The Journey of Self-Discovery and Redemption: Masaan, A Saga of Liberated Souls
https://doi.org /10.5281/zen od o.14980214
Author(s): Dr. Simrann R Vermaa
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14980214
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The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 16, Issue-I, February 2025 ISSN: 0976-8165
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https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
The Journey of Self-Discovery and Redemption: Masaan, A Saga of Liberated
Souls
Dr. Simrann R Vermaa
Assistant Professor in English,
Gurukul Mahila Mahavidalaya, Raipur,
Chhattisgarh, India.
Article History: Submitted‐07/01/2025, Revised‐19/01/2025, Accepted‐03/02/2025, Published‐28/02/2025.
Abstract:
The Ganga, at Varanasi – the city of ghats, as believed in Hinduism is said to purify the
soul of its sins and karmas after the body is cremated here on its holy banks, making the path of
the soul easier to travel towards heaven, is one of the main character in Masaan, Hindi movie
directed by Neeraj Ghaywan (India), who won the Best Director award at the SAARC Film
Festival 2016. It portrays the tale of two lives in despair and in hope, looking forward to break
the shackles of life, traditions, caste, religion and inequality.
The longing to break free and live as a liberated soul is every man’s wish, whether he is
from a rural or an urban background. We crave for worldly desires and are caught in the web of
maya or illusion which gives momentary pleasure but results in lifelong scars and pains. It is
time to make new bonds and new religions where there are no discriminations of colour, caste,
creed, sex and the only criterion should be that we are all one soul awaiting our turn in the cycle
of life and death to unite with the Supreme Power and attain eternal happiness.
Masaan or shmashaan means a crematorium, a place where dead bodies are cremated.
The body is sent back to the Creator to be moulded again into a new form for the soul to continue
in its journey of life, till it is liberated and attains moksha. This is so rightly indicated at the end
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The Journey of Self-Discovery and Redemption: Masaan, A Saga of Liberated Souls
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of the movie ‘Masaan’ – where a boatman beckons offering Devi Pathak (Richa Chadda) and
Deepak Chaudhary (Vicky Kaushal) a ride towards Sangam, the sacred point of confluence
which is said to wash away all of one’s sins and free one from the cycle of rebirth.
Keywords: The Ganga, Varanasi ghats, crematorium, inequality, sufferings, Sangam,
moksha.
Mann Kasturi Re… jag dasturi….this song of the movie Masaan is its soul , as it holds in it the
entire plot just so perfectly. It feels so real and exceptional when we take in the literal meaning
of the lyrics of the song; the heart is like the Kasturi, that doesn’t get closure. The mind is like
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the musk, which is a metaphor comparing the human to the musk deer, which goes mad;
searching for the scent of musk around it, not realizing that the essence comes from within itself.
It aptly implies to every human life, for we seek happiness by chasing it externally, but tend to
forget that happiness, its essence lies within each and every individual.
When we have a film like Masaan with a heart, then obviously its soundtrack is music
with a soul. The Indian Ocean band gives its trademark music along with the background score
and music composed by Bruno Coulais. To add to it we have the soul stirring lyrics written by
the screenplay writer himself, Varun Grover.
The music of Masaan is so much like the city it is set in, Banaras, the spiritual center, the
songs and music become nostalgic and meditative, having intricate layers and a connection so
evidently personal and overpowering that one can perceive the intermingling of the profound
with simple and life with death. The movie has three songs which are so much a part of the
script and one of the songs is based on the work of the Hindi poet Dushyant Kumar Tyagi.
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Himanshu Joshi, Nhikil Rao, Rajul Ram, Amit Kilam and Tuheen Chakravorty of Indian Ocean.
The movie Masaan has a spiritual aspect to it. Neeraj Ghaywan’s directorial debut
Masaan gets its title from the character Deepak Kumar (Vicky Kaushal) who is from the Dom
community or Masaanis, as they are generally referred to in North India. Masaan is derived from
the Sanskrit word Shmashaa, Shamshaan in Hindi, which means a crematorium, a burning ghat.
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Masaan has Varanasi (Benares) built into its story as one of its main characters and is a story
about releasing the soul and set it free. Neeraj quit his successful career in marketing in 2012 to
pursue filmmaking under the tutelage of director, Anurag Kashyap.
