The Weight of Love: “Sir” and the delicate balance of an uneven romance
Rohena Gera’s Sir (2018) is a romance that challenges the societal taboos of class in India, and deftly explores the story of two individuals who break the barriers between them. With delicately-crafted moments, the film strips off our biases to ask “Is love enough?”
To talk about Sir, we must first talk about the stories that preceded it, at least in the national consciousness. Take Zoya Akhtar’s short in Netflix’s Lust Stories (2018), which opens with Ajit (Neil Bhoopalam) and Sudha (Bhumi Pednekar) entwined in passionate love making. It is not long before we realise that this is merely a momentary upending of the power dynamics between them. She is his maid, a perpetual outlier to his world. Though she is afforded occasional moments of transgression, there is a line she cannot cross—something underscored by her interactions with a fellow maid who rejoices on receiving discarded clothes by her employer. Ajit’s refusal to even acknowledge Sudha’s presence outside of the confines of the bedroom and the impenetrable class divide between them forces her to reluctantly accept her reality and move on, diminishing any possibility of the relationship blossoming into anything more.
If Akhtar makes us uncomfortable at the machinations of power as they operate in our hierarchical society, Amazon Prime’s gangster saga Mirzapur (2018) exposes it in all its nakedness. Stripped of agency, the domestic help in the Tripathi household, Radhiya (Prashansa Sharma), is expected to double up as a sex slave to two generations of debauched Tripathi men.
When seen in this cinematic context and the wider societal attitudes that engulf us, Rohena Gera’s Sir (initally released in the Cannes Film Festival in 2018 and began streaming on Netflix in January 2021) feels like the first splashes of rain on parched earth. It unfolds with a deceptive simplicity, but, with further unravelling, it brings viewers face to face with some of our deepest prejudices and innermost biases.
By imagining romantic possibilities between a wealthy man and his live-in maid, Sir sets itself up for a mammoth challenge: How does one make the relationship believable? How does one tackle the uneven power dynamics that weigh down such a bond?
By imagining romantic possibilities between a wealthy man and his live-in maid, Gera sets herself up for a mammoth challenge: How does one make the relationship believable? How does one tackle the uneven power dynamics that weigh down such a bond? The strength of Gera’s narrative comes from the treatment which at no point is overly dramatic, preachy, or hard-hitting. The film simmers slowly, drawing you into the world of its protagonists, making you question your inherent biases, and revisiting your ideas of love. It’s the kind of film that lingers in your mind way beyond the end credits.
Sir is the story of Ratna (Tillotama Shome) and Ashwin (Vivek Gomber), two people who inhabit opposite ends of the social spectrum. She is from a nondescript village in Maharashtra, he has recently moved to Mumbai from New York. She is brimming with raw energy, he exudes restraint calm. She speaks in Marathi while he converses in English, slipping into Hindi only occasionally. He watches English films, she watches daily soaps. He plays squash, frequents pubs to unwind while her idea of relaxation involves chatting away with a fellow maid on the terrace. Above all, it is her job to ensure that he is taken care of. He is her employer, her ‘sir’.
Differences abound, but there is a common thread that binds them both: they are both outsiders to the world they inhabit. While Ratna dreams of becoming a fashion designer, Ashwin struggles to embrace the life charted out for him. Unable to fit into the expected norm, he is alienated from his real self.
The core of Sir explores what happens next, when these two individuals—separated by a schism—begin to break the barriers between them. In a way, this is as much a film about spaces and situations as it is about characters. Would things have transpired the same way if Ratna didn’t live in the same apartment as Ashwin? What if Ashwin’s wedding was not called off? Our cultural conditioning and rigid class boundaries propel us towards these questions, as Gera delicately brings Ashwin and Ratna closer together.
Early in the film, we see Ratna dutifully tending for Ashwin: she cooks mutton for him despite being a vegetarian herself, covers him with a blanket in the middle of the night, and withdraws when she sees him flustered. But slowly, she becomes his confidante in the way only she can be. She saves him for pestering phone calls, sternly refuses to believe gossip about him, and even offers to keep his wedding gifts in her cramped room so that he doesn’t get upset. She understands him just as far as he wants to be understood. She has no romantic inclinations towards him; she just is efficient and devoted in a way few people can be.
This is to the credit of Gera who has infused Ratna with a very strong sense of dignity. Here is a girl, widowed at the age of nineteen, now in control of her life, after having broken the shackles of a society that expect her to be morose for no fault of her own. She refuses to be held back by geographical impediments and makes her way to Mumbai, all while fiercely guarding her dream of becoming a designer. In a beautifully performed scene in the film, she lays bare her past to a melancholic Ashwin, confidently exclaiming, “Life khatam nahi hoti hai, Sir”, nudging him to move forward in life.
