Bhooter Bhabhisyat: Satire and Societ

Abstract

Abstract

Contemporary Bengali film “Bhooter Bhabhishyat” (English: Future of the past or future of ghost), filled with hilarious one-liners and motely of characters, offers a compact story about the plight of ghosts in a postmodern world. The film may be considered as a manifesto of magicrealism in the context of Bengali cinema and it became one of the biggest hits of 2012. The film has recently been remade in Hindi as “Gang of Ghosts”. “Bhooter Bhabishyat”, apparently a ghost story, is meant to be a comic entertainer. The story is about a haunted house which is being pulled down and being replaced by swanky shopping mall. And the most interesting fact is that the ghosts who belong to a different era and different socioeconomic perspective, consider this house as their home (land). Thus, ghosts from several areas, practicing varied professions and belonging to different strata of society become the subject of the film. It is the palatial mansion of the dead Rai Bahadur, which becomes the present address for the bagful of ghosts. An interesting session is conducted to minutely select and accommodate the best of the ghosts. Seen from a post-colonial perspective, the Ghosts