Debutant Director – Neeraj Ghaywan
Screenplay writer & Lyricist – Varun Grover
Cinematographer – Avinash Arun
Editor – Nitin Biad
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A Celebration of Life, Death and Everything in Between – is the sub-title of Masaan,
and Fly Away Solo is its English title. The crew did the entire shooting of the movie in Banaras
and they stayed away from temples and its rituals and sadhus, instead focused on the human
story. Neeraj Ghaywan says that his film is about escape, of the characters of a modern small
town in India, which is restless and wants to break free from its shackles of convention, moral
and existential crisis and the rigid socio-cultural structure.
A joint venture between Manish Mundra (Dhrishyam Films), Macassar Productions,
Sikhya Entertainment and Phantom Films, Masaan premiered at The Cannes and bagged two
awards – the Promising Future Prize (Un Certain Regard Avenir Prize) and the International
Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) Awards at the prestigious 68th Cannes International Film
Festival in 2015. It was also showcased in the Un Certain Regard section at the movie gala and
received a five-minute standing ovation post its screening.
At the SAARC Film Festival at Sri Lanka in 2016, Neeraj Ghaywan won the Best
Feature Film Trophy for Best Director for Masaan.
Neeraj Ghaywan says that Masaan appealed to the Cannes audience because,
“It was honest to the characters and true to the world we were writing about. Of
course we needed film festival buzz because this is not a commercial film – but we figured we
would work hard and leave everything else to the universe.”
At the World Soundtrack Awards in 2015, Film Composer of the Year Nominations went
to Bruno Coulais for Masaan.
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Back home in India, Masaan picked up a handful of awards, the top most being the
National Films Award (Golden Lotus Award) – the Indira Gandhi Award for Best Debut
Film of A Director, was handed over to Neeraj Ghaywan. The other awards included :
Filmfare Award for Best Debut Director 2016 – Neeraj Ghaywan
Zee Cine Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role 2016 – Sanjay Mishra
Zee Cine Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role 2016 – Shweta Tripathi
Zee Cine Award for Best Male Debut 2016 – Vicky Kaushal
Zee Cine Award for Most Promising Director 2016 – Neeraj Ghaywan
Zee Cine Award for Best Editing 2016 – Nitin Baid
Screen Award for Best Male Debut 2016 – Vicky Kaushal
Screen Award for Most Promising Debut Director 2016 – Neeraj Ghaywan
Guild Award for Best Debut Director 2016 – Neeraj Ghaywan
Stardust Award for Best Screenplay 2015 – Varun Grover
Stardust Award for Performer of the Year (Female) –
Editor’s Choice 2015 – Richa Chadda
Asian Film Awards 2016 – Best Newcomer Nominations – Vicky Kaushal
Cannes Film Festival 2015 – Golden Camera Award Nominations – Neeraj Ghaywan
Cannes Film Festival 2015 – Un Certain Regard Award Nominations – Neeraj Ghaywan
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Masaan team at the Cannes Film Festival after bagging two Awards
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Standing Ovation for Masaan at the Un Certain Regard section at the movie gala at Cannes Film
Festival 2015
After winning the National Award, both Neeraj Ghaywan and Varun Grover decided to
donate 50,000 each their cash prize towards relief work for farmers. Though a small amount,
they wanted to make it public so as to draw attention to the agrarian crisis and to encourage
possible contributions.
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The strength of Masaan lies in its characters. One of the main characters of the movie is
the place where it is set, Varanasi one of the oldest cities in the world; deriving its name from the
two rivers that flank the city, the Varana to the north and the Asi to the south. This spiritual
capital of India gives a spiritual experience, as by immersing oneself in the sacred river The
Ganga, will cleanse one of their sufferings and wash away their sins.
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Varanasi is the holiest of the seven sacred cities in Hinduism and Jainism, and played an
important role in the development of Buddhism. Hindus believe that death at Varanasi brings
salvation. It is also known as ‘Maha-smashana’ or ‘The Great Cremation Grounds’, where the
most inevitable cycle of life and death is celebrated and revered, thus bringing one face to face
with the balance of life and death. It is also known as Banaras, Kashi – “The City of Light” or
“The Luminous One”. Light in Hindu philosophy has great meaning for it exemplifies the
wisdom that destroys the darkness of ignorance. Sin and evil are understood to be the acts of
ignorance. The washing away of one’s sin and attaining immortality will come through wisdom
and understanding. To die in the city beside the river of life is to die with a promise of
redemption, a promise to be liberated from the endless cycle of life and death and reincarnation
and to gain moksha or eternal absolution. So for centuries thousands of people have come to
Banaras to die and thousands have brought the ashes of the dead here to immerse them in the
holy waters.
