RATI CHAKRAVYUH: DISSOLVING NOTHINGNESS INTO NOTHINGNESS, शून्य में शून्य का विसर्जन चक्र
Amrit Gangar Finding a form, a cinematographic Mandala! सिनेमॅटोग्राफिक मंडलः स्वरूप का निजी आत्मसात और निरंतर खोज़। All of Ashish Avikunthak’s cinematographic work seems to be held by a common thread,by an invisible sutradhāra, the thread-holder, and that sutradhāra is kāla or time, which in turn,is held by Kāli – his consistent faith in the Tāntric Sakta cult.[1] From his very first work Etcetera (1997) to Rati Chakravyuh (2013), Avikunthak, as i have been watching him since he started making films, is constantly in search of a formal energy (not just ‘form’ per se), a swaroopasakti, and in that sense Rati Chakravyuh is not an accident, it is a consequence of his praxis, his belief system.[2] About an hour-long meandering single-take in Katho Upanishad elongates itself to a circular 102-minute in Rati Chakravyuh through Avikunthak’s temporal engagement.[3] However, what i find interesting is his increasing employment of the spoken word, the sabda and its sensorium.[4] As if the silent eloquence of Etcetera had to become vāchik (verbal) eloquence of Rati Chakravyuh and some of its predecessors. But it is still within a certain body, the sarira that its enconsity is retained. This enconsity he might call religiosity but it is, i think, more of an ongoing dharma. Once translated into a ‘religion’, the term dharma tends to lose its true edge. Worse, it becomes a static and dogmatic corpus rather than a dynamic concept-in-action.[5] My usage of the word ‘religion’ henceforth will be in the sense of dharma, which could itself take a form of sound (sabda).[6] In his films, Avikunthak’ssabda of silence (Etcetera) to sabda of dhwani, sound (Kalighat Fetish, 2000) to sabda of mrityu, death and its rahasya or mystery (Katho Upanishad) has been increasingly acquiring an abundance (Rati Chakravyuh); this is also an interesting part of his journey towards finding a form, as if a cinematographic Mandala, where sabda rings like a rhythmic chant!Rati Chakravyuh is a chakra (circle) within a Mandala of chakra that embeds a triangle, the trikona and a central dot, a bindu, seed or a beej as it were! Broadly speaking, and as M Esther Harding in his essay, The Reconciliation of the Opposites: The Mandala, mentions, the Oriental thought concedes to the unconscious much greater place in the psyche than in the West; consequently ‘evil’, the destructive aspect of the life force, is not excluded or repressed but is recognized as the negative or dark aspect of the deities. So Kāli is but the devouring aspect of the Mother Goddess, while Siva is both Creator and Destroyer.[7] “The goal of perfection for the Oriental is not identification with the All-Good, as it so often is with us; rather, he seeks that enlightenment through which good and evil are recognized to be relative, a pair of opposites, from whose domination the individual can be released by acquiring a new standpoint and a new centre of consciousness.”[8] Mandala, the Practice, the Significance मंडलः अनुष्ठान,सारगर्भिता Simply stated, the mandala would mean a ‘circle’ or a ‘holy circle’ or even a ‘charmed circle’! In the sense of Yantra, it is a two- or three-dimensional geometric composition considered to represent the abode of the deity, within the broad sense of Sacred Geometry. The word appears in the Rig Veda and the Tibetan Buddhism has adopted it in its spiritual practice.[9]In his autobiography, Memories. Dreams. Reflections., C.G. Jung, describes Mandala at length. It is a graphical representation of the centre, which Jung calls ‘seat of the Self’ or the archetype of wholeness. However, in association with the film Rati Chakravyuh, besides Tantra, what i find fascinating is the way the Mithila tradition imagines ‘Kohbar’ or the nuptial room. In Mithila’s folk tradition, the priest or bhagat draws a circle about his place, chanting appropriate mantras. That prevents the evil from causing any harm or hindrance to his performance. The bhagat’s place is called gahbar (cave). Kohbar, the nuptial room, where the newly-wed couple perform the garbhadhānam rite, is also made a ‘protection space’. Like the nontribal priest, the Oraon Mati makes a ‘protection space’.[10] Talking about geometry would be a long debate for the specialists but what i find interesting is Plato’s imagination of the cosmogony, he said, ‘God geometrizes continually’ (as attributed to him by Plutarch). My hypothesis is that it could be interesting to contextualize or even problematize the continual circularization of Rati Chakravyuh within the Renaissance Perspective-cinematography debate. In his paper Seen From Nowhere, Mani Kaul, deals with this aspect.[11] By continual circularization, Rati Chakravyuh, defies a convergence presumed by the perspectival perception, and even the presence or the notion of conventional ‘frame’, which is significant.[12] Again, what interests me is the sub-texts and their randomness: a sub-text of the sabda and the sub-text of the circularity or the cycle of movement-image and time-image, in their randomness. In this essay, i propose to discuss these aspects of Avikunthak’s cinematographic work, particularly with reference to his film Rati Chakravyuh. Graveyard / Space.Death / Time.Goddess of Love / Rati: The Life-Cycle. स्मशान (आकाश). मृत्यु (काल). रतिःसर्जनविसर्जनचक्र। It begins with the graveyard (space) in Etcetera and passes through death (time), which could be sacrificial or suicidal (Kalighat Fetish, Vakratunda Swāhā, 2010), through sensuality of the sarira (body) or Rati (Nirākār Chhāyā, 2007). The philosophy of Tantra would suppose that the body is the link between the terrestrial world and the cosmos, the body is the theatre in which the psycho-cosmic drama is enacted. Rati, the Goddess of Love is the female erotic energy, when Sakti sees Siva, rati becomes active. Rati represents kinetic energy too; the couple’s union, completeness, and this has been depicted in different schools of the Indian miniature and other painting. However, Sakti of the Saktas is not the consort of Siva. In her cosmic self, Sakti-Siva are eternally conjoined. “The significance of viparita-rati in the copulative cosmogony is of the feminine principle constantly aspiring to unite, the feminine urge to create unity from duality, whereas the masculine principle, with each thrust, invariably separates, representing
