by Subhash K Jha

Suddenly all the Bhadra-Lok of Kolkata and a prominent chunk of the film fraternity in Mumbai are up in arms against Rituparno Ghosh.

"A section of Bengalis think my Antar Mahal is pornographic. They fail to understand why I've gone into explicit love-making scenes....But hello hello???!! What they see as graphic love-making is nothing but the ritual of clinical sex between an uncaring husband and an unresponsive frightened wife."

"The so-called pornography is as titillating in my film as child abuse or wife-beating. The act of love-making within the feudal ambience of Antar Mahal is symptomatic of female repression. Of course the love-making scenes are clumsy. They're meant to be. Because they're not about love but insensitive male lust."

The literate sections of Bengal and Assam haven't perceived Ritu's elegiac erotica in the spirit that he wanted.

A middle-aged avant-garde filmmaker from Mumbai is outraged by the libidinous liberties with literature in Antar Mahal.

"It's a shockingly bad script from short story by a revered master-writer Tarashankar Bandhopadhyay... And Ritu shows extreme arrogance by crediting the source material as, 'Narrative Core'. How could he ignore, insult and twist a great classicist's work in such a dismissive and irreverent manner??? I've nothing personally against Ritu. I loved his Raincoat, Chokher Bali and earlier works. But critics should stop building Davids into Goliaths."

Harsh words. But Ritu is unfazed. "I knew I was going to face brickbats for Antar Mahal. It is a sexually explicit subject. Every time a film goes into forbidden areas of the human psyche the filmmaker gets brickbats."

"When Aparna Sen showed the housewife in Paroma being unrepentant about her extra-marital affair, Bengal frowned hard. But we've to learn to accept change in the audience and in filmmakers."

Ritu admits directing Soha in the explicit love scenes was very difficult. "Soha's co-star Jackie Shroff was also very very embarrassed. She is, after all, like his daughter. When Soha's mom Sharmila heard about the nature of the scenes, she told me to take good care of her baby. She calls me Mama (uncle). I knew what had to be done, and how."

Ritu acted out the love scenes for the frightened and embarrassed Soha. "We filmed them all at one go from morning till lunch break...got them all out of the way like dental problems all dealt in one go."

The other charge against Ritu is that he has grossly under-used Abhishek Bachchan in what's at the most a glorified cameo.

"I agree. Abhishek's role is brief in terms of playing time. But its impact is tremendous. I think everyone –Abhishek, Soha, Jackie and Roopa Ganguly—has performed very well. But Roopa has got the most appreciation. That's because her role is so sympathetic. In our country critics and audiences tend to confuse the character with the performance."

Ritu says he's happy with the response to Antar Mahal. "The critical response has been mixed. But I expected that. Every time a filmmaker pushes the envelope he's likely to be pushed into it."