Head in the clouds: Rahat Mahajan on merging love, myth, reality in Meghdoot

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Fact and fiction, myth and imagination, ancient India and the India of today, all overlap in Rahat Mahajan’s debut feature, Meghdoot (The Cloud Messenger), the only Indian film in competition for the Tiger Award, at this year’s International Film Festival of Rotterdam (IFFR).

It is loosely based on the epic of the same name by the Sanskrit poet Kalidasa (c 5th century CE). In the poem, a yaksha (celestial attendant) and his wife are separated and yearning for one another. In Mahajan’s film, these protagonists are teenagers named Jaivardhana and Tarini, who meet after centuries of longing, in the present-day, at a boarding school in the Himalayas.

The narrative unfolds amid dramatic parallel re-enactments of myths and legends in classical storytelling forms such as Kutiyattam, Theyyam and Kathakali.

Mahajan, 35, originally from Himachal Pradesh, assisted Vishal Bhardwaj on Kaminey (2009). A stint with fellow Pahari filmmaker Amit Dutta helped him refine his aesthetic further, he says. Mahajan incorporates bits of his own life in his first feature: It’s shot on location, with real students, at the boarding school he attended as a child.

How did he come up with this story of a boy who must travel to the land of death to break the spell that keeps him and his love apart? Excerpts from an interview.

What was it like shooting with real students at a boarding school, in your debut feature?

The scenes in which the whole school is present, almost 500 students, were definitely difficult. It can feel impossible to handle such a crowd. Certain scenes required absolute discipline, and if even one student was looking towards the camera, we had to reshoot it all. Since we were working in an active school, we sometimes got the kids for only half an hour.

‘I dreamt one night of a Kutiyattam performer being the film’s narrator,’ says Rahat Mahajan. ‘Though the form was alien to me, I kept it in every draft.’
‘I dreamt one night of a Kutiyattam performer being the film’s narrator,’ says Rahat Mahajan. ‘Though the form was alien to me, I kept it in every draft.’

But the cast was exceptional, especially Ritvik Tyagi and Ahalya Shetty, who play the protagonists. Being untrained actors, they got directly into the rasa and emotion of each scene. Ritvik (aged 25) is now studying cinematography in London. Ahalya (aged 23), with her introverted personality, slipped seamlessly into the role of Tarini.

What inspired you to weave the classical south Indian storytelling forms of Kutiyattam, Kathakali and Theyyam into the narrative?

Kutiyattam (with roots in the dramatised dance worship of ancient India) is considered one of the oldest forms of theatre in the world. In 2010, when I began to draft the script for this film, I dreamt one night of a Kutiyattam performer being the film’s narrator. Though the form was alien to me, and though everyone I shared the idea with doubted it would blend into a story set in a boarding school in the Himalayas, I kept it in every draft.

Then, in 2015, I chanced upon Film Form, a collection of essays by Sergei Eisenstein (a legendary Soviet filmmaker of the early 1900s, credited with pioneering the montage). One of the essays drew parallels between the Japanese theatre form of Kabuki and the montage. This convinced me of the marriage I could form in my film.

A search led me to Kutiyattam exponent Kapila Venu. She agreed to play the Kutiyattam performer in the film, and also acted as director of traditional performances. It was Kapila who introduced the other forms of Kathakali and Theyyam, where she felt they were appropriate.

A photography teacher named Mr Sapru is a guiding light for students in the film. Who was the character modelled on?

Mr Sapru was a real-life teacher I met the year I joined the boarding school where the film is set. I was just eight. He was a kind spirit in an otherwise authoritarian school system and was truly influential in those formative years. He left school in a few years, but his memory stayed close to my heart.

Eventually, when I started writing Meghdoot, he inspired a central character of the same name. I imagined him garnering much wisdom in his travels and returning to the boarding school where he once taught, to conduct a photography workshop, leading to a sensory and emotional awakening in the students. Out of curiosity, I reached out to the real Mr Sapru in 2016. It turned out that the fictional backstory I had constructed turned out to be quite in line with reality. Overwhelmed by the coincidence, he agreed to play the character. For nearly two years, he grew his beard in preparation. Unfortunately, in 2018, Mr Sapru passed away, before we had shot the film. Rajendranath Zutshi, who plays the character, stayed true to Mr Sapru’s spirit and grew his beard too, for almost a year.

In the film, you blend myth and ritual with fiction, thereby creating new myths…

For me, the film’s form and making have been a ritual. My attempts at interpretation are absolutely sincere, but I wanted to lend my own vision. For example, in contrast to the regular interpretation of Hanuman, I have imagined him to be gentle, almost like a wise shaman from the forest. And in his gentleness, there is the vastness of the entire cosmos. Dashananan (Ravana) too is not just an evil king in the film, but a helpless demigod trapped in an eternal cycle of unrequited love.

What’s next for you, and for Meghdoot?

We are yet to have a world premiere for Meghdoot, since IFFR was online this year. We are in touch with several international film festivals, and are determining its journey before making it available to the world at large. Meanwhile, my next film, Adbhut (Wonder) is based on the scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose, who saw science not as a mechanistic analysis of facts but rather as a broader interpretation, a wider perception, of the universe.

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