Dor -The Rope

 

Over the weekend we watched the 2006 Hindi movie Dor starring Ayesha Takia and Gul Panag. Dor means a rope. The term remains poignantly pertinent in several contexts throughout the movie. Let’s look at the storyline to understand this Dor.

It is the story of two young women in India, each belonging to a different community and religion and living several hundred miles apart. Meera belongs to a Rajput family and lives in the rugged desert of Rajasthan. Zeenat is a Muslim woman living in the mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh. A stroke of destiny brings them together. Both are newly married and very much in love with their husbands.  They would prefer to continue living in their marital bliss forever but financial difficulties force their husbands to take up higher paying jobs in a foreign land. The women are left behind to attend to caring for elderly in-laws. 

There is a brief period of finding solace in long distance communication between the spouses and the money the men send home each month, until one day when everything suddenly comes to a standstill. Turns out that their husbands had become roommates and friends in the foreign country and in an unfortunate incident one of them falls from the roof and dies. There are no witnesses to the accident and the survivor( Zeenat’s husband Amir) is blamed for the death and awarded the death penalty. The Indian high commissioner’s office contacts both families to update about the tragedy. While Zeenat faces the daunting prospect of imminent death for her husband, Meera’s world crashes instantly with news of her husband Shankar’s death. 

Zeenat is told that Amir will be hanged to death within 2 months. She is a feisty woman who would turn the world upside down to find a way to save her man. The only way, she is informed, would be if the widow of the dead man would sign a statement forgiving the man accused of the murder. Zeenat instantly makes the resolve to find the widow and try to seek her pardon. She sets out alone from Himachal Pradesh in search of this other woman without anymore information than that she lives in Rajasthan. With help from a local man she actually finds Meera who is the widow she has come looking for. 

Once face to face she realizes the vulnerability and ground realities of the young widow. The societal customs have stripped the woman of all pleasures and isolated her from simple joys of life. Reeling from the loss of her beloved husband she is additionally facing contempt and mistreatment from her in-laws as well as lust of another man from the village. She is reduced to being a helpless and sad woman completely controlled by the people around her. 

Zeenat who has come there with a single selfish desire to get the mercy petition signed and befriends Meera with only that goal in mind, sees the human side of Meera, recognizes her sadness and intrinsic sweet nature and therefore hesitates to confess the real reason for her visit. The two women take to each other quickly. The strong and independent thinking Zeenat slowly begins to positively influence the timid Meera into shedding her inhibitions and allow simple joys to re-enter her life. She teaches  her to  become more assertive of her freedom and self respect. As deadline looms for her husband’s death Zeenat is finally forced to tell Meera the truth behind her visit. 

That critical secret, once revealed, changes the entire equation between the two friends. Meera is suddenly thrust with a plethora of emotions ranging from anger of being deceived, used and manipulated, sudden distrust in someone she had believed to be a friend, feelings of  loyalty to her late husband, confusion over the thought of where to shift the blame for his death if she forgives the man accused of the killing and a sudden loneliness from losing that one friend who had brought some joy into her sad life. Her knee jerk reaction is denial to sign the petition and turn Zeenat away.

This immediate onslaught of negative emotions however is countered deep within by a different set of thoughts. There is a conflict in her young mind between resentment and love, misunderstanding and understanding, selfishness and selflessness, rivalry and friendship, mistrust and trust, revenge and forgiveness. With the gentle guidance from a wise counselor she arrives at a more thoughtful decision eventually. The movie concludes on a happy note with a surprise twist. 

Why is it given the title Dor?

  At the core of the story is the noose(rope) that is threatening the life of one man, whose destiny, by a strange stroke of fate, is unexpectedly thrust in the hands of a widow who doesn’t  know this man. The decision she chooses will either make another woman a widow or save the latter’s marriage.

But that’s not all. Dor represents more than a noose in this tale. It stands as a metaphor for bonds between people, as well as for hope and also for control in life.  Let’s see how. 

 In the beginning of the movie each couple is tied with a delicate rope of love between them. When the men leave the country, the letters and long distance phone calls serve as the rope to keep them connected.