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Intertwined and connected to The Ganga and Varanasi, are the lives of the other four
major characters of Masaan and the three parallel stories about them. The movies opens with the
story of Devi Pathak (Richa Chadda) who gets trapped in a police case after a curiosity led
sexual encounter turns tragic. The second story is about Deepak (Vicky Kaushal) who is from a
lower caste of the Dom community, who falls for Shaalu (Shweta Tripathi), a girl from a higher
caste. The third story is about a morally degrading Vidhyadhar Pathak (Sanjay Mishra), who is
Devi’s father, his relation with an orphan kid Jhonta (Nikhil Sahni) around a betting game, where
people would bet on little boys diving in the river to get the most number of coins.
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The female protagonist Devi portrays as a very strong woman who knows her mind and
what she wants from life. Though from a lower middle class from a small town, she has big
dreams and wants to be independent. She has good knowledge about computers and at the same
time is very caring and emotionally attached to her father Vidhyadhar Pathak, played by Sanjay
Mishra, who has brought her up single handedly after her mother’s death when she was young.
Devi’s relationship with her father could well be one of the most poignant relationships ever
captured on screen. Vidhyadhar plays a retired Sanskrit professor, who now sells trinkets on one
of Varanasi’s many ghats. Their relationship is not expressed with affection, not even with a
complete understanding of one another, but an eventual acceptance of what the other person is
and respecting their differences. As he battles to save family honour, his moralities are dwindling
too, which we see in the way he places bets on his little assistant Jhonta, a boy of six or seven,
who takes part in diving competitions where they excavate coins from the depths of the Ganges.
Though reluctant initially, he becomes very serious and starts betting big amounts but when
Jhonta literally drowns during one of the diving sessions, it opens the eyes of Vidhyadhar and he
realizes about his shameful behavior. Fate comes to him and completes the circle. Jhonta gives
him the gold finger-ring he had grabbed in his last diving session, which was of Shaalu and
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Deepak had thrown it in the Ganga with anger, hurt when he had retrieved the ring from the
ashes after her body was cremated.
Devi is bold enough to explore her sexual desires to satiate her curiosity but when things
go wrong and the boy, Piyush with whom she is caught in the act ends up committing suicide,
she is very clear about the fact that she is not the one responsible for his suicide, but his guilt
itself made him end his life. She has feelings for Piyush and had liked him, which was more than
just the initial physical attraction. After his death she goes to meet his parents to offer her
condolences only to be hit and humiliated by Piyush’s father. This was the breaking point for
Devi, when she lets go off the unopened gift given by Piyush before their secret rendezvous.
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The dialogues written by screenplay writer Varun Grover belong effortlessly to the
everyday as much as the powerfully portrayed ordinariness of the characters.
When Devi gets a job at the Railway station at the ticket counter, she does her work very
efficiently. Her colleague Sadhya ji, played by Pankaj Tripathi turns out to be a very interesting
character and his dialogues are bound to stay with the audience for a long time to come. They are
so philosophical and thought-provoking, it makes one wonder in awe about the stark reality of life.
yaha 28 traine rukti hai..
aur kitni nahi rukti.. 64..
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matlab yaha aana aasan hai..
yaha se jaana mushkil..
At Varanasi Railway 28 trains halt whereas 64 trains that cross through it don’t halt.
Sadhya ji says that, how easy it is to get there but so hard to leave.
So very true about life, everyone is so afraid to die; they all want to live, though it may
not be the kind of life they had wished for. It is so easy to come here, but so difficult to leave,
with all the clinging, longing, attachments and desires. It is not just about the weakness and
shackles that the society imposes on us, but the mindset and will to choose; either surrender to
these setbacks, fight against them or simply hold back with an open mind.
The second protagonist is Deepak Choudhary (played brilliantly by Vicky Kaushal) is set
on the famous Harishchandra Ghat of Banaras. He is the son of a dom (the community of the
most untouchable people who cremate the dead) who wants to escape from the shackles of being
born in such a community that limits him. He is studying engineering and has big dreams for his
future. Shaalu Gupta (played by newcomer Shweta Tripathi) is the naïve, innocent character,
portraying a completely believable small town girl, who is hopelessly romantic and lives in a
world of Hindi- Urdu poetry. She has the innocence that comes to someone who has never been
exposed to the seamier side of life. Deepak is antithetical to Shaalu’s creative and intellectual
personality. He has never heard of Nida Fazli, Bashir Badr and is far away from poetry and sher-
o-shayari.
We get to see a very pure and romantic love between Deepak and Shaalu sketching a
picture of simplicity, awkwardness and candor that only a small town romance can have. They
meet by chance and fall in love at first sight, which blossoms into a full-fledged commitment.
