After hearing the name Jhini Bini Chadariya (The Brittle Thread), if you think this indie is about the Hindi heartland’s dying art of handloom weaving, with the first scene zooming in on the warp and weft of reshmi dhaga, you’re wrong. Instead, the Ritesh Sharma directorial charts the country’s political pandemonium, laying bare the very fabric of society, infested by religious divide, patriarchy and violence against women. Beyond Ganga aarti and jalebis, the 97-minute movie sheds light on the crammed lanes of Varanasi, where local craftsmen and entertainment artists struggle to make ends meet, amid poverty, communal disharmony and rampant crime. Written by Ritesh, the story has two parallel narratives – one is about traditional saree weaver Shahdab (Muzaffar Khan), who needs to take care of his ailing khala, and the other traces the journey of orchestra dancer Rani (Megha Mathur), who is the sole guardian of her deaf-mute beti, Pinky (Roopa Chaurasiya).
Mind you, these two characters never actually meet each other in the story, nor do their lives dovetail in any manner… Until one fateful night. By nature, Rani is a bold and gutsy woman, who is fiercely protective about her daughter and works hard to give her a good education and a better life. She is not ashamed of being a sex worker. Instead, Rani takes pride in the fact that she’s not dependent on anyone to take care of her expenses. Her companion Baba (Utkarsh Srivastav), however, hates seeing her writhing on stage to cheap songs in front of a leering audience. Meanwhile, Shahdab is a more reticent character, whose otherwise dull life gets a splash of colour when he meets an Israeli tourist, named Adah (Sivan Spector). He takes her around Varanasi, as she curiously documents the local weaving process and lazes around the ghats. However, Shahdab’s growing fondness for his ‘foreign’ pal irks his friends and relatives, because she’s a Jew. They try to remind him of Israel’s atrocities on Palestinians.
Cinematographer Priyashanker Ghosh distinctly captures the pulsating vibe of the ‘luminous holy city’, as murmurs of political jargon, gauraksha and temple redevelopment overlap and take precedence. There’s a sense of constant fear, discontent and anguish throughout the plot, with certain sequences giving you the shudders. The abuse that Rani is subjected to at the hands of a local politician and the repercussions of that one incident overturns the narrative, hauling it from a place of hope to utter despair. But what remains with you long after the movie ends is the director’s approach and method to depict trauma on screen. In the case of Shahdab, his subdued character is more the outcome of a wounded past than anything else. Although Adah and Shahdab could barely communicate with each other in a common language, he opened up to her one evening about the horrors his family faced during the riots that followed the demolition of the Babri Masjid in the early 1990s.
Leading the two narratives, first-time actors Muzaffar and Megha put up hauntingly brilliant performances, with commendable depth and responsibility. While Shahdab had to pay the price for being an underprivileged Muslim artisan in the Hindi belt, Rani bears the brunt for defying gender norms and choosing an ‘undignified’ job to run her family. Utkarsh and Shweta Nagar (as Shazia) also add a compelling edge to the plot as supporting cast. Jhini Bini Chadariya is a complex and layered story, rife with a deeply political undertone. While weaving a gripping storyline showcasing the North Indian city’s plurality, the director doesn’t compromise on the intricacies that describe the perilous status of those living on the margins of society. The ancient city of Varanasi plays witness to the duality of love and hate, as the religious identity of those living there for ages manoeuvres their destiny for the worse. Watch Ritesh Sharma’s The Brittle Thread for its valiant portrayal of today’s India with utter honesty and precision.
Jhini Bini Chadariya
Writer and director: Ritesh Sharma
Actors: Megha Mathur, Muzaffar Khan, Sivan Spector, Syed Iqbal Ahmed, Roopa Chaurasiya, Nishant Kumar, Shweta Nagar, Ashutosh Singh, Utkarsh Srivastav and Heramba Shankar Tripathi
Presented by: Anurag Kashyap
Rating: 3½ stars
(This review was originally published on The Movie Mail’s Instagram page)