The telephone rings obnoxiously through the hallways, the shrill sound piercing through the screen, demanding attention.
Govind Nihalani’s ‘Ardh Satya’ (1983) follows an ambitious third-generation policeman, Sub-inspector Anant Velankar, who is met with the realisation that his profession is not as honest or righteous as he had assumed. The corruption and double-faced nature of law enforcement forces him to question the very basis of his identity and idealistic hopes.
In a volatile environment, where police brutality is being brought to light, Anant meets Jyotsna Gokhale, a working woman who opposes his profession. A large part of their dynamic is depicted through their conversations over the telephone, where Anant constantly calls for Jyotsna at her workplace. His frequent and frustrated calls are a testament to his volatile state of mind, produced by complex contradictions between pride, ambition, responsibility and ethics.
However, Anant crosses a line during one of his calls to her. Jyotsna picks up the telephone, expecting to speak with her friend, but is met with an erratic, angry, and impatient version of Anant. His shift in tone and demeanour is glaring, she chooses to hide her identity—acting like another employee who has picked up the telephone—and remains silent, fearful and disappointed in his behaviour.
Parallelly, in another of Govind Nihalani’s projects, ‘Aakrosh’ (1980), public prosecutor Dushane receives threatening phone calls at his home. Dushane is the public prosecutor in the case of Bhiku Lahanya, a man from a tribe, who is falsely accused of murdering his wife. The first two times Dushane picks up the telephone, the line is silent, with seemingly no one on the other side. The caller—who remains anonymous throughout the movie—starts screaming profanities at the lawyer, calling him a “lower man,” who takes pride in benefiting from people’s sorrow and injustice. The caller threatens to ruin Dushane if he does not drop the case.
The first telephone scene is eerie and successfully intimidates Dushane. Then, the second phone call takes place at midnight, shaking Dushane to his core. In the dead of night, the caller tells Dushane that housing a lawyer (the defence lawyer, presumed to be ‘upper caste’) won't change the fact that he belongs to a “lower” caste. Dushane’s caste looms over him, the omnipresent spectre of casteism and prejudice that runs rampant— even in urban spaces and highly intellectual circles. His caste identity permeates into his professional life as an inescapable “blemish” on his progress. In the context of Bhiku Lahanya’s case, there is irony in that Dushane is prosecuting a tribal man while being bullied over the telephone, over having a similar identity.
During both phone calls, there is always a bystander present, but both Dushane and the bystander are rendered silent during the interaction, unable to retaliate. Neither party discusses the phone calls, and the inability to verbalise these incidents leads to them being quietly brushed aside as a trivial matter. However, the phone calls exploit deep insecurities held by Dushane which bring into question the validity of his achievements, his position in the case, and his identity as a “lower” caste man.
The telephone is constantly present in the room, a rather inconspicuous and mundane object. The motif of the telephone, as a permanent feature through the films, is instrumental to the discovery of secondary narratives like social inequalities and injustices. From a literary perspective, the telephone as an object eventually becomes the violence it facilitates. Violence begins to transcend the act and the act of violence becomes vested in the telephone.
The telephone is also a trademark of urban life and the growth of technology. It was only a specific class of people who were privileged to have a telephone in 1980’s India—especially in the privacy of their homes. The workplace of Jyotsna and the home of Prosecutor Dushane are spaces of modernity, advancement and development that possess a false veil of privacy and safety.
However, it is these secure spaces that are infiltrated by the telephone that violate the lives of Jyotsna and Prosecutor Dushane. Two strong, principled individuals are rendered silent and defenceless in the face of the telephone caller.
In Aakrosh, the caller is empowered by the telephone, emboldened by their anonymity. However, in Ardh Satya, the power dynamics shift, where Anant does not know who is receiving his call. There is power vested in Jyotsna, to remain anonymous to him.
Anant’s calls get increasingly vulnerable while Jyotsna’s reception of the calls starts becoming more detached. Despite rejecting his attempts to reach her, she has still been badgered and her workspace has been violated, causing discomfort and fear. Anant’s inebriated state and hostility over the telephone is an infiltration that crosses physical boundaries.
The telephone becomes a vessel for the harassment that Jyotsna and Dushane face at the hands of Anant and the mystery caller, respectively. The telephones in these films reveal the implicit forms of violence prevalent that add to the realistic depiction of lived experiences of oppression to the audience. Through its persistent presence, the telephone brings to life alternate forms of discrimination and the psychological impact it can have.
The physical form of the telephone also serves to show how important symbols can be to the narrative. The telephone embodies the prejudices and hidden violence that is perpetrated through it and one revels in its mundane permanence through the movie. Through Govind Nihalani’s films, the telephone emerges as an exemplary example of a motif in cinema. The inclusion of the telephone is indicative not only of the context of the films but also of the nuanced depiction of the violence the characters face. By reading the telephone as an integral part of the plot, a more convoluted, more real conception of violence is realised, as it exists in all its ambiguous and multi-dimensional glory.
Edited by Asvika Prakash and Ananya Karthikeyan
Illustration by Tarana Dutta
Aarushi Arathi Sridhar (she/her) is a student of English Literature at Miranda House (University of Delhi), and a writer at Political Pandora. Her main interests lie in film, writing for film and other forms of creative writing and literary analysis.
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Keywords:
Govind Nihalani Films Analysis, Ardh Satya Movie Themes, Aakrosh 1980 Film Analysis, Telephone Symbolism in Movies, Indian Cinema and Social Commentary, Casteism in Indian Films, Urban Life in 1980s Indian Movies, Psychological Impact of Harassment in Films, Violence in Govind Nihalani Movies, Power Dynamics in Ardh Satya, Social Inequality in Aakrosh, Motifs in Indian Cinema, Depiction of Caste Identity in Cinema
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