Their love was about caste and religion; ready to go against their families and the world.
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The love for literature and poetry in Masaan is Varun Grover’s love for Hindi and Urdu
literature that he has poured out in the film through Shaalu, whose character is inspired by Hindi
writer Vinod Kumar Shukla. Shaalu is shown to be a big fan of poetry. Varun Grover says, “She
read the poets I love. It gave us the opportunity to be realistic,” citing renowned writers Brij
Narayan Chakbast, Akbar Allahabadi and Bashir Badr. Director Neeraj Ghaywan adds, “I got
very interested when Grover spoke of how in our own country, our literature is not valued.”
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“Chiraagon ko aankhon mein mehfooz rakhna
Badi door tak raat hi raat hogi…..
Musafir hain hum bhi musafir ho tum bhi
Kisi mod par phir mulaqaat hogi…..” – Bashir Badr
This couplet by Bashir Badr which Shaalu quotes somehow reveals how her love story
with Deepak is going to end. Grover choosing this quote over others is so apt, which means –
“Keep the desires burning inside you, as it would be really tough for a long while. Me, you are
both mere wanderers, but still I believe we’ll meet someday, somewhere.”
This was precisely the way rendered in Masaan, Shaalu drifted and Deepak eventually
moved on after grieving over her, but with a hope that someday, maybe at some different place,
and maybe in some other person, they will meet again. The power that a simple poetry holds, and
the way the writing was executed is simply sublime.
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The cinematography by Avinash Arun Dhaware is par excellence; it is as evocative as the
film’s tortured soul. The plight of Deepak and his mental agony is so entrancingly captured that
any emotional soul is bound to shed tears. Deepak comes to realize that the body he is about to
cremate is that of Shaalu, who had a terrible accident in the bus in which her whole family was
travelling on a religious trip and he recognizes her body from her finger-ring about which they
have had a conversation. He is devastated and shell-shocked. They were about to embark on their
marital relationship once she was back from the religious journey and here she was lying dead,
ready to be cremated. Deepak after being in shock for a few days breaks down on the banks of
the river Ganga where he is drinking with his close friends, who were a part in making the love
grow between him and Shaalu. He is inconsolable just like the flowing river. He asks the most
unanswerable question to his friends, his body crumbling in pain :
Will this unending suffering ever end?
There is no answer to this question; it is a question that desires solace, not truth.
This dialogue is not an extraordinary one, but the way it is treated by the character and the
cinematographer can’t be expressed in words. That gives the film its beauty, its simplicity.
” Saala ye dukh kahe khatam nahi hota hai be ? ”
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Zindagi kya hai anasir mein zahur-e tarteeb,
Maut kya hai ini ajza ka pareshan hona – Brij Narayan Chakbast
(“Life, When elements become ordered, that’s all
Death, But a moment when into chaos they fall”)
Devi lets go off a part of her life and is ready to move ahead. She doesn’t let the past hold
her back but mourns for her lover and cries her heart out at the Sangam, where she offers the
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unopened gift to the river Ganga; signifying that both she and Piyush have been cleansed and
now she is free of her past baggage to embark on a new journey.
This is the law of nature, nothing remains constant, change is inevitable and one has to
move ahead in life and not keep on clinging to the past.
Masaan concludes with both Devi and Deepak finding some semblance of life, on
moving away to another city to pursue their dreams. But the river Ganga stays with them as it
changes course, so does their course of life changes. They were bound to meet as it was written
in their stars as much as in the holy waters of Varanasi. The existential turn in Masaan makes
one contemplate about the questions at the heart of life : How does one live after passing through
a trauma? How can one confront the everyday routine of life in the midst of loss? The crux here
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is – “Acceptance” one needs to accept as it is and live in the present moment and not hold on to
the past or be rosy-eyed about the future.
One needs to let go off things to move on. It could be anything – feelings, people, and
aspirations, these hold us back in life. Hate is a baggage and so can love also be, maybe
sometimes. Let it all go. Let the heart get its closure, let it go to the final step in the grieving
process, for nature is bound to complete the circle.
Ultimately we find that the characters have broken the shackles of life and reconciled
with their fate to move towards the future with renewed hope. The future might me uncertain;
nevertheless it provides redemption to their souls thereby mending the broken hearts.
Masaan is not just a movie but a journey that takes you to a place you cannot completely
return from.
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Baat hui naa puri re……
Works Cited:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaan
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varanasi
3. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4635372/awards
4. http://www.waterandmegacities.org/the-burning-ghats-of-varanasi-uttar-pradesh-3/
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_(band)
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