Siddharth, a young idealist who wishes to ‘change the world fundamentally’ tells his young, fine, and confident lover Geeta that they may not be able to see each other for six months owing to his political aspirations. With rage in her heart and vacillation in her emotions, Geeta joins a typical 70s get-together involving young students of Delhi University. She pretends to enjoy herself dancing on The Seekers’ musical hit Georgy Girl while the agony of separation was constantly troubling her. Siddharth shares a gaze with Geeta’s weeping eyes which marks a sudden yet smooth shift in the mood. Georgy Girl is now being replaced by a passionate qawwali Bawra Mann (restless heart). The nuanced shift in the songs is exactly where the story of Geeta belongs. The dilemma between living a comfortable, socially acceptable life and going with the fire of passion and the desire to bring structural changes explores themes of love, revolution, and sexuality. It locates the place of a woman in revolution.
Sudhir Mishra’s Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi is a political drama revolving around three main characters: Siddharth, Geeta, and Vikram. Set in the 70s, Mishra attempts to express the mood of rebellion in the youth of the time via his character Siddharth, who decides to settle in an underdeveloped village of Bhojpur to ‘end the vulgarity of oppression.’ Corporate ambition is denoted by the character of Vikram, who dearly loves Geeta and fails to understand Siddharth’s ideology and ‘rich kids playing let’s change the world game’. Albeit being quite enigmatic and unpredictable, the character that compels every viewer to think and feel is that of Geeta. Mishra’s shrewdness lies in the intricate design of Geeta’s character and the reflection of socio-political ideologies in every dialogue Geeta utters and in every action she takes. Her character comments on the larger question of gender and revolution.
What made Geeta, born and brought up in a decent South Indian family with the perks of a lavish education abroad, abandon everything and dedicate herself to the cause of changing the world? Was it her love for Siddharth? After all, Siddharth always wanted her to be politically active and understand and condone his ideology in all possible aspects. While the Marxist Anthem (as Kiran Nagarkar calls it) of Sahir Ludhianvi – Wo Subah Kabhi Toh Aayegi was playing in the background, Siddharth remarks, ‘Geeta, what are your thoughts on all this?’ When she expressed her inability to form a strong opinion, Siddharth got upset. She, of course, managed to provide a beautiful digression to the conversation by asking him whether he “really” loves her. Looking at all these instances, it appears that it was for Siddharth that she decided to walk on the muddy road that promises a possible utopia of equality. But, what if ‘love’ was merely a socially acceptable label for her to realize her truest potential? What if her ultimate goal was to exist freely and to efface herself in ‘love’ was just a medium?
Simone De Beauvoir argues in The Second Sex ‘for the woman in love, her lover becomes the person who is the source of meaning and significance in her world, the person who functions as the limits of her world, the infallible judge of her life, and the locus of her own freedom’(K Morgan). Beauvoir argues that when a woman in love completely surrenders herself to a man, she is simultaneously expressing her avid will to be. The annihilation of her identity is at a cost. Either this annihilation provides her with the freedom to exercise her aspirations via the man she is in love with or it comes back to her as ‘love’. This love could be in the form of emotional protection or validation of her own life by the man. In Geeta’s case, Siddharth provided her with both of these. It was by the virtue of Siddharth’s love that she completely devoted herself to a cause that was perhaps more important than catering to the social expectations of Bourgeois Morality. At the same time, he also made her feel passionate about her feelings. Beauvoir also states that there are different ways in which a man loves and a woman loves. For a man, love is merely an occupation, a part of his life. He would never abandon himself completely in love. While, for a woman, it’s not only surrender but absolute devotion of soul and body. Siddharth never left his political aspirations to live a life with Geeta. It was Geeta who altered her way of living for him.
There are numerous instances where Geeta showed fierce commitment towards the process of progressive change. She left her husband, an alcoholic bureaucrat without a second thought and decided to live in the underdeveloped village of Bhojpur, running an adult literacy program. She was confidently casual about her sexuality and continued to see Siddharth even after her marriage. By dismantling the concept of sexual morality, she showed a sign of unusual courage, rare in the women of the early 70s. However, when Mishra focused upon the character of Geeta, questions surrounding sex and marriage, characteristic of liberal feminists today, were never his concern. The feminist struggle in Geeta’s character was centered upon the daily struggles of the rural women, their organization, and the betterment of their lives. This is not to degrade the struggles revolving around the institution of marriage, which equally torment upper-class, urban women. Clara Zetkin, a Marxist Feminist thinker, questioned Lenin’s mocking of discourse around marriage and sex in the context of the women’s movement in the 1920s. To this, Lenin replied with his usual wit and clarity that by focusing upon these themes, the main question of economic equity becomes a subsidiary issue and that the primary concern of women must be fundamental changes that will eventually bring renovation in the unequal nature of marriage and man-woman relations. By reading his arguments, the character of Geeta first came to my consciousness.
Unlike the heroines of D’Annunzio, Geeta’s story didn’t end on a romantic note. She was falsely charged in a raid on Naxalites during the times of the National Emergency and was brutally raped by police officials. ‘You are the government, not God!’ exclaimed Geeta while she was being arrested. Siddharth, the fiery idealist, left the political situation of the country and started studying medicine abroad. It was Geeta who was firm with her resolve to improve the situation of the countryside and continued to teach young students. Love, morality, sexuality, and revolution – Geeta’s tale undoubtedly helps us conceptualize women in a distinct form. Her letter to Vikram reads:
‘Once upon a time, there was a girl called Geeta. She was arrogant, opinionated, and thought she could change the world and so she came here to Bhojpur, and then what happened here is so difficult to describe.’