La la Land

Why am I constantly wondering? Why can't I just observe?

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Location: Singapore, Singapore

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Sunday, July 17, 2005

The women of bengal: A look at films

Sharat Chandra and Tagore need no introduction. The recent movies made on their works stood out in their portrayal of women. I refer to “Chokher Bali,” “Devdas”, and “Parineeta.” For those not familiar with the stories, here is a little synopsis of each movie

Chokher Bali: This is based on Tagore’s Binodini. Binodini is played by Aishwarya , a widow who was turned down by two educated city men, before she married someone from a village and became a widow soon after. Circumstances bring her to the home of the man who turned her down, and her desire to live a life suitable to her education and brains creates ripples in everyone’s life.

Devdas: Devdas lacks the strength to claim his childhood love Paro, who gets married. A heartbroken spends his life getting drunk, and is unable to accept the love of Chandramukhi, who loves him deeply.

Parineeta: Who is a married woman? The one who has taken the “saptapadi” (the seven steps around the fire) or who loves from her heart? This question forms the theme of this beautiful love story.

The women are all beautiful, intelligent and sensitive. They love deeply, and openly. There seems to be a touching directness in their actions. Paro goes to Devdas in the middle of the night, asking him to elope with her, Lolita garlands Shekhar in Parineeta on an impulse, not considering the consequences and Binodini embarks on an affair with one man and eventually proposes to the other, choosing to remains alone in the end. They take bold steps but the men find it hard to keep up with their courage. This is definitely not the world of “knights in shining armor” and any gallantry seems to be faded and lackluster. As for the women, here is no beauty versus brain stale dichotomy here. These women challenge their men, overshadowing them easily. Their strength as well as their vulnerability seem natural, and add to the depth of the characterizations. The men are weak and yet the women accept them as they are, not questioning their perfection or their ability to protect them. There is a touching humanity in these charaters.

These portrayals are at sharp contrast with the popular view of traditional Indian women being invisible in social realities. Is this relegated only to the literature that came out of colonial Bengal? Early 20th century Bengal was the vista where education as well as social reforms became the windows for women to look outside and find forms and faces that went beyond physical beauty? Did the land of the “mother goddess” in conjunction with western intellectual traditions create these literary characters? If yes, why did that trend fade away and not continue?

A very interesting common theme in all these stories is the weakness of the male protagonists. Is there a hint of intellectual impotency evident here, a result of being subjugated by foreign forces? Is there a desire for the satisfaction that comes out of being an “object of affection,” hidden in the men in these stories? They revel in the women loving them and the pain they go through due to that pain. There seems to be some reflection of a political reality there. The strength they lack in the social or the political realm is exercised in their power play with their women. Do Tagore and Sharat Chandra see that weak men subjugate their women? Satyajit Ray has dealt with these themes in his classic “Charulata” and “Ghare Baire,” both based on stories weaved by Tagore.

Suppose these stories were written today, would these women still love the way they did?
Would men get away with the transgressions they commit in the stories? Probably not. There have been definite changes in social realities.

3 Comments:

Blogger The Box said...

Hello! I always had the impression that if one were to publish a Bollywood magazine in KL, you'd make a tonne of money. I'm not sure if that's still true though. Mind you, it's not that Bollywood's gone out of style, it's just that everyone has a Bollywood magazine now, you wonder how you get any money out of it.

Anyway, sorry, I just went way off topic didn't I? Hmmm. Let's see...oh hey, how about that Malika Sherawat eh?

2:36 PM  
Blogger Sumita said...

Bollywood magazine ? One more?
Oh no!!!

there are other ways to make money in Bollywood..As they say, watch this space

Thanks for stopping by!!

4:01 PM  
Blogger The Box said...

You'd be surprised though. I mean, lotsa people buy em. You get people pick up papers, a loaf of bread and oh, a copy af Cinefashion please (Bollywood fashion / gossip mag). "Shahrukh Khan says 'I'm not metrosexual, I'm sexual'" Oh-kay.

2:28 AM  

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