“Dhaai Aakhar Prem Ka”, Stories by Rabindranath Tagore - Debatma Manda (2015)

Rabindranath Tagore’s comedy Shesh Rokkha (Saved at Last, 1926-29) is a multisided farce about the vagaries and uncertainties of love and marriage in traditional India.  This play served as the basis for the 23rd and 24th and episodes, “Dhaai Aakhar Prem Ka” (“Make a Love”), of the anthology television series Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (2015), which was under the general directorship of Anurag Basu, with this episode scripted by Samrat Chakraborty and directed by Debatma Manda.

In Tagore’s India, and indeed in many quarters of India today, young people had few opportunities to get to know each other before a parent-approved marriage arrangement could be organized.  Even when young people were given the choice, they had little information to go on concerning who would be an appropriate marriage partner for them.  Indeed, even in the modern world, most people have little idea of what it means to share one’s life with another and how that might affect their futures.  In “Dhaai Aakhar Prem Ka” these basic uncertainties are at the foot of an entangled series of misunderstandings that lead, almost, to serious missteps on the parts of the characters [1].

The story concerns some interrelated relationships centered around a man, Chandrakant (played by Amitabh Bhattacharya), who regularly hosts meetings with some male friends to share and discuss their mutual interests in literature and poetry.  Since the thirty-something Chandrakant is the only married member of this group of about a half dozen mostly younger men, he also sometimes offers to them his reflections on married life.  Among his discussion group are

• Vinod (Sudarshan Patil), a young lawyer who has already made something of a name for himself for his poetry;
    
• Gaudai (Vaibhav Raj Gupta), a final-year medical student who, unlike the others, sees things from an objectivist, scientific point of view;
   
• Lalit (Harsh Aggarwal), a relatively modest young man who is distinguished from the others by his preference for Western clothes.

Chandrakant also has two pretty and marriageable sisters who live with their father in a neighboring flat:

• Kamal (Sudipti Parmar)
   
• Indumati (Sainee Raj), Kamal’s impish younger sister.

Given the intertwining plot threads, the story is not really partitioned into acts, but I will somewhat arbitrarily section off the narrative into six parts.

1.  Introducing the Setting

In the beginning, Chandrakant’s group are meeting to discuss poetry, and Vinod is distracted when he hears a woman’s mellifluous voice outside the window singing a beautiful song based on his own poetry.  Vinod cannot see who is doing the singing, but the viewer can see that it is Kamal singing from inside her neighboring apartment.

Vinod returns his attention to his group and, to the wonder of his friends, recites some apparently spontaneously composed verse for them:

“The tears of the night don’t stay on a lotus leaf; they slip off.  

Sometimes the union is left incomplete. 

Sometimes all that is left are stories. 

A peaceful mind was disturbed by a chord of the heart.

A symphony of the beloved plays in each breath.

Only my beloved doesn’t know my feelings.”

Later, Chandrakant’s wife Khantamani (Pradnya Shastri) goes to visit her two sisters-in-law, Kamal and Indumati (aka Indu), where they discuss Kamal’s so-far-unseen love, Vinod.  Learning from their discussioon that Indu is just as eager to find a love of her own, Khantamani suggests that two other men from her husband’s discussion group might be good candidates – Gaudai and Lalit.

From the outset we see the two contrasting perspectivess on love generally held by the men and women in this story.  The men, obsessed as they are with poetry, have a view based on ethereal, poetic abstractions.  For them, love is focused on inner feelings and is therefore more self-obsessive.  For the women in this story, love is focused on more practical, interactive concerns of the here-and-now.

However, we also see that Chandrakant, the one person already married, sees things from a more disenchanted perspective, and he tells his fellow group members that his wife has no element of poetry in her – marriage can be a bore.  Unfortunately, Khantamani, from another room, overhears her husband say these things, and this only further contributes to the downward spiral of their relationship.

2.  Mistaken Identities

Vinod is so enamored by Kamal’s pretty voice that he decides she must be the ideal mate for him.  Even though he has never seen the girl, he forces his friend Chandrakant to support him when he approaches Kamal’s father, Nivaran, (Neeraj Shah) for her hand.  So that Kamal can see who is proposing to her, Chandrakant gives Nivaran a photo, which shows Vinod along with Chandrakant and Gaudai.

Later Indu happens to see that photo, and asks Khantamani who is that attractive third person in the photo, (who we can see is Gaudai).  Khantamani, who doesn’t have the photo in front of her, mistakenly tells her that the third person must be Lalit.

Indu then goes into a neighboring room and sees Gaudai there.  Flustered for the moment, she tells Gaudai that she is Kadambani, the daughter of bazaar merchant Chowdhari Babu.  But even in that momentary interaction, Gaudai is smitten with love.  Even though he has been dedicated to objective science and has up til now seen love as a disease, Gaudai quickly begins writing romantic poetry dedicated to his new beloved, “Kadambani”.

