CiNEmatters by Firstpost: Episode 3 — 'Bokul'

CiNEmatters

Host: Arshia Dhar

Theme Music and Editing: Sourjyo Sinha

Artwork: Adrija Ghosh

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Episode 3: Bokul (2015)

Language/Region: Assamese/Assam

Streaming on: Mubi

Director: Reema Borah

Cast: Urmila Mahanta, Kaushik Sharma, Nirab Das, Udayan Duarah, Bhaswati Patowary, Dwijen Mahanta, Ankita Borah, Anupam Borah

In the third episode of CiNEmatters, we are joined by Sebanti Chatterjee — sound anthropologist and teacher of sociology — to take a closer look at the 2015 Assamese film Bokul, a story of three individuals with the same name, living on the fringes of the same town whose feudal structures have marginalised them systemically.

Themes of identity and homecoming overlap with the two films — Jwlwi: The Seed and Maj Rati Keteki — previously discussed on CiNEmatters, as the story is largely framed by the point of view of the character of Raktim (Udayan Duarah), who returns from Mumbai to his hometown in Assam after several years to attend his sister's wedding. It is through him that we meet the three protagonists — Bokul Ali (Kaushik Sharma), a rickshaw-puller of Raktim's age, who went to school with him and was a bright student. Bokul Ali lost his father Joy, a music teacher, to communal violence. We then meet female Bokul (Urmila Mahanta) — a weaver, tea-shop owner, and single mother to a school-going daughter — who, on account of being rendered a social outlier due to her early pregnancy, continues to fight for her dignity and that of her daughter's. Finally, we meet the third Bokul (Nirab Das), a poor fisherman who lives with a cat and waits endlessly for some news of his missing son, who is said to have joined a rebelling outfit.

The term 'bokul', borrowed from the local tree and its distinctly fragrant flower that is found abundantly across Assam and other parts of east and south India, exemplifies the lives that survive — and often thrive — on the margins of society, forced to turn invisible, much like the film's protagonists. Reema Borah's nuanced, autobiographical screenplay captures this dichotomy associated with the plant — of being a silent non-entity that does not seek much attention despite its omnipresence — and its name through her Bokuls to explicate the cracks in Assamese society.

In this episode, we also examine why Bokul comes at a crucial juncture in Assamese cinema, and beyond its subject, how its making reveals the cultural situatedness of Assam's film industry whose evolution reflects the state's relentless tussle with identity.

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