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A gem from Merchant-Ivory

Rohit Chopra

The Malabar Coast, India, 1954. In the middle of the elysian tropical setting of a small town, a pregnant Englishwoman on the verge of delivery is rushed to hospital. Her husband is away. She gives birth to the baby prematurely.

The weak infant is in dire need of nutrition, but, alarmingly, Lily is unable to feed it. Distraught, she is unable to think of a solution. Enter Cotton Mary, a pious Anglo-Indian nurse who believes in God and the Queen. The intrepid makes it her Holy Grail to save the baby, which she sees as "God's child."

As the narrative lazily reveals itself, we get acquainted with the three characters around whom the story revolves. John Macintosh (James Wilby), a BBC correspondent stationed in the Malabar Coast, is an odious, colonial Englishman, who is obsessed with his work and cheats on his wife.

His wife Lily (Greta Scacchi), who has grown up in India, is a gentle woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, thanks to her decaying relationship with her husband and the demands of coping with an ill, newly-born child and an older daughter.

Mary (Madhur Jaffrey), an Anglo-Indian nurse who takes great pride in the fact that her father was a soldier in the British Regiment, brings up the third apex of the triangle. In the background is the mixed, tortured history of two races -- the British and the Indian -- represented by the Anglo-Indian community to which Mary belongs.

To solve the problem of feeding the baby, Mary takes the infant to her sister Blossom (Neena Gupta), a wet-nurse who lives at a charitable home for Anglo-Indian women. She, however, refuses to divulge this fact to Lily, who, out of gratitude, does not push for an answer.

Mary convinces Lily to recruit her as a nanny to look after the baby. Much to the nurse's delight, the Englishwoman agrees, and wide-eyed Mary moves into the imposing Macintosh mansion, with its butler Abraham (played by Prayag Raj) and its English linen, soap and cutlery.

Once ensconced in the house, Mary abuses her position and begins a systematic takeover. Psychologically playing on her mistress' fears, she inveigles herself into a position of authority. Her great enemy is the loyal butler, Abraham, and she undertakes a concerted effort to undermine the trust his employers bestow on him (she succeeds in getting him thrown out of the house and getting her drunken bum cousin installed in his place).

Simultaneously, Mary begins to live out her fantasies of being an Englishwoman. She queens over her friends, tries on her mistress' clothes in the latter's absence and shows her niece around the place as if she were the lady of the house. Yet, Mary fawns over "Master" James, worshipping him as if he were a living God.

Without giving away too much of the plot, suffice it to say that matters reach a head and Mary is forced to confront the reality of her situation. She is compelled by events of her own creation to accept that she is not an Englishwoman, that her employers do not see her as one of them, but as an ayah, and that the only place she can call home is within the world of other Anglo-Indian women like her.

The film is a sensitive, searching look at both the story of an individual and of the predicament of a community trapped in an image that they are forever resisting. The British component of their heritage unacknowledged, the Anglo-Indians are viewed by majority Indian communities as bereft of an "authentic" culture.

Their origin ascribed to the result of illicit liaisons between the British and the Indians, the community is one that has largely been at the receiving end of prejudiced perceptions: the men viewed as lazy good-for-nothings, the women as loose-charactered. Yet, in truth, as with most communities that have been vilified, the Anglo-Indians are an extraordinarily resilient lot.

Cotton Mary successfully conveys the complexity of the community's position vis-a-vis Britain and India, through its portrayal of the unequal power relationships that define John, Lily and Mary. The subtle depiction and analysis of the psychology of Mary, who struggles to break free from the limited public perceptions of her place in society, is the centre of the film.

Sketched around this are the other myths that have characterised the existence of the Anglo-Indians. John's seduction of Rosie (played by Sakina Jaffrey), Mary's niece; the racism of the British memsahibs who laugh themselves silly while narrating poems about "darkie" Anglo-Indians; and the white man's fear of the black native (shown brilliantly in a scene where Lily is horrified to see the new butler sitting in her living room, drunk on her husband's whisky); the joy with which Blossom breastfeeds the baby -- these are the vignettes that align themselves perfectly around Mary's spectacular rise and fall.

The cinematic coherence of the film can be credited, in large measure, to the magisterial performance turned in by Madhur Jaffrey. In her various avatars as pious nurse, the ayah from hell, the shattered outcast and the pious nurse again, she in turn evokes humour, annoyance, pity and, finally, compassion. The only false note in an otherwise fine performance by her is the occasional trace of an incongruous accent.

Greta Scacchi is also excellent as the harrowed Englishwoman, who is unlike the club-going memsahibs that form her social circle, but still very much trapped in the colonial dynamic. James Wilby, Neena Gupta and Prayag Raj are good in their respective roles, though Gerson Da Cunha as the Lily's doctor and Sakina Jaffrey as Rosie, Mary's ebullient niece, are definitely below par. Sakina's accent positively grates, while Gerson Da Cunha appears to be elocuting for an inter-house competition in school.

The film does not do anything revolutionary in terms of technique. The script is strong, and the dialogue steady. Much of the action in the film takes place indoors, scenes shift from one set of characters to another, never letting the action flag.

Ismail Merchant is in complete control of what is happening, yet allows the cinematic situations to evolve their own natural logic and flow. All in all, an important contribution to Indian and international cinema from a man who has often delighted, sometimes disappointed, but never failed to provoke.