In Deepak Rauniyar’s Pooja, Sir, the titular police officer (Asha Magrati) is assigned the kidnapping of two boys against the seething backdrop of Nepal’s 2015 protests. She arrives in the capital city of Rajagunj, where a can of worms spills out. One of the kidnapped boys’ parents is a rich, duplicitous Madhesi politician, married to a light-skinned headmistress belonging to the country’s ethnic majority. Pooja is asked to focus just on this child and disregard the other missing boy, who comes from a poor Madhesi family.
All the chasms in the Nepalese society become quickly evident. In an early scene, the darker-skinned Madhesis are expressly turned away from food joints. So, there are instances where the Madhesis would rather deny their ethnicity, which immediately makes them vulnerable.
The nation is mired in demonstrations by Madhesis, occupying about a third of the population, opposing a new constitutional draft which seeks to further disenfranchise them. The police procedural-driven narrative uses these flares of protest and riots as its fulcrum.
Pooja maintains a tough, impenetrable façade. She keeps a steady distance from all except those in her private life. But that domain, too, is constricted. Her father doesn’t acknowledge her partner, who lives with them. Pooja personifies a sturdy, no-bullshit masculinity. Donning a buzz cut, she binds her breasts before stepping out for work. The screenplay isn’t condescending towards Pooja’s gender; rather, it ensures that her butch personality commands respect.
In Pooja, Sir, Rauniyar creates a complex, intricate and justifiably messy picture of all the clashing delineations in the Nepalese society. Race, class and gender aren’t monolithic, mutually exclusive markers; they run against each other in a heated boiler situation. Pooja, Sir locks its gaze on these matrices of power and privilege. It examines and interrogates fissures among citizens on such contesting fault lines. Rauniyar highlights the acute discomfort in breaking through one’s conditioning to imagine a way towards solidarity.
Pooja is sincere and wholly devoted to the course of truth. But to what degree can she operate towards that objective, when the fundamentals of investigation are sullied by hierarchical power?
Rauniyar doesn’t soften or simplify the morass Pooja has to negotiate. She can’t but be pulled into its damning implications. To weather and soldier through the haze of structural manipulations and deceit, she must remind herself of her humanity and integrity, both of which are torn to shreds.
Pooja, Sir is designed as a procedural. Rauniyar skims the chase angle, despite summoning propulsive energy in the large-scale demonstration/riot scene. The culprits get their own big supporting track, painted with empathy and good conscience. Hence, the discovery of who is behind the kidnapping is sidetracked to draw our attention to the why of it—the systemic jolt meant to be delivered by the episode.
The pursuit of truth also takes Pooja through a journey of confronting her own deep-seated privilege. As a queer woman, she is doubly marginalised. But she’s also a Pahadi—her ethnicity arrogating to her a much higher social position than a junior Madhesi officer, Mamta (Nikita Chandak displaying a steely dignity and self-possession). No two kinds of discrimination and oppression are synonymous. The film establishes its central reckoning in scenes between the two female officers, especially those where the male purview doesn’t crash upon them. Mamta confesses to a betrayal she felt thinking she can rely on Pooja to understand her ordeal in a shared sense of womanhood. However, the rejection and hurt, a sense of belittlement eventually gets directed at her by Pooja.
On many levels, hence, Rauniyar unravels a cautionary, grim tale of deepening disillusionment. Pooja grapples with a rude awakening to the boundaries she cannot breach despite a moral clarity about the crime. There are too many mediating barriers that render her ultimately powerless. Almost as soon as she gets her hands on the case, she is thrust with a random, politically motivated list of suspects to come down on. It includes everyone linked to the Madhesi protests, a bunch of students as well. Magrati channels a terrific stoicism and the profundity of realisation which gradually hits Pooja; she accepts to Mamta she may not have to face the kind of prejudice that she as a Madhesi is confronted with on a daily basis. This is where the film finds its cutting, sobering truth, articulating a bitter reality with unsentimental directness. There are no neat, rousing resolutions Rauniyar offers. Instead, a pained reaffirmation of all the entrenched divides absorbs Pooja in its folds as well.