Despite the dim chances of finding the family of the deceased within a very short time and obtaining a pardon, Zeenat holds on to hope and sets out determined to achieve the needful. Without this rope essentially she would be letting go of her husband.  In contrast, the confirmed death of her husband cuts off the rope for Meera. Nothing can bring her husband back. She is devastated completely.

 When the two women meet they are able to understand and connect with each other as women and as human beings, despite the differences in their personalities, backgrounds and circumstances.  While Zeenat is inherently a free thinker, Meera is tied down by several restrictions due to her upbringing. Her family and society hold all the ropes of her life. It is Zeenat who teaches and empowers her to cut those ropes to taste freedom and take charge of her life.

Lastly, Meera’s inner dilemma highlights the inherent connection ( the indestructible rope) between lower and higher selves. It is the depiction of reality inside any of us. The inseparable co-existence of our human personality (Jeeva) and divine self (Shiva). Several Upanishads including the Mundakopanishad, Kathopanishad and Svetasvataropanishad figuratively describe these as two birds on a single tree. One enjoys fruits (pleasures) while the other only watches. The ability for mutual recognition between these two within a single individual varies from one person to another and also changes over a period of time. The process of them facing each other is really what meditation is all about. The more they look at each other the deeper their bond develops and more meaningful their relationship gets. 

The lower self is subjected to the travails of life. All joys and sorrows, good days and bad days, success and failures, love and losses are to be experienced by this individual in the human body. There is no escape for anyone in a mortal body from the experience. However as this individual becomes more and more aware of his higher self or the supreme soul within himself he gains the ability to not mix up himself with his experiences. That acquired skill empowers him to sustain the repeated blows or survive the high and low tides of life. It enhances the ability to think more rationally and elevates the thinking from lower to higher tendencies, from coarse to nuanced inferences, and from reflex reactions to thoughtful responses that are balanced with an emphasis on long term good, justice and compassion. It is a process. On one side, in the role of the Jeeva one is fighting the daily battles. On the other, that jeeva is cozying up to its closest ally, the higher self, and gaining new skills and insights and enjoying the inward journey. Here it is pertinent to consider the chariot in Kurukshetra with Arjun as the warrior who is fighting the battle and Krishna who is simply the charioteer. Krishna is providing guidance, inspiration, hope and courage but he is not fighting the war nor is he affected by it. 

The mental makeup of a warrior who has the higher self on board in his chariot is to be understood. There is plenty of peace within him, despite the ongoing palpable upheavals on the surface. Similar to the depths of the ocean. Yet the surface and depths of the ocean can’t be separated from one another. They must both be taken into consideration when trying to understand the ocean. 

Meera’s internal conflict is a beautiful example of instinctive human nature being nudged by the deeper conscience to do what is right. That she interpreted Zeenat’s initial hiding of the whole truth (about the role of the latter’s husband in the death of her own husband) as a deception was natural, given the circumstances at face value. Beneath that however was a much vaster reality that could be understood only with quiet consideration. In this consideration one can see that there was compassion, sensitivity and love behind the difficulty Zeenat had in sharing the full truth immediately. Prior to giving away the truth,  she (Zeenat) had selflessly worked to bring joy and empowerment in Meera’s life. Her desperation to try and save her husband’s life was legitimate and supported by a reasonable awareness that the crime attributed to her husband was not based on facts. It was an accidental death and not a murder. The law was blind in this case but she knew with conviction that justice needn’t be blind. 

All these things could be better realized by Meera in silent introspection than any amount of talking could have explained. And she did so to arrive at the right decision. 

Meera’s final resolution of the inner dilemma is about holding on to that rope which connects us to our divine self. This is the rope that can aid in our ascent to higher levels of thinking as well as to close the gap between mortality and eternity.

 

A simple takeaway from the exercise is to ask oneself in every situation: what is the right thing for me to do?

The answer will appear when mind allows itself some silence.

I found Dor to be a very beautiful movie that has so many layers to it…… very much like our lives.

Saree: a printed cotton silk Maheshwari.