Two Questions on 'Satyam Shivam Sundaram'.

The Indian Film Industry is no stranger to scantily clad women in sarees erotically gyrating while keeping the tag of a ‘Sanskaari’ woman. This was precisely what Raj Kapoor was criticized for, in his movie Satyam Shivam Sundaram. While trying to negate the shallow outer appearances and propagating the notion of inherent beauty in one’s soul, the movie accomplishes exactly the opposite, with most of its views coming from the libido of men going to the theatres to watch Zeenat Aman with little to no clothes on. The film became a semi-vulgar display of semi-naked curvaceous bodies, victimization, and helplessness of women, loss of all female agency, and some very problematic display of tribal culture.

While watching the movie, apart from the unnecessary victimization of Zeenat Aman and a lot of tears, two questions kept recurring in my mind – does she possess absolutely no agency? How is this blatant exoticization and Brahmanisation of tribals and Adivasis allowed?

The opening monologue of the narrator which puts focus on the Inherent beauty of the person instead of the outer appearance is slowly and steadily debunked throughout the movie. Zeenat Aman is very aptly named Rupa, which not-too-subtly puts the focus on beauty, which is emphasized by her burnt face for which she is shamed by her entire community. Called “abhagan” and desperately waiting for someone to marry her, she sings in the temple and cleans it with rare abandon, hips swaying, scantily clad, more often than not drenched in water. Her father has appealed to every eligible boy in the village, landing at their feet to beg for them to marry her, offering them the sole piece of property he has – the house. One wonders what this kind of treatment by one’s own father and community would do to the self-worth of the woman.

While we go through the misfortunes of Rupa, enter Shashi Kapoor, the orphaned, rich engineer who has come to supervise the construction of a dam in the Adivasi village. He lands at the station late at night, where Rupa is selling vegetables alone, with just the signature mini-saree on. Sashi Kapoor detests ugliness, cue her burnt face, but falls in love with her voice. She very conveniently hides her scar until they are married, her justification being she never thought she could marry a person so high up the social echelon, hence was engaging in some harmless fun without the need for full disclosure. Shashi Kapoor gets disgusted after looking at her face, but his delusional mind can’t accept that it is the same person; he goes around looking for the beautiful, perfect, unscarred Rupa. Rupa, then, instead of confronting him about her ostracization and humiliation, decides to play on and meets him in the forest dressed as her unmarried self. Hence continues their affair which leads to her pregnancy, and for which she is termed as an adulterous woman and slut-shamed, marginalized and humiliated in front of her entire community. Rupa’s father can’t bear this humiliation and dies, and only after this tragedy that she goes to Shashi to confront him. One imagines the absolute lack of confidence, agency and self-respect given to woman in this movie in the garb of ‘inner beauty’. A woman need not be the victim of the disrespect thrown to her to become inherently beautiful, nor does she need to be humiliated and cast aside for people to finally realize her worth, a concept lost in Bollywood.

Ziya Us Salam, in their article, Blast from the Past: Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1977) writes, “Raj Kapoor was criticized for commoditization of the female body, how he exploited his heroines in the garb of depiction of innocence and spirituality … his heroine, Rupa, is a devotee of Shiva, bathes Shivlinga every morning, wipes the temple floor with rare abandon. Playful like Radha, devoted like Meera, she dresses up in a manner which suggests she has nothing to hide from her deity, not much from the world either.” Her signature mini-saree was crafted by the Oscar-winning Bhanu Athaiya, the inspiration taken from J P Singhal’s portraits of tribal women which caught Raj Kapoor’s eye. Here comes my second question about the representation of Adivasi culture.

“Set in the imaginary Madhya Desa beloved of Bollywood, where feathered tribals gyrate erotically to celebrate the opening of a dam that will bring them prosperity and progress, it displays bevies of village belles who are low on both modesty and blouse-pieces, and a tragic heroine who cannot afford even the latter.” A critic writes. (https://indiancinema.sites.uiowa.edu/satyam-shivam-sundaram). There is a very controversial depiction of the Adivasi culture in the movie by portraying the grand temples they are made to worship in, while they can’t even make ends meet in their half-walled houses, and lack of education or employment. They dance the unspecified Adivasi dances to Hindu bhajans and other religious songs. They are clad according to their culture, with their tribal head gears and musical instruments during the songs, but that is the only thing ‘Adivasi’ about them – they have Brahmins and Seths in their community which contradicts whatever the director has attempted to depict. The Adivasi women, as opposed to the Brahmin Hindu women are very skimpily dressed, even after marriage, while the latter wears the more ‘civilized’ clothes. The Adivasi girls are made to wear ‘proper’ clothes during their performance in the Inauguration of the Dam, indicating that the makers had a clear intention and idea of what was being done. The women in Rupa’s community are represented as flirtatious, erotic, with untamed libidos who hit on every Shashi Kapoors who glances at them.

One wonders how the undisguised sexism of the movie is disregarded – Shashi Kapoor while having an adulterous affair with the ‘actual Rupa’ accuses his wife of adultery and publicly shames her, and leaves unscathed. On the other hand, Rupa, going to excess lengths to save her marriage, ends up being discarded and orphaned. The unmistakable misogyny, denial of any agency to women except through their hip movements and some deeply prejudiced views on Adivasis make this movie a horror to watch.