that the non-believer mother finds herself leaving her child with the ‘goddess’ with the hope of a cure. The child dies. In the meanwhile, Umaprasad, who had returned to the city, comes back to try one more time to take his wife away. He is shocked at his nephew’s death, and then goes looking for his wife.  He is shocked at how she looks. Wild eyes, dark circles under them, totally uncomprehending and uncommunicating. She runs away, into a field of flowers, the pressures of divinity having reduced her to insanity. Umaprasad’s goodness remains ineffectual.  

The wonderful thing about Ray’s films is how he, with seeming effortlessness, tells complex stories with utter simplicity.  How he tells so much while saying so little, always believing in economy. More than words, things are conveyed with looks and gestures. And of course Ray the humanist always speaks through his films, in the little details, in the way he tells his tales. In Devi he shows how blind superstition, ignorance and fanaticism can take a toll on the lives of normal, nice and simple people. The film finally becomes a take on the destructive powers of blind belief. Short, incisive, and a film that stays with you.  

Watch it if you haven’t.

More Reviews