shabd - an analysis

finally a film that breaks the mould of the conventional by inserting a subtext of an unrequited same sex love under the wrapper of a conventional commercial film. perhaps this glossy wrapper is also chosen as a reference to the ‘surface’ created by the central protagonist to conceal from himself as well as ‘the other’ desire seen as illegitimate. perhaps it would be worthwhile here to first quickly draw out a basic storyline of the piece by writer-director leena yadav. this exploration of inner turmoil is told through the narrative of a love triangle (a shape with its own symbolic meaning).

shaukat (sanjay dutt - perhaps ‘the’ symbol of the generative power of manhood in the popular imagery of hindi films) plays a once successful writer who has lost his ability to create. to regain it, he asks his wife antara (aishwarya rai) to make love to a dynamic young man called yash (zayed khan). antara and yash start getting close to each other encouraged by shaukat’s prodding. trapped in the conventions of a heterosexual relationship shaukat uses antara as a medium to connect to yash- a symbol of youth and creativity (he is a photographer), and make love to him through his wife. the world of his imagination creates his feminine alter ego in the shape of his wife (tamanna) through whom his satisfies his libidinous desires. the real and the unreal intertwine and lead to the eventual madness that had to be the culmination of a life led in the denial of the self.

symbols abound in the film beginning with the names of the characters itself. while ‘shaukat’ our central protagonist means power, ‘antara’ – the dutiful wife is the second note of a composition. ‘yash’ refers to the victory of self fulfillment over the conventions of society and ‘tamanna’ the dark desire that lurks within. the inability of shaukat to create has to be read as the impotence of the male when attempting to conceal his lust for another man. these are only some of the more apparent symbols and associations that can be seen in the film. many more of them can be seen like body piercing, phallus shaped cactuses, etc.

the image that becomes the metaphor for the films are the alphabets that seem to float around in the dream like sequences shot in glowing black and white. These seed like fragments float around in a liquid attempting to articulate themselves into a word. From an in depth analysis of the film it is apparent that the word they were looking for is g-a-y.

shaukat - the self in denial

yash - the object of desire

tamanna - the medium

antara - the pierced alter ego