Botanizing in the City of Kolkata: Exploration of a Modern-Day Flâneuse and a Refashioned Mode of Flânerie in Sujoy Ghosh’s Film Kahaani

Abstract

Indian cinema’s engagement with the city, much like films produced in the rest of the world, has largely been presented through the lens of a male protagonist, often excluding women’s perspectives from the general urban experience. However, Hindi-language cinema, especially in the first decade of the present century, has seen the emergence of quite a significant repertoire of films which, in their fictional representations, have foregrounded women’s explorations of the city space as a mode of self-discovery. Considering Sujoy Ghosh’s film Kahaani (2012) here as an ingenious depiction of one woman’s negotiation with the city, this paper posits that film’s protagonist Vidya Bagchi as a modern-day flâneuse. Employing various theorizations on flânerie and the flâneuse, we examine Vidya’s engagement with the city space and analyze the ways in which it not only refashions the figure of the customary (male) flâneur but also offers an alternative iteration of flânerie.