Of sari and memory

Arthouse director Pooja Kaul brings her sharp eye for urban Indian life and keen interest in the elusiveness of memory to one of India's quintessential symbols in Sundar Sari, which was screened in the capital recently. In this interview, she spoke about her creative process and her perception of the sari. Excerpts from an interview

Q. When Border & Fall commissioned a film on the sari, what were your thoughts on how to approach the topic? I wanted to look at it as something so innocuously present everywhere, part of the furniture of our lives, and yet laden with symbol and memory.

Q. What does the sari symbolise for you? I have a sense of standing leaning back against my mother as a child, the gauzy feel of her sari behind me, a pillar of strength to face the world from, but a soft pillar. The sari makes me feel part of a continuum, a long chain of women.

Q. In a sense, all your films are about memory. What did you seek to evoke in this one?

I've been fascinated by women of my mother's generation, are very strong women. I wondered what lay behind their composed exterior, the bindi and neat bun. The film is perhaps an attempt to unravel that.

Q. How does that translate on to the screen?

The protagonist in the film is a woman of 60 who has lived her life, has had experiences and has rich memories. The sari is a protagonist, and also not, it is a witness to our experience, accompanying us as a friend does, or a fellow traveller.

Q. Your films have very little dialogue.

We use the medium to go to places beyond the word, even beyond the image, to reach undefined areas within people and to suggest that the most important aspects of human experience might be moments not reducible to words or images. I really believe film can go further, and can allow us to go deeper.