This article is written by a human.

When I take my mind back to the first time I was captivated by beauty on TV, it was a character from one of the many Hindi films my Marathi mother had introduced me to. Ganga, a woman who was born and bred in the mountains; who had pristine blue eyes and whose soul was untouched, unpolluted. A tourist from the city of Kolkata falls for her and marries her, only to leave her behind when his trip had come to an end. Ganga, like her namesake, descends from the lofty mountains in search of her beloved. She succeeds and unites with Ram in Kolkata, but the exploitative journey to the city had left her "polluted". As a child, I thought Raj Kapoor was underlining the much important and yet ignored urgency of saving Ganga, who is exploited in the name of love everyday. I was not completely wrong, my adult self who now attempts to explore Ecofeminism within classical literary framework can now see the richly layered and acutely feminine centric narrative in the film.

One can trace back the source of Shakuntala's story to Mahabharata, where in she is a bold and confident hermitage - bred woman who knows what she wants. Dushyant is a king, who falls for the beautiful forest woman when he out on a hunting expedition. He wants a union and pursues her relentlessly. Shakuntala does not give in until the promise of making the son to be born out of the union shall be the heir apparent, is extracted from her admirer. But Kalidasa's Shakuntala is a naive, simple-minded forest girl who is oblivious of the crafty ways of the world. Taintless, pure and raw, she falls for the king who is successful in his pursuit of her. Kalidasa's is a story of warning, veiled as a love story.

My current project, which is a non-academic pursuit of Ecofeminist interpretations of Kalidasa's Shaakuntalam (@poorvareads on Instagram) fuels my urge to draw parallels between Shaakuntalam and two films directed by Raj Kapoor. I cannot help but notice how the stories of these films, although each different, can be traced back to Kalidasa's magnum opus. I believe they were heavily borrowed from Shakuntala, if not Shaakuntalam.

Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985)

The title of the film literally translates to 'Ram, your Ganga is polluted'. The title renders two meanings. Contextually, it speaks to Naren (Rajiv Kapoor) , the male protagonist in the film, as if letting him know that his beloved from the mountains, Ganga (Mandakini), has been polluted in her pursuit to find him. In a general sense, it speaks to Ram, the avatar of Vishnu. As if telling God that His world has been brought to ruin by the subjects he once prioritised. One can also go a step further to think about if this is a jeer towards Ram the God, who had abandoned his Ganga - like - pure wife Sita for the sake of his subjects. That, it was not them questioning her fidelity that had tainted her in the end but it was the fact that He sided with them. But that would steer us away from our train of thought, so I must refrain and take you back to Naren, the tourist who falls for Ganga, the innocent mountain girl.