Pakeezah and Symbolism

Upon its release, Kamal Amrohi’s Pakeezah received predominantly negative reviews, and was considered a flop by both critics and the public. It wasn’t until the death of the film’s heroine, Meena Kumari, that the film gained popularity amongst Hindi cinema audiences. Now viewed as a classic of the courtesan genre, Pakeezah grapples with notions of female sexuality and the role of women in modern India, and features a wealth of visual and audiovisual symbolism.

             

            The film opens with a shot of Nargis (played by Meena Kumari) dancing around a burning fire in the middle of a kotha. She is dressed in white, a symbol of purity, and appears almost joyful as she expresses herself freely through the artful motions of her dance. “The deepest allure of the figure of the courtesan, Amrohi suggests, lies not in her sexuality per se, but rather in her exquisite mastery of the arts of dance and song, whose expressive purity conveys the essential value of the courtesan.” (Allen, 2009) While traditionally a place of art and sexual freedom the kotha is framed more as a tomb than a stage. “Her body is itself her tomb in the sense that although from her point of view her performative body is conceived as a pure expression of spirit—as evoked in the opening sequence, from the point of view of the largely unseen clients that she entertains, it is, at least incipiently, available for their sexual pleasure.” (Allen, 2009) When Shahabuddin enters the kotha he is backlit by a square of light that makes him appear like an angelic savior. The metaphor of the kotha as a tomb is further entrenched when Nargis flees Shahabuddin’s home in disgrace to take up residence in a cemetery. By taking up residence in a cemetery her environment reflects her emotional state, alerting the audience that she is dead inside. After Nargis passes she is buried in an unmarked grave, which symbolizes her lack of personhood as a courtesan, because according to the film only married women are truly realized persons.

            Nature has served as a metaphor for sexuality in literature throughout time and across cultures, and Pakeezah is no exception, with birds in particular playing a special role in the film. The wealthy Nawab Khan gifts Sahibjaan with a caged songbird, which casts the courtesan life as one in which women are not free to make their own choice, or more accurately, not free to pursue the life of a married woman. When Sahibjaan later frees the caged bird she symbolically communicates that she is releasing herself from the “shackles” of the kotha in favor of finding true love. During the scenes at Salim’s forest camp Sahibjaan is enchanted by the pastoral countryside, which stands in stark contrast to the gaudy décor of the kotha. The countryside symbolizes traditional notions of romantic love, and acts as a sounding board for Sahibjaan’s desires to escape the life of a courtesan and pursue romantic love.

            During the scene where Salim Ahmed Khan first encounters Sahibjaan in the compartment of a train he is enticed by her feet and the jangling of the bells that adorn her ankles. These bells are a symbol of Sahibjaan’s sexuality and her art, but also function as a manacle that tie her to the life of the courtesan. “The courtesan figure camouflages a deep-seated anxiety about female independence from men in its function as a fetishized “other” to the dominant female character, the wife or wife-wannabe, whose connotation is so over determined in mainstream Indian society that her appearance in Hindi cinema seems mandatory.” (Hubel, 2012) In the letter that Salim leaves for Sahibjaan he remarks on the beauty of her feet, and tells her not to let them touch the ground. His entreaty serves to enforce the notion that women should shun independence and self-expression through work in favor of subservience to men as devoted wives. When Sahibjaan reveals herself as a courtesan to Salim the bells, which before sounded so enticing, clang with a clamorous tone, implying that to be courtesan is a deplorable profession, despite all the evidence to the contrary that has been presented up to this point in the film.

            In one of my favorite scenes of the film Salim rides up to his forest camp astride a horse appearing like a knight, a heterosexual paragon of masculinity. The conversation that ensues between Sahibjaan and Salim is conducted through the walls of the Salim’s tent. Salim sees only Sahibjaan’s shadow, symbolizing Salim’s limited point of view; he sees her as a fetishized sexual object rather than a flesh and blood person. Additionally, he sees her as the woman he wants her to be rather than the woman she actually is. The tent serves as a faux veil of purity that surrounds Sahibjaan and cleanses her of her transgressions, but it also traps her within a structure that compels her to perform the role of the demure and doting wife. On the other hand Salim is outside the tent, and, as a man, free to do what he chooses. There is a great shot the shows the Sahibjaan and Salim facing camera and speaking to each other on each side of the tent. The shot implies that the structures of society – the tent – prevent men and women speaking to each other candidly and from understanding each other motives.

            The symbolism in Pakeezah can at times be downright obvious. The name given to Sahibjaan by Salim – Pakeezah – means “pure,” and draws a clear association between marriage and notions of purity, simultaneously casting the life of a courtesan as impure. At other times Amrohi's touch is more subtle and artful. The kite that gets in the tree at the Pink Palace symbolizes the cessation of Sahibjaan’s dream of romantic freedom. When we see it again the kite is in tatters, symbolizing that Sahibjaan has resigned her self to her life as  courtesan. The historical context of the courtesan as a sexually liberated artist stands in contrast to the film's fetishized version of the courtesan as a slave to immoral sexual practices and denied the benefits allowed honorably married women. This combination of obvious and subtle audio and visual symmetry served to make Pakeezah a complex film that extrapolates both the hypocrisies and grace of the courtesan genre of films in Hindi cinema.