Page 15 - THE CHANGING WORLD OF RAY

the sacred community, as endos throughout the film.

Ray does approach ‘religion’ These details constantly re-

as then unifying, external, veal his selfishness as sexu-

and a priori ‘sacred’ force al obsession. Yet, the film is

(1912) but as an arena of about female Shakti: ‘within

contestation, change, and herself (every) woman con-

competition between indi- tains Shakti, the tension be-
vidual actors. This competi- tween cohesion and disinte-

tion takes place through the gration, often translated as

juxtaposition of gazes, which “energy”’ (Caplan 1996: 280).

illustrates Bhatti and Pin- It is because of the sexual

ney’s concept of ‘opti-clash’: oppression and selfishness

giving and taking darshan of her father-in-law that
is understood in terms of her Shakti is repressed, and

reciprocity, a kind of a ‘gift’ leads her to the tragic end,

in Mauss’s terms, referring as she disappears into the

simultaneously to cure and river. Doya does not act in

poison (from the Greek phar- her husband’s rational terms

makon, Ibid.: 228, 238). and move with him to the
In this context, big city,

Kalikinkar’ vision but disap-

is a false one; it pears in

is not a divine a dream-

revelation, but world,

rather a symp- liberating

tom of his own her im-
Freuidian sex- prisoned

ual frustrations gaze in

(Cooper 2000: 108, 164-6). the dark waters of the abyss

These are manifested in the of the soul. This kind of sui-

antagonism towards his son, cide allows her Shakti to

and the way he gazes at his find full and total expression

daughter-in-law, accompa- in a world that has been re-
nied by several sexual innu- pressing it. In this dynamic