I wonder whether you can do commerce without knowing book-keeping? : HUG speaks to Amlan Dasgupta
Humanities Underground speaks to Amlan Dasgupta about work and non-work. ——————– Prasanta Chakravarty: What has been your sense of institutional life in India? Amlan Dasgupta: My teaching life began at RKM College, Narendrapur and then at Scottish Church College. And then I had a fairly long stint at Calcutta University. For nearly 15 years there was a kind of continuity in my day to day existence among students who came from diverse backgrounds. Many of the students had little connection with academic life; others were extremely able and motivated. I expect that much of what we talked about was their problems in general—about passing an exam, or finding a book or perhaps about studying literature itself. I came to know many students who would arrive from the smaller places and from nondescript colleges. In Calcutta University I spent a lot of time in the departmental library which I helped to run. It was a meeting place of a different kind, outside of the very formal classroom setting. All these helped to have a more hands-on and diversified sense of West Bengal education, I’d say. When I joined Jadavpur University in 1995, I was excited and apprehensive at the same time. It was obviously a very strong department at that time. I could see that I had the opportunity to practice a more focused set of interests in my new work place. There was an integrated sense of departmental life. Two things stood out. The quality of teaching was very high and we got very good students. But I wonder whether I had any actual effect in the institutional space. I do not think I made much of difference in the destinies of the students’ lives and trajectories here. I was directing students differently in Calcutta University. It was an intervention of a different kind, more humbling and more matter of fact. See, I consider myself to be a teacher foremost and not a researcher. I prepared the students in Calcutta University by making another kind of intervention which possibly may have made an actual difference in the lives of at least a few, or at least I would like to believe that. I thoroughly enjoyed my 22 years in Jadavpur, make no mistake. In fact, I could change the way I taught. I had more space to maneuver and improvise in the classroom space. Earlier I used to meticulously prepare each lecture. Here teaching was more exploratory. But this was possible due to the structure of courses and the nature of students. The syllabus has always been fluid and permeable. When we started the semester system, I found that I could teach a course on the English Revolution here! Besides, there was more scope of discussing academics outside of the class. We used to have long informal sessions on whatever took our fancy. That was not all: I could always consult my colleagues, barge into their offices and ask for any bit of information or share a thought and exchange ideas. That was different in my earlier life. My senior colleagues in Calcutta University—like Jyoti Bhattacharya or Arun Kumar Dasgupta were always receptive and encouraging and I used to turn to them continually for advice. In Jadavpur, the mode of interaction was different. At least till a few years ago. Things are changing. Prasanta: A large number of people who have interacted with you or have just seen you operate day to day have noticed right from the beginning how you make your presence felt, an ameliorating one, across the institutional space. I mean outside of the department, in the nooks and crannies and then outside of the university where you work, to other places and spaces. Amlan: There is a way that one espouses, not always in a programmatic manner. But there is way of just speaking with people and spending time with them. Just talking to people, perhaps, and conducting a course jointly or running a seminar together even. To read a book or hear a piece of music together and argue and feel about such things is always rewarding. All kinds of things will happen in the institution; all kinds of people will be around and students of every kind will pass by you. One cannot give up. This I have learnt right from my early days of teaching. It is important to do as much as you can and reach out to people who might have a need. It is a shared kind of responsibility. If you spend a long time in a place you need to be resilient and extract life out of the place. Actually you do all this for your own sanity! One also goes out and sees the world. In my case, places like Delhi and Pune have provided me with a different perspective on life. Just travelling to places for academic or other reasons is not bad at all. Just to travel, see and know people. Renew some bonds; get to know some new faces. If I am called for a lecture or two, I usually go, unless there is some problem. You get perspective. That is all. Prasanta: There is particular flavor that you bring to the teaching of literature; a distinct mood and method in the classes you teach, into the questions you highlight and the scholarly universe that you straddle. Amlan: I expect that has much to do with the training I had. My teachers have had had an important impact upon me, right from school. There were so many of them. I have been exceptionally fortunate in my teachers. My school teacher Aniruddha Lahiri, for instance, introduced me to an amazing range of books. This has been a relationship of a lifetime. I had a great deal of interest in history. It is largely owing to him that my taste in literature took shape. Mr. Lahiri not only provided me with directions but also, most crucially, provided each of the readings with a context. Each text turned