We now have cases of love at first sight (or sound), but there is a problem of misidentification.  Indu thinks her love (who we know to be Gaudai) is named Lalit.  And Gaudai thinks his love (who we know is Indu) is named Kadambani.

Moreover, we now see that this story has three primary relationship concerns:

•  Chandrakant and Khantamani
•  Vinod and Kamal
•  Gaudai and Indu

These parallel relationship threads will be the narrative focus for the rest of the story.
Meanwhile Nivaran, on his own, goes to Gaudai’s father, Shibhcharan (Atul Srivastava), and arranges for Gaudai marry Indu.  This should be ideal, but it won’t work, because Gaudai thinks he wants Kadambani, and Indu thinks she wants Lalit.

3.  Marital Dreams Unfulfilled
At this point Chandrakant’s discussion group of men hold a bachelor’s party to “celebrate” Vinod’s upcoming marriage to Kamal. This is one of the most amusing scenes in the film, because it is evident that Vinod’s companions, far from celebrating the event, are actually mourning what they see is the inevitable loss of freedom that will come to Vinod’s married life.

And in fact, shortly after the wedding ceremony, the marriage of Vinod and Kamal starts to fall apart due to Vinod’s many incessant complaints and insensitivities.  Soon Kamal runs away to live in her parents’ home.

The Chandrakant and Khantamani relationship has also been breaking down and has descended into quarrels.  Finally Khantamani has had enough; she packs her bags and leaves her husband.  Chandrakant, however, is so fed up with Khantamani’s bad temper and constant nagging that he celebrates his newfound freedom.

Meanwhile Gaudai has been stalking the grounds outside the home of his supposed Kadambani, but he never sees the woman he loves.  His father happens upon him onetime and summarily informs him that he has arranged for him to marry Indu.  This news greatly distresses Gaudai, and he timidly informs his authoritarian and hot-tempered father that he cannot marry Indu because he loves Kadambani (although we know that the woman he actually loves is Indu, who he wrongly thinks is called “Kadambani”).

4.  Indu’s Intervention
Back in her original family home, Kamal is soothed by her sister Indu.  Speculating that Vinod’s insensitivity might be due to his having other love interests, she composes a phoney love letter from an admirer to Vinod and signs it, “Kadambani”, a name she drew out of the air.  The letter proposes a secret meeting with Vinod in the park.  However, when Gaudai visits Vinod and happens on the letter, he assumes it was written by his Kadambani, and he is crushed.

Indu coerces her friend Rajni (Natasha Pillai) to pretend to be Kadambani at the meeting.  Vinod, accompanied by Gaudai, reluctantly goes to the meeting, but when he sees the woman he tells her that he truly loves his wife, Kamal.  This assertion is eventually reported back to Kamal.  And when Gaudai saw Rajni, he could see that she is not his “Kadambani” (whom we know, but he doesn’t, is actually Indu).  So Indu’s continued schemes of misidentification actually help, on this occasion, to move two relationships closer to reconciliation.

5.  Further Identification Entanglements
Seeking to do the right thing, Gaudai’s father, Shibhcharan, now tracks down the real Kadambani’s father, Chowdhari Babu (Sameer Chandra), and arranges for Gaudai to marry that woman. 

Meanwhile Kamal learns from her sister Indu that the man she loves (whom she mistakenly calls “Lalit”, but who is actually Gaudai) mistakenly thinks that she, Indu, is named “Kadambani” (recall, she had once foolishly told him that).  So Kamal dutifully goes to Chandrakant and tells him to explain things to Lalit.

When Chandrakant talks to Lalit, though, the bewildered young man says he has never even heard of Kadambani or Indu.  When these denials get back to Indu – that her beloved cannot remember even meeting Indu – the news breaks the poor woman’s heart.

6.  Putting Things Right

Now people start coming together to try and resolve all this zany confusion – both in the world and in their hearts.  At Chandrakant’s poetry club, his friends see that he is miserably lonely for his departed wife.  They try to console him, but Chandrakant worries that is too late and that Khantamani probably won’t come back to him. 

Just then the still distressed Indu barges in and demands to see Lalit, who she cannot believe does not even remember her.  But when she looks over the group of men there, she finally sees that the man she truly cares about is actually Gaudai, not Lalit.  So Indu and Gaudai are finally connected together.  But there are still major problems to be resolved.

