Centuries ago, the humble weaver, mystic and poet Kabir, who once lived in the lanes of Kashi, wrote a profound poem titled ‘Jheeni Jheeni Beeni Chadariya’. His verse is a metaphorical and philosophical expression that uses the metaphor of the loom and weaving process to reveal the mysteries of life. The title also inspired Abdul Bismillah’s Hindi novel ‘Jheeni Jheeni Beeni Chadariya’ on the lives of weavers in Varanasi, much like filmmaker Ritesh Sharma, who borrows it for his film, ‘Jhini Bini Chadariya’, to explore the lesser-talked-about character of the holy city — Kabir’s Kashi where Muslim weavers run the looms and produce some of the world’s finest silk saris worn mostly by Hindu women, and also its once flourishing and now fading into oblivion courtesan culture. 

These two quintessential characters of Kashi come to life as Shahdab, the young Muslim weaver facing an existential crisis, and Rani, the orchestra dancer who gyrates and grooves to vulgar songs in the glare of myriad-coloured light beams, entertaining the lustful local audience with her sleazy moves. The filmmaker uses them as the access point to delve deeper into the city’s socio-political, socio-cultural and socio-religious fabric and lays it threadbare. The motif here is the same as that was seen in ‘Nasir’, ‘Aani Maani’, etc, and Ritesh joins other independent voices in filmmaking who aren’t shying away from exploring centuries-old traditions of India that champion humanism, inclusion, syncretism, and how all these ideals are being swiftly eroded under the strong winds of Hindutva.   

A traditional handloom weaver, Shahdab, lives in the silk-weaving neighbourhood of Pili Kothi, and the clackety-clack sounds from the looms fill the air in his room but not loud enough to drown the threat of being wiped off sometime soon. The fear looms large over him because his art is helpless before the modern power looms that can produce silk saris cheaper and faster. The shot through the open door also gives us a glimpse of the sari-clad mannequin, his constant companion. On the other hand, Rani fends for herself and her deaf and mute daughter, Pinky, with earnings from a not-so-respectable trade. She dreams of sending her daughter away to a boarding school one day so that the poor child doesn’t have to live with her classmates’ taunts of being a dancer’s daughter. Rani has stars in her eyes and hopes to make it big with a much-awaited debut in a music video and, from there, move on to act in films one day.   

The filmmaker uses symmetry in characterisation and plot to show the parallels in the lives of its male and female actors, perhaps to reiterate the more resounding theme of communal bigotry and show how they end up being the victim of circumstances, eventually falling prey to it, in one way or the other, for no fault of theirs. It starts with parallels between Hindu prayer chants and a mosque’s Muslim prayer call, interspersed on the screen. The constant blaring of hate speeches on loudspeakers and the airing of news on radio and television in the background gives the film a documentary feel.     

While Shahdab befriends an Israeli backpacker, Adah, Rani deals with the romantic overtures of a young man, Baba, who has no agency to change things for good for her object of affection. Still, he harbours a deep intent to do so and quite hopelessly nurtures dreams of a good life and helplessly sees it blown to smithereens.  

Shahdab’s one-sided love remains unrequited as Adah puts him in the friend zone, nothing more, nothing less. Rani disapproves of the man’s possessiveness and shows complete disdain for his heroism in trying to protect her honour at the hands of vulturous men who treat her like a piece of meat, wanting to devour her at the first given opportunity, all because she treats herself as no-man’s business. 

Shahdab weaves a sari to gift Adah, and she, in return, leaves unannounced with a book on Kabir for him as a parting gift. Rani’s paramour Baba gifts her a sari, too, but she throws it away on his face in a fit of rage, and from there, things go downhill for her. 

Shahdab goes on to marry her Shazia, while Rani dilly-dallies on the Baba’s proposal before being brutalised by the henchmen of the local Hindu politico, Shiv Shankar Tiwary. An irate Baba avenges Rani’s ill-treatment at his hands, realising little that his ire will stoke the communal fire in the holy city. The two men, Baba on his bike and Shahdab on his scooter brush past each other for a fleeting moment on a well-lit bridge, perhaps in an ominous suggestion that the peace and harmony will soon be up in flames. 