It is this moment that changes something between them. Her strong sense of self and unwavering sense of dignity suddenly makes him see her differently. It is still not love, but perhaps the first step towards breaking deeply-entrenched social barriers. There are no dramatic twists or narrative excesses, but there is a lingering believability in the film, as the everyday rituals of domesticity no longer feel mundane for the two leads, and instead, become catalysts in steering them closer together. Slowly he submits to her, albeit in an unconventional manner. She, on the other hand, ameliorates his suffering by putting together broken pieces of his heart.
Conscious of the territory she is delving into, Gera is careful to not immerse Ratna and Ashwin in a whirlwind romance. Instead, their bond strengthens slowly, as he starts to see her as something more than a peripheral presence. There is a metaphorical snapping of the line between them. They slip into a language of ease and comfort unique to them and them alone: she stitches him a shirt, he wears it despite it being ‘different’. They lean on to each other’s tearful moments and share their sorrows and heartaches. Dependence makes way for familiarity, which further metamorphoses into friendship and companionable silence. They facilitate each other’s spiritual growth by small acts of kindness.
She asks him about his life in New York and nudges him to write more, almost assuring that she believes in him as he would like to believe in himself. She tells him stuff no one else tells him and makes him feel valued for who he is. She helps him overcome self-estrangement and makes him more self-actualised. Ashwin, in turn, begins to respect Ratna in her uniqueness, overlooking the difference of employee-employer that almost defines their existence together. She becomes his escape. He is a writer after all, an artist, and she has helped him reconnect with his inner self. How can he still be mired in stringent class barriers? He becomes vulnerable and grows impatient to break away from the stifling paradigm of cultural necessities.
There is a metaphorical snapping of the line between them. They slip into a language of ease and comfort. She stitches him a shirt, he wears it despite it being ‘different’. Dependence makes way for familiarity, which further metamorphoses into friendship and companionable silence.
It is interesting to see this subversion of their power equations. Once Ashwin realizes he loves Ratna, he is desperate to make it work with her. He asks her if she would like to go out with him, leaving the space (his home) that accords them the status of a master and maid. She, however, exercises restraint and reminds him of the chasm that lies between them. She is cognizant of the social complexities of love and doesn’t want to be reduced to a joke, sacrificing her dreams above everything else. What would she be without her dreams?
The viewer’s heart, however, aches for Ashwin. Mine did. Beneath the affluence and abundance lies intense lack and longing. He inhabits a transactional world marked by a dearth of real connections. And when something worth preserving comes his way, he is denied even that. His exhaustion and frustrations have a moving impact, because this type of urban loneliness is felt and shared by so many of us. We have all been there at some point in our lives. How would you react if a single meaningful connection you accidentally stumbled upon is also snatched away from you?
In choosing Ratna, Ashwin has broken Indian societal ‘rules’ and crossed into forbidden territory. He has “tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved and how. And how much”. It is another brilliant performance by Vivek Gomber—a standout performer from Court (2014)—disarmingly natural, vacillating between placidity and restlessness with effortless ease. It feels as if he savours the quiet, thoughtful beats of the film without putting a wrong foot forward.
As Ratna, Tillotama Shome is the pivot of the film. Her diligent authenticity is stunning. She gets into the skin of her character and comes out with flying colours. She has mastered Ratna’s gait and perfected her mannerisms and body language. At no point does she come across as coquettish despite knowing Ashwin’s change of heart. She continues her work with the same efficiency and nimbleness, exuding confidence in every movement. Together they make for a charmed presence on screen, matching the film’s gentle tones with their postures and expressions. Equally sparkling is Geetanjali Kulkarni as Ratna’s friend and fellow maid, who packs a punch in the few scenes where she is featured.
Sir is richly observed and beautifully handled by Gera, who comes across as deeply perceptive of the world she grew up in. In telling the story of Ashwin and Ratna, the director narrates a tale of rare human connection, and is also invested in exposing the shortcomings of our culture to make a case for the need of a tectonic shift towards love. Sir is not only a woefully accurate kaleidoscope of India, but also a critical commentary on the nature of love, a vulnerable look at the most sought-after and least-examined emotion.
The film’s subtitle asks Is Love Enough, and along the journey, Gera makes illuminating commentary on the abstract idea of love itself, striking at both mind and the heart. The strength of the film lies in its ability to make one pause, reflect and question our biases, to marvel at its delicately crafted moments, and its audacity to interrogate the impediments that lie in the way of truly redemptive love. It may seem idealistic to some, but that is because we are conditioned to be cynics. Sir is an unmissable drama which challenges that cynic lurking within. It makes the believer savour in its gentlest moments, one mouthful at a time.
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Harshita Murarka is a freelance writer and researcher based in Delhi. You can find her on Instagram: @nectar_in_a_sieve and Twitter: @HarshitaMurarka.
