A Cup of Afternoon Caste
By Katie Mae Peters
Geeli Pucchi (Wet Kiss, Neeraj Ghaywan, 2021) is one of four films contained within the Ajeeb Daastaans (Strange Stories, Netflix, 2021) anthology. It follows a factory worker Bharti as she struggles against the way society relegates her due to her Dalit caste identity (the lowest social class in India’s caste system) and what happens when she finds a companion and potential lover in a new employee Priya who belongs to the Brahmin caste (the highest social class in India’s caste system). While the film packs an enormous amount of themes into its short narrative including motherhood, ageism, and sexuality; the most impactful theme it explores is that of caste oppression.
Neeraj Ghaywan, the director of the film, has become a director identified most by his fight against oppression and for an equal representation of the castes within the Indian film industry (Dalits have traditionally been discriminated against and denied any chance of job opportunities). Only after being recognized internationally as a critically acclaimed director by both Cannes and the Indian FilmFare Awards did Ghaywan decide to make a shocking revelation. His entire career he had been hiding a significant detail - he is a member of the Dalit caste (Das, 2021). By strategically waiting until he garnered success and power within the film industry, he now can and does require half of his staff to be of lower caste rankings. Despite his own confidence in his public identity as Dalit, he still recognizes the persistent stigma a lower caste attaches to a person when looking for opportunities. His solution? All of his job postings include disclaimers that the caste identity of people who apply will be kept private (Shantha, 2019).
In an interview discussing his film Geeli Pucchi, Ghaywan goes as far to call out “woke” studios who do offer limited jobs on films for lower caste. He ascertains that these equal opportunities should not simply be about extending an olive branch to create a more equal crew which meets a diversity quotas - it should be about actually wanting to hear the Dalit perspectives and give them the power to tell the story of caste discrimination from their own perspective. Ghaywan argues many of the current narratives on Dalit caste oppression come from higher caste members trying to imagine what that level of oppression would be like and retelling the narrative through their lens and caste level perspective. “Don’t come from a patronizing point of view that… I am going to come in and save you. That savior complex ought to go” (The Quint, 2021, 0:04:01). Ghaywan wants the prevailing savior complex narrative to end and the agency of the lower castes to be restored, not just in storytelling, but in Indian society.
He powerfully conveys this message in his final scene of Geeli Pucchi. With a simple tin cup the director conveys both the obvious betrayal Priya has committed by telling her family Bharti is of the Dalit caste and the larger acts of micro-aggression society participates in to reinforce a paradigm between the castes. In this scene, Priya’s family feels indebted to Bharti for utilizing her knowledge of fertility and midwifery to help their daughter in-law Priya get pregnant with their first grandchild - knowledge Bharti only learned because of her caste position. Despite this gratitude they still choose to make it known she is less than them via one simple tin cup. It is a common practice in Indian society where caste is enforced that if a Dalit visits, they should not use the proper porcelain dishes a higher caste family eats and drinks from. For this reason families keep a separate set of tin dishes they offer to Dalit members in place of the usual dishware. This scene depicts such a simple thing, the sharing of tea, yet when the mother-in-law takes the time to consciously bring out a tray of three porcelain and one tin cup - the stark visual contrast makes a statement stronger than any verbal insult.
This leads to the largest turning point of the film. In the moment of being denied a porcelain cup, Bharti decides to embrace her caste, embrace her agency, and seize her dream job from Priya. Her decision is called to attention by the score Ghaywan chooses at the moment the word “caste” is used by the mother-in-law. The moment goes from having no score to a strong, descending scale of piano notes as we watch Bharti’s eyes dart immediately to Priya with a look of fiery anger from this betrayal. Up until this point in the film, Bharti has been filling in for Priya at work while she has been away on maternity leave. When Bharti sees the tin cup placed in front of her and Priya does nothing about it, Bharti chooses to take back the job that should have been hers all along by telling Priya’s family that she should stay home to care for her new baby (at the beginning of the film Bharti is passed over for the position due to her caste position and Priya who has no experience is brought for the role due to her higher caste status).
Bharti choosing to seize the opportunity of this job back from Priya plays into Ghaywan’s stance that caste oppression cannot be eliminated by the higher class extending the opportunities. Oppression must be eliminated by restoring agency to people. At this moment of betrayal Bharti embraces her caste position as a midwife (and the ridiculousness that just being a part of a caste means a person is a specialist at something), the director expertly utilizes cross editing from Priya’s family home and Bharti’s Boss’ office the next day. As the film cuts between the two scenes, the boss repeats word for word Bharti’s advice she spoke to Priya’s family on why Priya would not come back to work. Even though the higher caste boss is technically offering the job to Bharti in Priya’s abdication, it is still Bharti’s agency screaming through him. If Priya had been the one to decide to stay home through her own choice and convince the boss to give her job full time to Bharti - it would have been just a repeated savior complex narrative which indirectly perpetuates the class distinction between the two women. The dangers of holding out hope that a Brahmin caste member will extend “grace” to help a Dalit ascend class oppression are displayed earlier in the film when Priya convinces the Boss to allow Bharti to fill in for her while she is away on maternity leave. Despite this olive branch earlier in the narrative, Ghaywan pulls back the curtain to show the real story from a Dalit perspective - even if these opportunities are handed out by a higher caste member, mico-agressions between caste members will still be acted out. For example, Priya’s guilt for not inviting Bharti to stay at her office birthday party put on by the higher caste members of the office are what led to her suggest Bharti fill in for her - not the drive to dismantle the caste system and throw labels aside. This is why Bharti’s agency had to be the force that secured the job for herself.
Ghaywan does some clever camerawork in these moments to showcase the rise of Bharti’s agency. The last three characters we see are Bharti, Priya, and their Boss. In this final sequence everyone, except for Bharti, is shot from a high angle (Priya’s is very slight; the Boss, not so subtle). This high angle symbolizes them transitioning into a more vulnerable, more weak, and slightly terrified position than Bharti. These shots symbolize a larger prevailing theme - those of a higher caste are afraid of what would happen if caste barriers are broken down… of the unknown. Bharti’s camera angle holds steady as a straight on shot. It shows her confidence, but not dominion over the other two characters. Again symbolizing Ghaywan’s larger societal push that the Dalit caste should be equal to everyone else. No one should be viewed as better than the other because of their class status.
In the final shot when Bharti drinks from the tin cup and looks straight at Priya, she is not just drinking tea and shooting daggers at a friend who betrayed her; she is taking communion in her identity of Dalit caste. When the cup touches her lips, she embraces her identity to the fullest and stares down the embodiment of the Brahmin class that sits across from her - daring it to keep her down.
Works Cited
[The Quint]. (2021, May 17). Cinema, Inclusivity, Representation: Neeraj Ghaywan & Ivan Ayr In Conversation [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8RotCzsD8U Das, P. (2021, April 23). How Filmmaker Neeraj Ghaywan Weaves Nuance into Marginalized Identities. The Juggernaut. Retrieved April 15, 2023, from
https://www.thejuggernaut.com/neeraj-ghaywan
Ghaywan, N. (Director). (2021). Ajeeb Daastaans (Geeli Pucchi) [Film]. Dharmatic Entertainment.
Shantha, S. (2019, September 13). Interview: Director Neeraj Ghaywan on Why His Job Call Seeks Bahujan Talent. The Wire. Retrieved April 15, 2023, from
https://thewire.in/caste/neeraj-ghaywan-interview-job-call-diversity-bollywood