Gaudai’s dictatorial father, Shibhcharan, now arrives to take Gaudai to Chowdhari Babu and the real Kadambani in order to carry out the arranged wedding.  When Gaudai tells him he can’t go because he really loves Indu (the girl with whom an earlier arranged marriage (in Section 2) had been setup for him and which Gaudai had mistakenly rejected), Shibhcharan loses his temper.  He and Chowdhari Babu both stubbornly insist that Gaudai must now go ahead and marry Kadambani.  And Chowdhari Babu warns he will take legal action to ensure this wedding commitment is enforced.

But just then Chandrakant comes up with an idea.  He tells Chowdhari Babu and Shibhcharan that Gaudai and Indu are already married!  He makes up the story that the couple had a Gandharva marriage, which is an hoc type of marriage “based on mutual attraction between two people, with no rituals, witnesses or family participation” that is part of the classical Hindu tradition [2].  Chowdhari Babu and Shibhcharan reluctantly have to accept this state of affairs, and Chowdhari Babu is further appeased when the real Lalit comes forward and agrees to marry Kadambani.  Now Gaudai and Indu are united at last, and the parents are happy.

Meanwhile Kamal, newly assured of her husband’s love, returns home, and she and Vinod are reconciled.

In the final scene, Khantamani returns home and sees her husband Chandrakant packing his suitcase for a trip.  She tearfully asks if she can go with him, and he joyfully accepts.

So everyone finally ends up happy in this rather contrived tale.  We are dealing with people who fall in love based on fleeting glances or songs, and there are no personal, intimate interactions that could provide more substantial material to kindle a loving relationship.  And this lessens the seeming depth and authenticity of these amorous expressions of love.  What seems to be emphasized here instead is the need to respect the individual autonomies of those participating in (or are about to participate in) a marriage relationship.

This rather complex story has been described as hilarious and a “laugh riot” by one reviewer [1].  I wouldn’t go that far, but I was charmed by the enthusiastic performances on the part of the cast, and the effective manner in which the various dramatic elements were woven together.
★★★

Notes:

1. Durga S, “Shesh Rokkha (Dhai aakhar prem ka" – Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (8)”, Writersbrew, (3 March 2016).   
2. “Gandharva marriage”, Wikipedia, (21 January 2019).   

“Monihara”, Stories by Rabindranath Tagore - Debatma Mandal (2015)

Rabindranath Tagore’s short story “Monihara”, aka “The Lost Jewels” [1] (1898), is a haunting ghost story about duty, greed, guilt, and grief.  This story served as the basis for the 25th episode, “Monihara” [2], of the anthology television series Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (2015), which was under the general directorship of Anurag Basu, with this episode having been scripted and directed by Debatma Mandal. 

Tagore’s story about a married couple, whose conflicting visions of what matters in life bring them both to ruin, operates on several levels.  On one level it is a straightforward tale of how excessive greed brings tragedy.  Then it moves into a ghost story, which may be hallucinatory, that is driven by excessive grief.  But on another level, the story concerns and toys with the nature of narrative, itself. 

This story was the basis of one of the featured segments of Satyajit Ray’s earlier Teen Kanya (1961), which I have also reviewed [3]; and it is interesting to compare how these two filmed versions of the story differ.  Ray’s version of the story follows Tagore’s original scheme quite literally, and, in particular, it more closely sustains the original story’s aura of otherworldly mystery.  In contrast, in Mandal’s version there are some differences from Tagore’s (and Ray’s) telling; and as a consequence it loses some of that ghost-story flavor in order to concentrate its focus on inner suffering.  The shift is from horror to grief.

The narrative of Monihara, which comprises a story within a story, can be considered to have six segments, with the first and sixth segments composing the outer story.

1.  At a Riverbank the Recounting of a Story Commences

The story begins with a local townsman, Narayan (played by Atul Srivastava), taking up his usual fishing spot along a river and noticing a stranger sitting on a nearby rock by the river.  When Narayan observes the stranger contemplatively staring at a dilapidated mansion over on the other side, he tells the man that he will relate to him an old story about that mansion that is well-known to the local people.  At this point the narrative shifts to the inner story that makes up most of the film.

2.  Fani and Monimala
The occupants of that mansion were a young married couple, Fani Bushan Saga (Ajay Chaudhary) and his wife, Monimala (Poorvi Mundada).  Fani is a successful silk merchant, and he dotes on his beautiful and vain wife by regularly showering her with gifts of sumptuous jewelry that he can purchase from his ample earnings.  Right away the viewer can see that the stranger to whom Narayan is telling this story is Fani.  This marks a significant departure from Tagore’s and Ray’s telling, where the identity of the mysterious stranger on the riverbank is only revealed at the end of the tale.

And interestingly, Fani wears horned-rim glasses, which is a common feature of many of the male protagonists in this series.  Horned-rim glasses suggest a mild-mannered, middle-class bearing that contrasts with the more emotive female characters in this series.  Since they first became popular in the 1920s, their presence here also suggests that this episode has a setting in conformity with most of the episodes in this series – sometime in the 1930s.

