Fantasy In Ashiqui By Kumar Shanu

For Cowie, process of identification through fantasy is not a form of distortion but expressions of deep wishes. It is from two students of Jacques Lacan- Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis (Laplanche and Pontalis, 1986) that Cowie got the inspiration for her formulation on ‘fantasy’. Fantasies do not entail the subject to obtain the desired object but through imagination puts oneself in a situation, a scene where the subject can chart out the possibilities of pleasure. Cowie depends heavily on the Freud’s considerations on ‘Creative writers and Day Dreaming’ (Freud 1985). By following Freud, Cowie claims that for day dreams and other fictional pursuits such as are depicted in novels and films, is not an escape from reality but rather …show more content…
This song which is originally sung by Kumar Shanu(a much reputed playback singer in Hindi films of 1990s) is in itself an emblem of the way Bollywood treats the theme of passionate love. The featuring of this song during the opening-credits and in the beginning of the opening scene marks the beginning of recurring motif-Bollywood and its treatment of love. Then the spectator is introduced to a voice, the voice of the protagonist Kundan. The screen projects a panoramic view of a Delhi-Street through the rear-view glass of an ambulance. The voice starts narrating his story of ending up in an ambulance and finally to a hospital with a pinching, playful and teasing anecdote; by addressing the audience as ‘Vaisaab’ (big brother) the voice makes the audience aware: ‘a rocket and a girl can take you anywhere’. Thus the protagonist by coming in close contact with the audience takes each member of the audience to the lanes of Banaras and one of its oldest localities- Assi Gahat on the bank of river Ganga. As the story progresses the audience does not identify himself with Kundan but pays attention to the story he narrates and through the narrative tropes enters the ‘fantasy’ created by the