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Maya Memsaab

aka The Enchanting Illusion 1992 127’ col Hindi d/co-sc Ketan Mehta pc NFDC, Channel Four, Film Four International (UK), Video Cinema 13 Prod (France) st Flaubert’s Madame Bovary co-sc Sitanshu Yashahchandra dial Hriday Lani, Gulan Kripalani lyr Gulzar c Anup Jotwani m Hridaynath Mangeshkar lp Deepa Sahi, Faroque Sheikh, Shah Rukh Khan, Raj Babbar, Shreeram Lagoo, Sudha Shivpuri, Paresh Rawal, Raghuvir Yadav, Om Puri, Satyadev Dubey

Maya (Sahi), the beautiful but extravagant wife of a country doctor (Sheikh), craves a glamorous life and has a series of love affairs (Khan, Babbar) while becoming indebted to Lalaji (Rawal). The film ends tragically when her house is auctioned and she appears to be engulfed by her fantasy life. The story is narrated in flashback as a reconstruction of the life of Maya (also meaning ‘illusion’). An Indo- European co-production, the film is formally and thematically ambitious, adapting Flaubert while revisiting a range of Indian film and television genres which are shown to shape Maya’s fantasies.

Film