The movie takes on the tragedy of life, death and loss.
Set against the visually significant background of burial pyres and the burning ghats in Varanasi, Masaan is a poetical story of pathos and love. The movie takes on the tragedy of life, death and loss. It traces two unalike stories-- one is about Devi's( Richa Chaddha) conflict with morality and the other one is the love story of Deepak( Vicky Kaushal) and Shalu (Shweta Tripathi).
The caste conflict
The analogy becomes all the more potent in the film with the affair between Deepak( Vicky Kaushal) and Shaalu( Shweta Tripathi). The great social and cultural point that poses a certain impediment to the heartbreaking combination of the lovers – caste – stands as one of the multiple symbols of the eternal tradition that spawned along the banks of the river Ganga.
Deepak belongs to the Dom community while Shaalu is from a higher rung of the class ladder. Coming from a totally different background, Deepak, otherwise self-confident, is conscious of the sparky, poetry-reciting Shaalu. The chats between them, which have been realized in a genuinely effective manner, reiterate the cultural gap between them.
The usage of poetry and songs
The closest that Deepak comes to poetry is through songs. He makes a mash-up of popular Hindi movie songs and lines of the great poets and gifts Shaalu on her birthday. This is possibly one of the first attempts in the film to bring about a happy marriage of the traditional and the new way of life. One of the prominent themes of the film is the conflict between the old and the new.
The spirit of the characters
One of the many beautiful sides is that none of the characters give up. They're trapped up in the social and moral confines but are prepared to take them on within their own little spheres and ways. Both Devi and Deepak own their individual losses and tragedies to deal with but they put up a strong battle, bring closure to their griefs and move ahead in life.
The human dilemma of holding on and letting go of something finds its most realistic portrait in this scene. Soon after Deepak feels unleashed from a burden, memory of a person long gone, that he'd been trying to hold on to. Closure eventually comes to Deepak in the form of moving on, letting go of a memory, a person that has burnt into ashes.
