SHERNI
a subtle tale of the obvious

by

suvradip dasgupta

 

A poster of the movie that I find quite symbolic

 

Director: Amit Masurkar

Story & Screenplay: Aastha Tiku

Dialogue: Amit Masurkar and Yashashwi Mishra 

Sound Design: Anish John

Cast: Vidya Balan, Vijay Raaz, Bijendra Kala, Neeraj Kabi, Sharat Saxena, and others

 

Run Time: 130 minutes

Shot one: An aerial view (a smart drone shot?) of the wide expanse of a dense forest, drawing us towards an appreciation of the wide pan (if you are given to the technicalities) and the element of mystery that the outsider’s eye attaches to the luxuriant beauty of the jungles.

Shot two: Off–focus, blurred long shot of ... something – seemingly a four-footed animal – crawling, in typical predatory pace, towards the camera. Addition to that penchant for a mystery of the wilderness.
The shot continues, blurred image of the probable predator converts, in a matter of seconds, into on–focus image of a person in khakis on four, mimicking the gait of a tiger in the wilderness. The air of lingering mystery just seconds before vanishes into thin air as the audience gets to realise that it is the routine procedure of a forest official testing if the hidden camera can capture the image. Moments later these officials are even found to be cracking jokes among themselves, much like any group of colleagues sharing a light time at the office. Such a telling translation from mystery to the mundane! And, as one sits through the 130 minutes of the movie, it becomes palpable how Sherni works towards deconstructing our romantic proclivity attached to the wild, and renders itself into a masterpiece of mundaneness, crafted skilfully with restraint and understatement. Hats off, Mr Masurkar!!

Several years back, on being asked about how he classified cinema, a stalwart in the field reportedly commented that, to him, there were only two types of films – good and bad. To many, such a notion may sound myopic to the point of being ridiculous. It is, for the matter, indeed difficult to say that the proposition of qualifying works of art in terms of good and/or bad do not sound a bit conservative to us. This statement however ends up rendering itself paradoxical as there is hardly one who does not judge artworks in the line of good and bad. It is a different thing that the parameters of such judgement, no doubt, are very subjective and as complicated as the working of the human mind itself. There are however such rare moments as well when the experience of some toweringly great work of art transports us beyond this binary of good/bad. Watching the movie – Sherni – does something similar to us.

Still from the movie

Fiction is a lie through which we tell the truth 

(Albert Camus)

talking about the narrative of the film 

 

Narrating or talking about the so-called storyline or plot of a film is never tantamount to the experience of watching the film. Else, the medium of cinema would become redundant. Nonetheless, for one who is yet to watch the film, getting to know the plot beforehand might act as a spoiler. This I choose to mention here more as a disclaimer.

To a significant extent, Sherni is an intelligent take on the unfortunate and extremely cruel incident of the murder of the tigress T1, popularly known as Avni, in Maharashtra a few years back. Avni was alleged to have killed 13 people since the year 2016 after being finally shot dead by a team of forest department officials and a civilian hunter in 2018. At the time of her death, Avni was with two ten-month old cubs. The official version said that Avni was first short with tranquilisers. The tranquiliser, that official version notes, failed to have any effect on the tigress and she tried to pounce upon members of the team. In reaction, she was killed by a single shot.

This official version, however, has since then come under severe scanner. Several pleas have been filed at the court urging for proper investigation into this act. As held by animal activist Sangeeta Dogre, for instance, the allegation that Avni was a man-eater was baseless because there was no trace of human remains in the contents of her stomach as revealed by the post-mortem examination. In words of a Maharashtra state government official: “The forensics clearly show that the tigress was not charging at the team, but instead going somewhere else… If she was charging at the team, she would have been shot in her face or chest, not her shoulder.” Some have even gone to the extent of doubting if the killing of Avni was part of a larger conspiracy to facilitate industries at the expense of forest lands.

As for the alleged 13 human deaths caused, this claim regarding the numbers also becomes extremely dubious when we get to hear none other than the Additional Principal Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) of Maharashtra, Sunil Limaye stating “In August, we investigated and managed to find clear evidence of Avni being responsible for at least two of the recent killings. Based on these findings the courts ordered us to capture or kill the tigress. The death of the forest dwellers was a grave loss to their families. These people, whose livelihoods depend on the forests, feared for their lives. We followed the courts’ orders and were saddened by the tigress’s death. But we had no other choice,” Evidently, nothing related to the 'crimes' of the tiger is certain. The only certain thing is that she was killed.

Masurkar's film also deals with the search and killing of a tigress, named T12, who, in the film, is claimed by a section of the people to have killed several locals. This tiger, T12, is also seen to be with two new born cubs, just like Avni. If that is not enough, the semblances between the entire Avni incident and the film Sherni becomes even more obvious through two of the key characters in the movie – (a) the character of the rookie DFO Vidya Vincent essayed by Vidya Balan in one of her once-in-a-life-time performances that reminds of the then Deputy Conservator of Forest K.M. Abharna who was witness to the entire Avni incident, and (b) the character of the civilian hunter Ranjan Rajhans (by Sharat Saxena), reminiscent of Avni’s shooter, the civilian hunter Ashgar Ali Khan. Another disturbing yet thought provoking resemblance is the presence of a copper mine right in the heart of the forest. 

