Page 16 - THE CHANGING WORLD OF RAY

context, Doya’s disappear- and negotiated the caste sys-

ance is not a passive act of tem through the concepts of

suicide, but an intentional Shakti and the inert shakta,

break that results to the so- the lowest state of human

cial marginalization of Ka- existence (Cooper 2000: 189-

likinkar and to his public 197). As in Devi, Shakta

exposure for his greed and refers to the blocking of the
envy. channels that allow Shakti

to be expressed, to the point

In his much later of death. Similar to Kalik-

film about male Shakti, en- inkar’s self-piety in Devi,

titled Sadgati (Deliverance Sadgati’s opening sequences

1981), which was a re-adop- portray the landlord’s rit-
tion of a Hindu novel by uals that demonstrate his

Premchand for the TV, Ray absolute bhakti (devotion),

further attacked the inequal- as well as, his high status

ities inherited within the and authority. But his cruel-

feudal system, in the face ty and exploitation of Dukhi

of another hypocrite and and his family do not remain
self-indulgent priest-land- unpunished, as Ray revers-

lord, who like a blackmailer es the concepts of dharma

uses his tradi- (moral duty) and karma (re-

tional status to birth) in the context of death

exploit his servant. as moksha (transcendence)

The servant’s and Sadgati (deliverance):

name is Dukhi, while the landlord is expect-
mean- ing ‘the one ed to transcend to a higher

who is always in pain’, and level of existence because of

who belongs to the lowest his ‘pure’ way of life that for-

caste strata of Sudra (the bids contact in terms of food

servant farmer/ cultivator). and touch, ironically, he is

This late TV film produc- left with the dead and pol-

tion was a return to Ray’s luting body of Dukhi which
early neorealist aesthetic, he has to deliver and dis-