Recently, I encountered Lamia by John Keats in Penguin Little Black Classics – The Eve of St Agnes. In my reflection on that little volume, I mentioned that while reading Lamia, I kept thinking of Sridevi. This post is about that.

For my generation, Nagina (1986) is part of childhood memory. The movie, the songs, Sridevi dancing to Main Teri Dushman, Dushman Tu Mera; all of it became a cultural phenomenon.

As is often the case with Bollywood, it was not a one off. There was Nagin (1976), but that was before I was born. And even though it was a hit, there weren’t many copycat movies immediately afterwards. The next notable was Nagina, a decade later, and Sridevi as the shape shifting snake woman captured the imagination of a generation.

And there would be many afterwards. Rekha did it in Sheshnaag. Meenakshi Seshadri did it in Nache Nagin Gali Gali. Sridevi herself returned in Nigahen (Nagina – Part 2). There were others like Naagmani (Gulshan Kumar’s attempt to ride the wave) and Tum Mere Ho (very young Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla). But Nagina on the cinema screen had a magic that remains unmatched. Maybe that is why, while reading Keats, I kept seeing Sridevi.

Lamia tells the story of a serpent hopelessly in love with Lycius. She asks Hermes to grant her a human form so that she may pursue him. Hermes grants the boon. Lamia becomes a woman, Lycius falls in love with her, and they prepare to marry.

So far, so good.

In Nagina, Sridevi is also a serpent (an ichhadhari naagin). She begins the story seeking revenge. Her husband has been killed, and his soul has entered the body of a young boy who later grows up to become Rishi Kapoor. Her plan is to kill him so that her husband’s soul may return to its original body.

But then she falls in love with him. 80’s Rishi Kapoor was easy to fall for.

Believe me, in the movie this story makes perfect sense. Or at least, as much sense as Lamia makes.

The real parallel, however, comes later.

In Keats’ poem, there is Apollonius. He sees through Lamia’s disguise and recognises that she is really a serpent. At the wedding feast he exposes her. Lamia disappears. Lycius dies of grief.

Apollonius believes he has saved him.

“From every ill of life have I preserved thee to this day,
And shall I see thee made a serpent’s prey?”

Some saving. No wonder that these lines from the poem have been discussed by many across the years –

“…Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine—
Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made
The tender-person’d Lamia melt into a shade”.

Philosophy (which stands for science as we know it here) will clip an Angel’s wings indeed. For me, that “cold philosophy” is the urge to explain everything away. Science tells us what a rainbow is. Poetry lets us keep wondering at it. Apollonius solves the mystery, but in doing so he also destroys it.

Bollywood takes a different route. Here too we have a sage, Bhairon Nath, played magnificently by Amrish Puri. Like Apollonius, he can recognise a shape-shifting serpent when he sees one. But unlike Apollonius, he is not merely trying to save Rishi Kapoor.

He wants the Naagmani, the mythical gem possessed only by shape-shifting serpents. Take Keats’ sage, add greed, and you get one of Bollywood’s great villains.

Love wins, greed is killed. This story’s Lycius fights Apollonius, and the sage dies bitten by snakes (some irony). In this story Lamia and Lycius live happily ever after. The cold touch of philosophy doesn’t quite reach the 1980s Bollywood. In fact as we see in Nigahen (Nagina Part 2), the happy marriage results in a daughter, who again is Sridevi.

Keats to his credit doesn’t portray Lamia as dangerous. He portrays her as hopelessly in love. And at the end of the poem you wonder what if Apollonius wasn’t there.

Sometimes, our cultural memory dominates.

Perhaps that is why Sridevi kept appearing before me while I was reading Lamia. Sometimes we do not read a book alone. We carry into it every story we have loved before.

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