Mask of Desire
| Mask of Desire मुकुण्डो |
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| Directed by | Tsering Rhitar Sherpa |
| Produced by | Tsering Rhitar Sherpa |
| Screenplay by | Kesang Tseten |
| Cinematography | Ranjan Palit |
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| Country | Nepal |
| Language | Nepali |
Mask of Desire (Nepali: मुकुण्डो; Mukundo) is a 2000 Nepali film directed by Tsering Rhitar Sherpa. It was Nepal's submission to the 73rd Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not accepted as a nominee.
The setting is the increasingly less visible ritual face of Kathmandu. Dipak, boyishly handsome, in his mid 1930s, a former football player in the army, works as an uniformed guard for a successful business. Saraswati, younger by two years, is a homely, virtuous woman, who adores her footballer husband. They live in a modest two-room apartment on the second floor of an old brick building with their two young girls, an ordinary, humble family, happy in most respects.
There is much anxiety over Saraswati’s imminent pregnancy. For, if there is one thing that life - or the gods - hasn’t given them, it is a son. Not unusual for a family in their society, it is an unresolved thread in their otherwise contented lives. Dipak wants a son, Saraswati wants him to be happy – these are sometimes deep-seated, other times lurking, desires which, if realized, will make their lives that much better.
One day, while doing her usual prayers at the Shiva-lingam shrine, a sadhu mysteriously appears and tells her only the goddess Tripura at the small brick shrine by the riverbank can answer her prayers. Saraswati does so hesitantly, and when a son is born she begins to believe her prayers were responsible. The couple’s joy is short-lived, however, for a few weeks later, the infant dies, bringing in its wake sorrow, anger, and guilt.
The once-happy family begins to breaks down. Saraswati becomes intermittently ill and begins to experience bouts of depression. When she finally goes back to the goddess who she believes gave her a son, only to cause her greater sorrow, the same sadhu appears and suggests she get “treated” by the jhankrini who is the spirit medium of the Tripura goddess.
Parallelly, we learn that the jhankrini, reputed as a healer, has her own particular history. As a young woman she had been married off to a mentally disturbed boy-husband, who kept running away from her and from life apparently, eventually committing suicide. It is known that people in vulnerable and unstable states are often “chosen” to be mediums for deities. Gita’s marriage and her sick husband’s tragic fate had made her gravely ill, causing her intense emotional turmoil, breakdowns, and visions, until she was diagnosed as being a “possessed”.
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