Two threads — Rani and Shahdab’s lives — are intertwined when the riots break out in the city, and that’s how the filmmaker explores the third, invisible character — the city — adeptly exposing the tectonic changes under religious fanaticism. After Shankar’s killing, the cow vigilante breaks loose, blaming the Muslim beef traders in the city for Gaurakshak’s murder. The news spreads like wildfire and consumes the peace and brotherhood of the locality. It leaves Shahdab’s family dead at the hands of rioters, much like the communal riots that broke after the demolition of Babri Mosque on the night of December 6, 1992, and his parents who were killed in its aftermath. Baba, too, is killed in a police encounter after being hunted down for shooting the Hindu leader and, in death, is called Mustafa, which pretty much explains the story in a nutshell.  

One of the most telling scenes unfolds amidst the resonant chants and the echo of bells. Once a dynamic hub of diverse languages, faiths, and profound knowledge, the vibrant city echoed with loud slogans and ritualistic fervour. The air was filled with the booming beats of dumroos, fervent cries of “Har Har Mahadev” mingling with “Jai Shri Ram,” the showering of petals, and an elaborate display of ceremonial worship, and the city fitting in the oversized idea of aggressive Hindutva. 

The camera becomes a silent spectator, standing still and documenting their lives, ways and means of living with acute detachment, offering the audience a voyeuristic glimpse on a few occasions. The cinematic framing of windows, doors and the windows above the doors in the characters’ homes, or the movement of two-wheelers in the city’s lanes and bylanes with the camera positioned at the fag end, or shots of religious processions, are spread liberally all throughout, from beginning to end, to show the camera’s distant approach in filming, and showing the changing face of the city, and not the usual touristy stuff.    

The actors owned their roles with ease as if they were one amongst the many Ranis or Shahdabs that inhabit the ancient city of Kashi. Their dialogue delivery, body language, mannerisms, and looks seemed a seamless blend and a perfect reflection of the milieu painstakingly portrayed in the film.   

The sound design combines every piece of audio in the film—including dialogues, sound effects, ambience, and score—to create the film’s soundscape quite effectively. It suitably adds to give the film a docu-drama touch. 

Much like the poem, where Kabir uses the weaving process as a symbolic representation of life and its mysteries, comparing the fine, delicate cloth to the subtle and intricate nature of existence, with the act of weaving serving as a metaphor for the divine process of creation and the unfolding of life, the filmmaker uses the loom to represent the current political order, and each thread in the fabric signifies an individual’s life. The interconnectedness of the threads illustrates the interdependence of all life forms. The cloth being woven here by the filmmaker symbolizes the intricate tapestry of the prevailing situation in the country. 

The disclaimer at the beginning, “some of the events and situations in this film are not fictional”, sets the tone, and in 1 hour 37 minutes, Ritesh portrays all of it with sensitivity, honesty, tenderness and aloofness. The film seems like a leaf out of everyday India, documented by a young filmmaker who manages to weave the fabric with a keen eye on the prevailing situations, leaving us visibly rattled and shaken. We, the audience, are like Pinky, who takes up dancing and is framed from an open window in the last shot, complicit, complacent and conformists in the changing landscape of secular India. It is a brittle thread, and we need to protect it now more than ever.

एक ही दीवाने को आये थे समझाने कई
पहले दीवाना मैं था अब हैं दीवाने कई
एक ही पत्थर लगे है हर इबादतगाह पर
अपने-अपने बुत का सबने गढ़ लिए अफसाने कई
~ नज़ीर बनारसी के लिखी ये पंक्तियां जो इस फ़िल्म में इस्तेमाल हुई हैं

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Written and Directed by Ritesh Sharma
Cast​:​ 
Megha Mathur…Rani
Muzaffar Khan…Shahdab
Sivan Spector…Adah 
Syed Iqbal Ahmed…Abbu
Roopa Chaurasiya…Pinky
Nishant Kumar…Nadeem
Shweta Nagar…Shazia
Ashutosh Singh…Shiv Shankar Tiwari
Utkarsh Srivastav…Baba
Heramba Shankar Tripathi…Faisal

More here: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15624918/fullcredits

(All photos sourced from IMDb)