Trikaal- 40 years on

LUIS DIAS

The recent demise of celebrated film director, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker Shyam Benegal at 90 prompted me to revisit his 1985 film ‘Trikaal (Past, Present, Future)’ (set in the twilight of Portuguese Goa, the last months of 1961), which I had not seen for at least a decade.

It has a star-studded cast, sensitive use of chiaroscuro that some deem unsurpassed in Indian cinema, Vanraj Bhatia’s engaging soundtrack, and songs composed by Remo Fernandes and sung by him and Alisha Chinai.

I discovered little things I’d missed before: that Erasmo, the young Goan medical student from Lisbon promised to one of the main protagonists (Sushma Prakash’s Ana) was played by Lucky Ali (then ‘introduced’ as Maqsoom Alie), who would burst upon the Indian music scene in the 1990s. I loved his 1996 song and MTV video ‘O Sanam.’

‘Trikaal’ was also Leela Naidu’s (matriarch Don Maria Sousa-Soares in the film) return to the silver screen after 16 years.

In 1985, Naseeruddin Shah’s character (the narrator Ruiz Pereira), returning after 24 years, felt that “everything” had changed: roads (the game-changer then, the 1983 Commonwealth Head of Government Meeting CHOG-M), electricity, and water. References are already made to the tourist influx, and the concretisation of Goa (specifically in Loutolim, from Gulf remittance money), and to “someone from Delhi” buying up a 350-year-old house. The changes have only accelerated since then.

Benegal’s story and screenplay segues from 1985 to 1961, to an elaborate funeral, wealthy elite ‘bhatcar’ Ernesto Sousa-Soares, father of Sylvia (an extremely weepy Anita Kanwar) from wedlock, and an uncertain number of illegitimate children, among them the barefoot housemaid Milagrinha (Neena Gupta).

Some of the cast (Neena Gupta; Jayant Kripalani as village drunk Francis) reminded of the popular 1985 Doordarshan series ‘Khandaan’ (which I’d love to see again) and Sabira Merchant’s ‘What’s the good word?’ Each actor triggered their own good memory of theatre and film appearances. Just seeing the film’s name appear in Urdu at the start took me to those ‘achche din’ of the 1980s.

Google song-finder traced the Amália Rodrigues fado in this 1961 scene to her 1980 release, ‘Lavava no rio, lavava’ (I washed in the river), which was chronologically incongruous, but brought back memories of her landmark 1990 Panaji concert.

Although a Hindi film, ‘Trikaal’ is peppered with terribly-pronounced Portuguese salutations and prayers. ‘Boa noite’ is repeatedly delivered as ‘Boaah noytay’, and the vowel pronunciations in ‘agora’ (from the Hail Mary in Portuguese) match those in the Hawaiian ‘aloha’. This could have easily been avoided with a little effort. Ditto for the ballroom dancing; a short workshop could have improved this. The Konkani interjections (‘Saiba bogos’) fare considerably better, as do the Latin incantations.

Women donned prayer-veils (lace mantillas) at church well into the 1970s; they then gradually vanished due to pressures of availability
or fashion.

The Remo-Alisha duets, sung in Hindi here, took me back to his 1985 ‘Old Goan Gold’ cassette, where the violin in ‘Panch vorsam’ was played by Johnson Carvalho, of ‘Jolly Boys’ fame. I had the privilege of sharing a music-stand with him for several Don Bosco operettas and Christmas midnight masses during Fr. Bonifacio D’Souza’s tenure as principal in the 1980s. I was too awe-struck to speak more than necessary to Johnson, but I’ll never forget his unassuming nature and professionalism. When he died, every Goan musician and music-lover mourned.

The post-funeral parlour wake debate over Goa’s uncertain future helped many Indian viewers grasp our unique history and 1961 dilemma better. It has shades of another classic Hindi film ‘Shatranj ke Khiladi’ (1977) set in 1856, the cusp to another upheaval that would have its own inevitability, leaving the old guard without any agency in their own future destiny.

The séances add a dark comic touch when the ‘wrong and ‘right’ Rane (both played by Kulbhushan Kharbanda) show up instead of the summoned Ernesto. But they are also a cinematic device to connect the Sousa-Soares family’s murky past and claim to ‘nobility,’ good fortune and favour with the Estado, and a reminder that Christian devotion and ‘superstitious’ rites co-exist in some families with no trace of irony.

An interesting line (very relevant to our times) is given to a Goan Hindu guest who says “all Goa will revolt” if any attempt is made to remove the relics of Goencho Saib St. Francis Xavier to Portugal.

One of the truest lines in the film (uttered by Dona Maria), valid even today in some elite Goan families is this: “We get married within our caste. You are from the ‘wrong’ caste.” The narrator Ruiz is not a Catholic Brahmin, so there is no possibility of his marrying Ernesto Sousa-Soares’s granddaughter Ana (Sushama Prakash), even to save the family honour after she is found to be pregnant at her engagement party. No elite family ‘shame’ or scandal is worse than marrying outside caste.

A nod to the familial ancestral Hindu roots is given when a mention is made of sending a coconut to the Mangueshi temple for blessing to the engagement.

The irony is, Ruiz has himself gotten Milgarinha (Ernesto’s illegitimate daughter) pregnant, but here class snobbery (“she’s just a servant”) prevent him from doing the honourable thing and marrying her, while the parish priest seems to look on, almost approvingly. It’s cinematic fiction, but it does mirror how deeply entrenched caste prejudice is in elite Catholic Goan circles.

Another irony highlighted is that the freedom-fighter in the family, Leon Gonsalves (Dalip Tahil), Ana’s cousin (underscoring incestuous cross-wiring connections in order to “stay within caste” and the ensuing problems arising from consanguinity in a stagnant gene pool) eventually settles with her and their unborn child in Portugal, the “enemy” he wanted to “liberate” Goa from in the first place. This has been true of many Goan freedom fighters. They couldn’t make post-1961 Goa their home.

The film revolves largely around the Ana-Erasmo engagement, delayed by her grandfather’s untimely death and her grandmother’s stubborn refusal for most of the film to shorten the mourning period for her husband and allow the engagement to proceed. But ‘Trikaal’ really belongs to the always-obedient Milagrinha (exploited by everyone, “like a cow”, in Ruiz’s words) and her unborn son Bostião. Benegal chose the names well, as Milagrinha and Bostião are rarely found in elite Catholic
Goan circles.

‘Trikaal’ ends rather tamely, with Ruiz turning out to be a cad who takes no responsibility for his adolescent indiscretion, an absentee father to the son he’ll probably never reveal
himself to.

Benegal ultimately also succumbed to the Bollywood obsession with the Christian, specifically the Goan Catholic. Perhaps our attire, music, dance, customs, and religious rituals look better on camera, the ‘other, ‘exotic’’ India.

Was focusing on elite Catholic Goa the best way to explore the seismic events of end-1961? Would a similar focus on other societal sections not have been just as insightful?

Benegal may not have meant to, but ‘Trikaal’ plays into the tired old Bollywood stereotype of Goan Catholic women as loose, flirtatious, “easily beddable”, and the men as feckless drunkards. But some of our community not only turn the other cheek, but joyfully participate in that facetious cardboard-cutout portrayal, in exchange for Andy Warhol’s fleeting minutes of cinematic fame.