Response to Saheb, Bibi aur Ghulam

Response to Saheb, Bibi, Ghulam- Pujita Guha

Much like Mizoguchi, Dutt also evokes a sense of mystique of the feudal world with its fineries, its silk tapestry, and its ornate draperies. Both also underscore the importance of looking or rather, in this case the importance of not returning the look as such. However, while Mizoguchi's mystique tends towards an austerity- , especially in its attempts to pressure cook the excess, Dutt's approach is an obverse. Against Mizoguchi's long shot long take, Dutt relies on the close up to evoke pathos. Meena Kumari's face, thus, becomes a surface, almost a disembodied screen that becomes the site of inscription for her varied, and intense emotions. The sindoor, the make up and the ornate jewellery, therefore become material embodiments of this desire to self-inscript oneself continually. This impetus is present long after she is gone, and Dutt (and Bhootnath too) seek to rewrite her, now visually through the use of fades, laps and dissolves. The narrative's archeological impetus, thus, creates a layered (read archeological) image seeking to rupture history.

In the Archive Fever, Derrida traces the word archive to its Greek root 'arkhe' to inscript. The latter however is nestled within the 'arkheion'- the architectural repository of information. As a seat of power, the arkenon not only defines who is to read, and what is to be read, but most importantly, what is to be remembered. And it is this challenge to the arkheion that Sahib, Bibi, Gulam posits. The challenge to the arkheion, the great zamindari household that is, on one level is external, its ruination brought about by an incompetent set of aristocrats, doomed to political failure with the coming of a newer modern bourgeoisie. The Sindoor factory, the Brahma Samaj, Jaba and Bhoothnath, all belong to this world, – a world at the confluence of state of the art technology (Bhoothnath later becomes an architect), a Protestant work ethic, and an individuated desiring subjectivity.

The challenge is internal on the other level , and what interests Guru Dutt, is this challenge to the arkheion from within. This fascination with the arkheion and its suicidal, masochistic tendencies lures Guru Dutt to become a spectating subject on screen. It is his simultaneous disavowal and allure towards this arkheion that constitutes the film's logic and its moral universe as well.

The challenge from within is also symbolized through ChhotiBahu, who's subjective desire as a woman puts her at an untimely pace within the arkheion. And the great length to which she goes to repair this untimely-ness is what creates in her the alcoholic, the self-disruptive, and if we were to read her psychoanalytically, the hysteric. It is her desire to fill her 'lack', to settle scores with the inertial and the entropic, that gives the film its very basic melodramatic charge. The whirlwind of desire that engulfs her soon swamps her family, Bhootnath, and finally the arkheion itself. Her searing, unrequited desire brings down the household, so much so that years later when Bhootnath finds her remains, they are enmeshed within that of the arkheion's. The arkheion's dominance predicts its own failure, especially in its becoming of a desolate mansion in a gothic melodrama. Bhootnath's attraction towards ChhotiBahu is not just an extension of his fascination towards her materially-inscripted world, but it is towards her decaying beauty as well. It is an allure in its radical finitude, but echoing Derrida, Bhootnath's love is not a love of ruins per se. It is rather that, what one loves bears its own ruins within itself.