3.3 Telling ‘Her’-stories in the Accented Style .1 Fire (1995) - A Synopsis
3.3.1.2 Radha
significance and existence from his life. At one point in the film, Radha questions him about this,
Ashok: Go to sleep.
Radha: Ashok?
Ashok: Hmmm…
Radha: If we had children, would you need me the way you need me?
Ashok: (without hesitation) Probably not. Perhaps it was my destiny. A sign to seek union with the universal truth. And each day swamiji helps me to come closer to that truth.
Radha: And who will help me?
Ashok: (sits up in bed and answers after a long silence) By helping me, you are doing your duty as my wife.
As this object of desire, Radha feels frustrated, hurt and resentful of both herself and her husband. He cannot see her as a sexual being with her own physical needs. Instead he treats her as a test of his own endurance and uses her to render himself without the „evil‟ of sexual desire.
As a daughter-in-law, Radha gives of her life completely in order to please. As a sister-in-law to Sita, she is welcoming, kind, caring, understanding and attempts to set an example of conduct for the young and naive Sita.
Unlike Sita who crosses her border at the moment of the kiss, Radha‟s border-crossing is catalysed by the kiss. Her actual border-crossing moment is her first sexual encounter with Sita. Her consent to engage in an act of that nature marks the point at which she begins to come to terms with her body as a site of pleasure for herself as opposed to an object of desire for someone else. This transformation can be noted in her rejection, after her border-crossing, of Ashok‟s request, once again, to use her body as a tool in the test of his temptation and desire. Radha is no longer comfortable being an object and gains a sense of self through the exploration of sexual desire. In this sense, sex, for Radha (and possibly other Indian women like herself) becomes a metaphor for identity. Within the sexual confines of being a wife,
Radha experienced a controlled and sometimes imprisoned identity; but with sexual freedom, she experiences pleasure, fulfilment and completion within her identity as an Indian woman.
A transgression of sexual confinement thus implicitly illustrates the transgression of a constructed identity.
Oddly enough, when Ashok realises that Radha is serious about leaving, he attempts to rape her to prevent her from leaving. It is not that he suddenly finds her so desirable that he is incapable of controlling his sexual urges. In the first instance, this act is an attempt at silencing Radha; preventing her expression of self and, consequently, the exposure of his oppressive sexual demands on her. It is, secondly, an attempt at subduing and oppressing her loyalty to her own desires and needs (the discovery of her own „universal truth‟) because, if she is true to herself, it means that she is no longer an object under his control. By disrupting the accepted paradigm of sexual behaviour for the Indian wife on two levels – committing the taboo act of an extramarital affair with another woman – Radha has made herself a visible entity and has, in the process, attained personal and sexual agency.
During the attempted rape57, Radha manages to wrestle herself free from his grip – an act of defiance that illustrates her rejection of her role as a sexual object. In the scuffle, however, her sari catches alight on the stove. In an amazingly constructed scene that captures the essence of the film, Radha is engulfed by a column of flames similar to that of the one that Seeta, Lord Rama‟s wife, had to endure to prove her loyalty to him. Ashok, present during the entire disaster, just looks on making no attempt to rescue her as her sari continues to burn. To him, the incident represents „divine intervention‟58 aimed specifically at punishing Radha for her transgression of the „sacred‟ laws of marriage. Radha, however, as the mythological Seeta,
57Refer to the following section on the character of Biji for a discussion of the significance of her role during this scene.
58Radha‟s burning can be read in many ways, in relation to various Hindu practices of the past (and, in some instances, of the present). The first would be the practice of agnipariksha – a „trial by fire‟ purificatory process for initiation into Hinduism. The second would be the practice of sati – the burning of widows on the funeral pyres of their dead husbands in order to prove their life‟s devotion to him (Jain in Jain & Rai, 2002). In the Fire (1995), Ashok is not physically dead, but spiritually, as a husband, he is non-existent to her. Radha being engulfed by flames may just have been testament to that. Her survival of the fire illustrates that her unconditional devotion to him is no longer necessary. And thirdly, the fire at the end also highlights the practice of dowry murders,
When a Hindu wife is killed or driven to suicide by her husband and his family she becomes a victim of „dowry death‟, as such occurrences are popularly described. Because of the nature of the crime – almost always a death by burning that is made to resemble a domestic accident – the central and often sole source of information about the circumstances of the death is the victim herself. […] Wife-murder as a widespread social phenomenon in India expresses the socially sanctioned violence against women that reinforces and is reinforced by the ideology of husband-worship (pativrata). (Sunder Rajan, 1993: 83)
emerges unscathed because she was never disloyal to Ashok. The only victim of her betrayal has been herself: she has not been true to her being.
In terms of Radha‟s structures of feeling, the film begins and is interspersed with scenes from Radha‟s childhood. These scenes show her sitting with her parents in a field of yellow flowers that seem never-ending. Her mother relates a story to her about people living in the mountain who have not seen the sea and would like to do so. The point that Radha‟s mother makes is that it does not matter where you are; to imagine something and to believe that it exists, makes it real and tangible. Radha is shown to understand that in her husband‟s home, she has to perform her identity. She understands her structure of feeling of claustrophobia as part of her duty. But, even though she understands that her identity as a wife has to be performed, she holds on to that memory of her parents in the field with her and the lesson that was shared that day. Her dream is open and euphoric. She is displaced in her husband‟s home, but, in her thoughts and dreams, she believes that she will find her way.
Her lesbian relationship with Sita does afford her that, and when she and Sita leave their husbands‟ home, it is ironic that they find sanctuary in a temple. The temple – home to religious myths and practices – offers them shelter from the rain after the fire. The temple neither judges nor condemns them showing that their acts of transgression have place in the discourses that it embodies.