There is a scared fire burning inside Ramavikraman’s home. While the flames are fed with zillion offerings, the family is in the throes of poverty. But that doesn’t stop the hero of Ishti, a 71-year-old Namboodiri, from the preserving the fire, a symbol of his upper-cast pride and orthodoxy. Set in the mid-twentieth century Kerala, the Sanskrit film by G Prabha will open Indian Panorama at the International Film Festival of India. “Ishti is inspired by V T Bhattathiripad’s reformist movement and it’s the first Sanskrit film to deal with a socially relevant subject,” says the director.
Set in a conservative and regressive Namboodiri household, Ishti has Nedumudi Venu playing Ramavikraman, the aging Namboodiri committed to guarding the fire for his own funeral pyre. “A renowned scholar, he has conducted Somayaga and as the Yajamanan he has to keep the fire taken out the yaga at three fireplaces inside his home. He has to do poojas and offerings thrice a day and protect the fire from extinguishing,” he explains. When the family falls on hard times Ramavikraman decides to marry a third time for dowry.
“In the Namboodiri community only the eldest son was allowed to marry. All other brothers were free to form alliances with lower caste women, but the children born out of such unions were considered untouchables,” he says.
Sridevi, Ramavikraman’s 17-year-old bride is literate and she brings in a wind of change. She teaches her stepson, who is nearly a decade older, to read and write. “Raman, the son meets a lower-caste girl who teases him as he is illiterate. He talks to Sridevi about this and she says learning vedas and hymns are not enough.” Their secret meetings, where she initiates him to the world of letters, cause a stir in the society and and soon Sredevi is summoned for the ritualistic trial known as smarthavicaharam. The film shows how the new generation comes out of the clutches of rotten patriarchal customs,” he adds.
Ishti means search for self and Prabha says though the film is set in the past, the theme it explores is still relevant. “Ishti is basically a woman-oriented narrative. It discusses oppression and gender equality while recreating another timeline and milieu.”
As a professor of Sanskrit, Prabha says he wanted to make a film in the language that’s not religious. “But since it’s not a very common language I went for a time and community where it looks natural,” he adds. The film is also part of Kolkata International Film Festival apart from IFFI.