Govind Nihalani: Cinema craftsman on conjugal themes

K.S. Sivakumaran

One of the artistic filmmakers in Hindi is Govind Nihalani. He was in the forefront two decades ago, but seems that he doesn’t make any films now. My exposure to his films was 18 years ago when I saw for the first time a film by him at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) that was held in Chennai. The film was titled Drishti (Vision).

The popular ‘stars’ but later graduated as ‘actors’ of yester year were in the film: Dimple Kapadia, Shekar Kapoor (who later directed the Bandit Queen and Elizabeth), Mita Viasihst and others.

Beginning his career as a cinematographer and worked under Shyam Bengal, he directed his first film Aakrosh. I think he is a Sindhi and had lived in Bangalooru as a youngster.

The story of the film was interesting but I enjoyed much the art of filmmaking revealing in his film Drishti. My comments if any on the form of the film would be irrelevant unless I relate it to the story.

Here it goes:

Sandhya and Nikhil live in Mumbai. They are an educated and affluent couple. While the woman is an editor in a publishing house her man is a research scientist. They are married for eight years.

They have an anniversary party. Among those present was Rahul, a singer. What happens at the party is that Sandhya in a state of spontaneous overflow of emotion becomes passionately attracted to the singer.

Although she loves her husband, she lusts for a relationship with Rahul. Sandhya has a friend in Prabha. She advises theformer to break the relationship.

In the meantime Sandhya becomes pregnant. They already have one child but Nihil does not like the idea of having a second child too soon. However they could not avoid the cruel abortion. There begins a sour relationship between the couple. At the same time, Nihil confesses that he has an affair with another woman named Vrinda and that he wants to live with her.

It is the tormented state of mind that Sandhya undergoes that accentuates the conflict among the conjugal partners. Nkhil wants a divorce from his wife. Even when there is repeated pleadings by Sandhya not to divorce her, Nihil fails to understand her feelings, the divorce becomes effective.

Now Sandhya learns to live alone with her child. An year passes. Having had a sensual life with Virinda, Nikhil belatedly realizes that the relationship has collapsed.

Strangely the former couple reunites and meets at the beach. In reconciliation Sandhya tells that she had had an affair with Rahul A better understanding develops between the man and woman after their respective intermezzo.

Rahul wants to know whether the aborted child is Rahul’s, but Sandhya says it’s Nikhil’s. They cannot explain what went wrong with them. But the viewer knows that it was the transient passion and lust that hovered around them.

The story is a typical upper middle class love and lust story with a lot of psychology thrown in.

Through the medium of the Cinema Govind Nihalani captures the different moods and nuances in conjugal relationship with a touch of poetry in his visual cinematography, though at times the dialogue takes away the subtlety that can be achieved through moving images.

If you can get Video CD of the film try to see it. You may notice the style of film making in Hindi films two decades ago.

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