Welcome to our Colossus Movie Guide for Qala. This guide contains everything you need to understand the film. Dive into our detailed library of content, covering key aspects of the movie. We encourage your comments to help us create the best possible guide. Thank you!
What is Qala about?
Qala is a story about mental wellness in our current society. Qala is stuck in a culture where sexism runs rampant. She is in a position to fight that culture as a famous person, but she can’t seem to get past earning her mother’s approval—which feeds right back into that sexist culture. Her mother, Urmila, constantly holds Qala to that culture’s stodgy views, never allowing Qala’s to chase her dreams. Because of this, Qala feels cornered and commits a heinous act. This leads to Qala becoming mentally unwell and eventually taking her own life.
Thus, the entire movie superposes that societal struggle over the Manjushree family. Qala becomes symbolic of what can happen to young people when society won’t move forward or cooperate with succeeding generations. This everlasting tug-and-pull battle leads to mental casualties, as young people are unable to cope with a society that is actively working against them.
Cast
- Tripti Dimri as Qala Manjushree
- Swastika Mukherjee as Urmila Manjushree
- Babil Khan as Jagan Bantwal
- Amit Sial as Sumant Kumar
- Sameer Kochhar as Chandan Lal Sanyal
- Girija Oak as Sudha
- Swanand Kirkire as Mansoor Khan Sahab
- Tasveer Kamil as Naseeban Appa
- Varun Grover as Majrooh
- Abhishek Banerjee as Dr. Banerjee
- Anushka Sharma as Devika
- Written and directed by Anvita Dutt
The end of Qala explained
A recap of Qala‘s ending
Unable to deal with the guilt of taking Jagan’s life, Qala tries to kill herself by swallowing a bunch of pills. This sends Qala into critical condition. The doctor calls her mother, Urmila, who travels to bring her daughter home. However, by the time she gets there, Qala has hung herself. As Urmila weeps with her daughter in her arms, a song sung by Qala plays.
After Qala’s funeral, we then return home with Urmila, who plays Qala’s record. There is then a montage of Qala working in the industry. Throughout these final scenes, these words are sung by Qala:
My mother asks,
Oh, my darling girl
What makes you wan so pale
What makes you wan so pale
Oh, Mother in the yonder forest
A peacock does sing
He has stole my dreams away
He has stolen my dreams away
My baby girl should we find a weapon
Should we hunt him down
And kill him now
And kill him now
Let’s not kill him Mother
Let us just silence him somehow
Let us trap him in a cage now
Let us trap him in a cage now
The meaning of Qala‘s ending
Qala details how age-old oppressive views in one’s culture can weight mentally on succeeding generations. This larger story that affects thousands is embodied by the relationship between Qala and Urmila. Qala desperately desires her mother’s approval and attention, but Urmila rarely shows love or compassion. Urmila has always been bitter towards her daughter, who absorbed her twin brother’s nutrients in the womb, leading to his death. To cope, she takes on Jagan as her protege and disenfranchises Qala.
Urmila and Qala’s tumultuous relationship becomes reflective of today’s culture. Urmila is sad she never had a son, whom she would have raised to take the place of her late husband—a “musical maestro.” So when Qala makes it clear she isn’t destined for greatness like her father, Urmila changes out Qala for her son’s replacement, Jagan. Even though her son is gone, Urmila commits to the age-old approach of advancing her son’s profession while subjugating her daughter. Thus, she ignores her daughter’s greater ambitions.
Qala, however, does become famous. She is fed up with rampant sexist views in society. As a famous person, she seeks to use her position to help women advance and gain more presence in culture. But, ironically, she can’t seem to get past her mother’s inherent sexist views. Qala knows that her mother is bitter about her dead brother, so Qala constantly tries to gratify Urmila at any cost. Without the approval that Urmila meant for her son, Qala feels lost. Despite her ambition, and despite her resources to fight such conservative views, Qala becomes a slave to that culture.
That stress pushes Qala to the point of accidentally killing Jagan. She only meant to destroy his voice so she could take his place and win her mother’s approval, but Qala’s mercury eventually leads to Jagan’s death—that journey is depicted in the song being sung at the end of the movie. But there’s more to that story: because Jagan serves as a stand-in for her brother, Qala has now taken Urmila’s son twice. By “fighting” the system, she commits an unforgivable atrocity. Despite what greater good she could enact, she can’t escape the guilt. So in the end, Qala takes her own life.
Both Jagan’s and Qala’s death becomes symbols for their culture’s perpetual sexism. Change is slow, and thus becomes a grueling process for many young people. And when people are hurt, they hurt other people. Because of society’s rigid standards, Qala became mentally unwell. But feeling defeated from the cultural fight, she hurt one of her own instead. The struggle, the deflection, the in-fighting—it’s all reflective of our current divided times.
Thus, Qala’s song at the end repositions the entire story. Her song is a whimsical recreation of a terrible situation—turning Jagan into a singing peacock who steals her dreams away—allowing her to cope with her terrible sin. She wanted to advance her career and fight sexism, but she also didn’t mean to kill Jagan. So in the song, she positions the mother as the bad guy who wanted to kill the peacock. While Qala was the one who committed the crime, the mother also drove Qala to a level of insanity that allowed her to commit the crime. So to some degree, the song tells the truth.
In a way, you can think as the song as a symbol of hope. Qala is dead, but her words live on. Her art lives on. And her art reveals a deeper issue in society that drove her to do something so terrible. By understanding that art, we can understand the person—and all the people affected by the system. By listening, we can help the mental wellbeing of everybody in society.
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