The real and the reel: KM Abharna (left) and Vidya 

Vidya Balan, donning the character of Vidya Vincent, the rookie DFO, arrives and finds herself in the midst of a grave crisis.This is clearly inspired by the real life K.M. Abharna, who too found herself amidst all chaos and public wrath on forest officials because of alleged mismanagement of human-animal conflict in the region. In this context, it might help one to remember that before being posted in Maharashtra, Abharna was working at the Kaziranga National Park in Assam where she accomplished a commendable feat by ensuring zero poaching of the majestic one-horned rhino. The sternness in her person portrayed with elan by Vidya in the film does complete justice to the tough feats achieved by KM Abharna in real life.

 

The approach
a poetry of RESTRAINT and UNDERSTATEMENT 

 

In the film, Vidya Balan is far from being the archetypal screen heroine of ‘Hindi cinema’. With a completely deglamourized look, her entire performance is a brilliant study of restraint and understatement in acting. Right from the first time she is seen on screen, where she appears rather uncharacteristically in a routine matter-of-fact manner till the end, she maintains this approach par excellence. She is found, for a greater part of the film, as a government official given to the mundaneness of her everyday work. Her visits to the forests are as nonchalant as an official dealing with the pile of files on her desk. Even in her routine talks to her husband, mostly over phone and video calls, we find this study of restraint. Emotions do run through her veins at times, but she refuses to wear them on her sleeves. How can one afford to miss the manner in which she portrays an instant (lack of) reaction to the surprise arrival of her mother and mother-in-law along with her husband!
 

The same applies for the other forest officials in the film as well. Their cautious reactions to the mounting pressure from the two political rival groups, that try to capitalize on the emergent crisis, also seem too real to be part of the so called ‘silver screen’. It is only towards the last quarter of the film that, almost in a moment of epiphany, Vidya realises how passionate she is to save the tiger from the wicked plans of the blood thirsty civilian hunter Pintu Bhaiya, aka Ranjan Rajhans. This transformation is however gradual, with a parallel symbolism in the manner in which Vidya first asks a motherless kitten to be driven out of her quarters only to become fond of its presence in her room with the passage of time.Nowhere, though, is she found to be overtly emotional. Not even when the news of the death of the tigress makes tears roll down her cheeks.

 

Vijay Raaz as Professor Noorani

Vijay Raaz, an actor whose potential and worth the world of Hindi cinema has taken a long time to realise, too delivers a very restrained performance as a professor of Zoology, Hassan Noorani. As a truly sensible person, whose sensibility is tempered with science and rationality, he tries hard to make one and all realise the importance of understanding the symbiotic relation between humans and the wild animals. In no time, Vidya finds a sympathetic ally in the person of Noorani and the two set on the ever difficult journey of travelling against the tide; a tide where age-old beliefs, far removed from the realms of science, are exploited by a handful of, but influential, politically motivated people. For a greater part of the film, the two remain comrades-in-arms. But, not for once is there a singular emotional exchange between the two. Everything they do, every conversation they have, is in a matter-of-fact manner. Poignant in this respect is a moment when Vidya Vincent, along with her husband and their mothers, are invited over dinner at Noorani’s place. At dinner table, Noorani’s wife casually mentions their plans of shifting to Mumbai. On learning this, Vidya silently looks at Noorani for no more than a couple of seconds and he also reciprocates similarly. This exchange lasts for just that couple of seconds. As I mention this particular moment, I choose to leave out several such moments in the film that, through a brilliant collage of understatement, keeps haunting us with a plethora of poignant suggestions. As I recall the dinner scene, I cannot miss mentioning the brilliance of the director in remembering even the minutest of details. While having their dinner, food is shown to be served from a very ordinary looking saucepan, a sight very common to any middle class household but rarely, if at all, seen in a Hindi film. Masurkar, indeed, deserves special kudos for every moment of this masterpiece.

 

Actors donning the roles of various forest guards and officials work like the unconscious that gives the film a more non-filmy look

Director Amit Masurkar deserves special kudos not just for this. The matter-of-fact, mundane approach that runs throughout the length of the film is equally complemented by the realism that he weaves. The government office ambience, for instance, that he creates is hard to be found elsewhere. Casting of actors such as Ashwini Ladekar (forest guard), Mukesh Prajapati (forest guard), Balendra Singh (officer), among others, does complete justice to Masurkar’s bringing to life the mundane yet cautious approach that is part of such professions. The film inimitably reaffirms how working as personnel in the forest department is way more than dealing with flora and fauna. Masurkar does not fail in portraying how a piece of forest land can become the site of political contestation and how these employees can find themselves trapped in such a perplexing situation.

 

The restrained and mundane aura throughout the film, I must add, would not be possible without the sound designing by Anish John (with Arun Rana as sound editor) and the music of Naren Chandavarkar and Benedict Taylor.  Teaming up with Masurkar, theu carefully refrained from adding any cosmetic thrill especially in moments when the camera captures the wild. This is a fresh and extremely novel gift to the ears attuned to cliché suspense building music tried and tested for decades at end in the Bollywood movies.

 

to be continued...