I have heard that Bulgarian-American director, Konstantin Bojanov, does not know a word of Hindi. The first wonder of his directorial film, The Shameless, then is how did he manage to make a complete feature film in Hindi? The second question is – how was co-production made possible among disparate cultural locations like France, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Taiwan and India, in which India took precedence in terms of the chosen language of the film, the subject matter, the setting, the characters and their eventual tragedies?
The third consideration is – what motivated the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2024, to bestow the Best Actress Award to Anasuya Sengupta who portrayed the lead role of Renuka in the film and created history by becoming the first ever Indian actor in the history of Cannes to have this coveted award? The film was screened at the Un Certain Regard Section of the festival as well as showcased at the Kolkata International Film Festival, where the whole cast and crew of the film was present.

The Shameless offers an insight into the persistence of the devadasi system in parts of India. it is said that Bojanov initially wished to make a documentary film on the devadasi system but over time, after travelling across India, decided to make a full-blooded feature film. But this ‘system’ is not the subject of the film.
The Shameless History of the Devadasi System
The Devadasi system, that is still prevalent in India, is known by different names in different places such as Devarattiyal in Tamil Nadu, Mahris in Kerala, Natis in Assam, Muralis in Maharashtra, Basavis and Muralis in Andhra Pradesh and Jogatis and Basavis in Karnataka. The word “devadasi” is derived from two words, “deva” meaning God and “dasi” meaning slave or servant-woman. Every devadasi, therefore, is a slave of God.
These devadasis escape the eyes of the law being strictly covered by the Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act and because they function by the sanction of blind superstition and religious belief rather than economic gain. Today, the devadasi system has evolved into open prostitution in all other Indian States except in a few pockets where it still flourishes under the guise of ‘dedication to Yellamma.’ In Karnataka and in some parts of the Maharashtra-Karnataka border, this system sustains trafficking that is induced and implemented by the immediate family of the girl.

Today, the dividing line between a commercial prostitute and devadasi-turned prostitute is so blurred that one cannot distinguish the one from the other. But in commercial prostitution, one is not necessarily born into prostitution but is either driven to it or steps into it by choice. In the devadasi system, the profession is decided for the female child much before she is aware of its implications. Her parents and family members initiate the girl into the trade. Commercial prostitution does not have any religious or social sanction. But the devadasi system is sustained through these two very institutions – religion and society.
The Story
The Shameless is a brutal film. It opens on the grotesquely vulgar and obese dead body of a policeman. Almost at once, we meet Renuka (Anasuya Sengupta) who is a runaway from a Delhi brothel, having broken jail to murder the same policeman. She is forever chased both by the police and by the members of a criminal gang who are out to catch and kill her.
Renuka is a prostitute, not of the ‘escort’ or ‘call-girl’ kind servicing exclusive clients but a grounded, no-nonsense, positively ugly, rough-talking, slightly older sex worker who, in hiding, lands up in a low-class brothel and begins to service terrible clients.
While she is at it, pushing powder in between and escaping the clutches of the police, she happens to meet a very young and pretty girl inn her teens, Devika (Omara Shetty) whose mother runs the brothel and is waiting to officially introduce her daughter make her step in to the business for a hefty price for her ‘first night’ coming from her first ‘customer’, usually through a very highly pegged bidding system.
Devika is against this fate but has no escape. Her grandmother (Mita Vashisht) who was once a Devadasi herself now wishes her daughter to leave the custom of ‘dedication’ behind and spare Devika. Renuka and Devika stick it out despite their difference in age, looks, upbringing and attitude and they even fall in love.
But it is not quite clear whether the two women are natural lesbians or whether they have fallen for each other because of their common hatred for all men. This was the main problem with Deepa Mehta’s Fire where the lesbian relationship between the two women whose husbands were blood brothers was born mainly because of the ill-treatment by their husbands, it was not organic.

Renuka has picked an assumed name to hide her Muslim identity. She is the most brazen, uncouth, hot-headed woman portrayed of late, on-screen. She is extremely bold, has a filthy mouth, is forever searching for weed, smoking incessantly, has terrible body language and does not care about how she is dressed or undressed. She is armed with a switch knife she can pull out any time she wants to slay her or Devika’s attackers.
But her unusual, strange, softer side emerges when she makes it her life’s mission to save Devika from stepping into or being forced into the same life.
The underlying emotion of this film is connected to about one woman, herself threatened, who can be killed or jailed any minute making it her life’s mission to save a much younger girl from meeting the same life of indignity, humiliation, disease and death.
Does she succeed? The answer is anybody’s and sometime towards the end, Renuka discovers that she herself is infected by some sexual disease and is in terrible pain from time to time, weed being her only ‘painkiller.’
Also Read: From Critiquing to Directing Films: In Conversation with Pratim D. Gupta
In the world presented in this film, including the characters of the other sex workers, the small boy growing up within that filth, the clients who barge in and inflict more physical pain than just sexual, you get an insight into a world that exists in the same world you live in but do not have a clue about.
Bojanov acquired the rights to William Dalrymple’s 2009 book, “Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India” and began to hunt for real life stories of similar women during his travels across the country.
The most outstanding feature of The Shameless is the brilliant performance of Anasuya Sengupta as Renuka who takes the film within her strong grip and injects a strange life that throbs and pulsates, and trembles with fear, anger, ferocity, revenge, and even affection in an environment where you cannot dare even to dream of it. The colour palette, created by Gabrial Lobos, the cinematographer, fills the screen with loud, primary colours with a predominance of reds and blues and greens strikingly shot by cinematographer Gabriel Lobos.

Omara as Devika is convincing yet unworldly with her naiveté, her innocence, her love for reading despite knowing fully well what future awaits her. The Goddess’ altar, decorated with flowers and zardozi glitter, gives the lie to the practice it lays the foundation for, believing it to have social and religious sanction. No one listens to the grand old lady (Mita Vashist) now that she has been replaced by her ruthless daughter who runs the brothel.
Yet she tries her best to save Devika, from being pushed into the same business. The scene of young Devika’s rape by a political leader is wrought with blood, gore and brutal scenes of force and fight, so bizarre that you wish to turn away and yet you don’t. The music and the editing keep pace with the volatile moods of the script, the dialogue and the narrative.
But the film is not without its logical lapses. For example, in one scene, we see Renuka writhing in pain, then almost lying in a faint as if she is going to die. Then, a few minutes later, we find her getting off a public bus in the middle of a field and running, running, running through the fields to meet Devika at their assigned place. How can a near-dead woman suddenly begin to run? This happens not once but a couple of times. The other down is the prosaic climax that finally boils down to revenge and revenge and revenge, whichever way you look at it.
The Shameless is a film you can neither turn away from nor avoid being rudely shocked by. Who is “The Shameless” here? Is it Renuka, forced to practice the oldest business in the world? Or the society that forces her to live from moment to moment, expecting the next to be the last? Or is it us, the audience, who revel in this kind of show where human tragedy is sold in the name of “entertainment”?
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Image Courtesy: India Today, Pinterest, Author
Shoma A. Chatterji is a freelance journalist, film scholar and author based in Kolkata. She has won the National Award twice, in 1991 and 2000. She has authored 26 published titles of which 14 are on different areas of Indian cinema. She holds two Masters Degrees and a Ph.D. in History (Indian Cinema). She has also won a few Lifetime Achievement Awards from different organizations over time.