Courtesan, Goddess or Teesri Kasam?

Teesri Kasam, produced in 1966, is a movie which deserves some attention today. I first watched it as a child and promptly forgot about it until recently. And I have not been able to stop thinking about it since. The movie is based on a story written by Phanishwar Nath Renu called “Maare Gaye Gulfaam”, with Waheeda Rehman and Raj Kapoor as the lead pair.

Raj Kapoor plays Hiraman, a simple-minded bullock cart puller. Who does Waheeda Rehman play? Also a character named Hira, who spends the next three hours of the film trying to find out whether she is Hirabai, Hiradevi, both, or someone else. She also spends this time finding out who gets to decide who she is — herself, men, her past, her desires or Hiraman?

The viewer walks this journey with Hira. It’s essentially her story. When the movie starts, we are introduced to Hiraman trying to make a living in a world, which is cruel to poor people, where cops try to shoot this gaadi-waan simply because he pulls a cart carrying stolen goods.

Hiraman’s life is a constant struggle with violence. He swears to himself that he will not carry stolen goods and only bamboo sticks, but that doesn’t end his victimisation. This violence continues till the very end of the film, so much so that even when he is standing all by himself at a railway station, he is being threatened.

When we meet Waheeda’s character, she tells Hiraman that she is a part of a roving drama company. He takes her word for it. When someone suggests to him that she is a sex worker/courtesan for hire he is outraged and thinks the person is stupid. There are repeated allusions in the movie to the fact that he believes she is a virgin. Her virginity, or its absence, is what exalts her in his view at least in part and completely demeans her in the full view of the men trying to purchase her. She is not a person, she is either an intact hymen, or a broken one.

Hiradevi/Hirabai is not a one-shade character. When a rich zamindar propositions her with a generous offer, she happily accepts it, and it is at this point that the viewer becomes certain that she is a travelling courtesan.

When Hiraman, anguished by men calling her names asks her, “Why don’t you leave this trade, people say bad things about you?” She doesn’t say that she is a victim who has no escape. She says that she likes the travel, nice clothes and the applause for her performance. Throughout the movie, she is in control of her destiny, but she is not in control of how society sees her. A society that requires her to lie to even her friend that she is going to a temple when she’s going out. A society where despite saying no to a man propositioning her, he tries to rape her. That man is egged on by someone that he must remind the woman that he is a Thakur. How will she remember this?

She is suffocated not only by Thakur's view of who she is, but also by Hiraman’s view. What will happen when he finds out that she is not a virgin, her colleagues ask her. “I can live a lie on stage but I can’t live a lie my entire life — that of being a sati savitri,” she says.

She wonders, as does the viewer, what will Hiraman do when he finds out? Every time in the movie that this possibility is floated he reacts sharply and evinces pain and outrage. He is convinced that all of them are trying to demean her, because to be a courtesan is something that is demeaning for him. He repeatedly chooses denial, always responding with, ‘how dare you’ instead of ‘so what?’.

But her work is not the only barrier between them, there is class as well. Hira is richer, more sophisticated than Hiraman. She knows what a gramophone is, and can even pronounce it. His friends call her ‘maalkin’ and ‘company’. There is a yawning chasm of class between them, but we find that she crosses this barrier effortlessly. She feels drawn to him, regardless of his status, and considers spending her life with him. There is a delicate romantic moment in the movie — she cooks food for him and he gives her his wallet to safeguard.

Class makes an appearance in another aspect of irony. The Thakur, when rejected, says he is willing to pay any amount she wants to sleep with him. When she repeats her rejection, he calls her ‘sasti’ (as in cheap). In another instance, the manager of the company, angry with her over the rejection of the Thakur, is about to fire her, but his subordinate reminds him that the company will incur the wrath of the public and lose thousands if she doesn’t perform. The Thakur, he adds, can be mollified with a bottle of ‘sasta’ liquor.

Speaking of class, one can’t help but wonder if a movie about a bullock cart puller can be made today in this OTT and multiplex world.

While the class barrier means nothing to Hira, it is her fear about Hiraman’s inability to abandon his inhibitions that pushes her in a direction away from him. In perhaps the finest dialogue of the movie, when Thakur mocks her, and says it seems only the bullock cart puller understands you these days, she grimaces. “He thinks I am a goddess, and you think I’m a woman on sale in a market, both of you are wrong.”
All this and much more from a movie which was made in 1966! It is perhaps one of the most poignant reflections on female agency and class in a film I have seen. What would the fate of such a movie be if it were made today? I’m certain there would be calls for a ban on account of hurt sentiments.

The dialogues of the movie was written by Renu himself, the lyrics of most songs by Shailendra — first major Dalit artist in the Hindi film industry. A much celebrated contemporary lyricist tells me that in all likelihood Shailendra meant for Hiraman to be Dalit.

An edited version of the movie with many songs cut out is available on YouTube. I wish some OTT platform would release the full version soon. I strongly suggest you watch it nonetheless. It will no doubt leave you asking many questions of yourself, some of which I have spoken of here and some of which I have deliberately chosen to leave out.

This piece was first published here