For her part, Monimala is obsessed with her own glamour and incessantly seeks more of the necklesses, bracelets, brooches, and bangles that her husband keeps giving her.  She admits to him that her very identity is defined by the degree to which her beauty is decorated.  In fact one’s self-identity is something of a theme in this film.  For Monimala her identity is based on her bejeweled self-image; while Fani’s self-identity is centered around his image of marital bliss.

We are also introduced to Madhusudan (Puneet Kumar), a distant relative of Monimala’s who has come to work in their household as a laborer for Fani.  It is clear that Madhusudan is an unscrupulous lowlife who is only interested in money.

One day Fani learns that a shipment of his silk was pirated in the Bay of Bengal and that he faces an enormous financial loss.  To help restore his business, he asks Monimala if he can use her jewelry as collateral for a bank loan that he needs, assuring her he will return her jewelry to her in a few days.  But she is horrified at this prospect of even temporarily losing her jewelry, and she sees his request as an existential threat.  She reminds him that it is a husband’s irrevocable duty to satisfy his wife’s needs. 

So Fani accepts his wife’s demands, and he tells her that he will go alone to Kolkata and see if he can raise the needed money from some of his associates.

3.  Monimala and Madhusudan

Home alone with her unsavory “brother” Madhusudan, Monimala gets a letter from Fani informing her that he is having trouble securing the needed funds, but that he will try to be home soon.  This news puts the woman into a complete panic about her precious jewelry, and she decides to run away with her jewelry to her father’s home.  She asks Madhusudan to take her there, and they set off in a rowboat down the river.  Along the way, we see Madhusudan greedily eyeing Monimala’s jewelry box, and we know that something horrible is about to happen.

4.  Fani Returns Home
The action jumps forward to show Fani happily returning home from Kolkata.  He has secured the money he needs to save his business, but he only finds an empty house – both Monimala and her jewelry box are missing.  Thinking that Monimala has gone to her father’s house, he asks his steward, “uncle” Santosh (Arvind Parab), to go there and bring her back.  That night Fani hears from his bed mysterious noises in the hallway.  Then Santosh reports back that Monimala never made it to her father’s house.

So the police are summoned, and they conduct an all-out search for Monimala.  They do find her empty jewelry box floating in the river, but they fail to find any trace of the woman.  Fani, of course, is extremely disturbed.

5.  Mysterious Visions
That night Fani hears a woman’s voice mysteriously calling to him, “please forgive me.”  He goes out into the hallway, but again noone is there.  The next night Fani has lost hope of finding his beloved, and he tearfully gazes at the jeweled brooch he had brought back from Kolkata to give to Monimala. 

At this point a vision of Monimala appears and joyfully asks him, “is that for me?”  Fani is overjoyed to see his beloved, but then the ghost suddenly disappears.  So Fani goes out to the hallway again, and this time the ghost of Monimala reappears and reaches oout to take his hand.  Then she silently guides him outside and down to the river.  Still holding his hand, the beautiful ghost slowly takes Fani out partway into the water, and then again suddenly vanishes.  As if in a trance, Fani slowly turns around and sees his Monimala’s dead body floating in the water.  Shattered by what he sees, Fani falls face-down in the water and remains motionless.  His unbounded grief brings him to join her in death.

6.  The Story’s End
At this point Narayan has come to the end of his story, and he discusses his own thoughts about how true the story may be with the stranger to whom he has told it.  He reminds the stranger that, after all, it’s only a story and that Nature has more important things to do than to make up entertaining stories.  This comment about narrative’s place in the grand scheme of things is in Tagore’s original story, too.  

Then Narayan asks the stranger, whom we have clearly seen all along is Fani, how he liked the story.  The stranger says that the story is good, but it contains a few errors.  Astonished, Narayan asks the stranger how he could know that the story had some errors.  Then when he looks over at the stranger, he sees that he has disappeared.  Terrified at the realization that he has all along been speaking to an apparition, Narayan runs away.


So the ghost-story aspects of this tale permeate both the inner and outer narrative.  Narayan has been talking all this time to Fani Bushan Saga’s ghost.  This is a key and cdommon feature of all three versions (Tagore’s original text, Ray’s Teen Kanya, and Mandal’s version here), but this version has two elements that distinguish it from the two previous versions:

1. One is the already-mentioned fact that the identity of the stranger that Narayan meets by the riverbank is immediately seen by the viewer to be Fani.   This shifts the viewer’s perspective concerning narrative weight somewhat and casts Fani more in the role of the main character.  From the outset we want to know what happened to him.
    
2. Another distinguishing feature is that in Tagore’s story, Monimala’s reappearance at the end as a ghost is in the form of a skeleton, while in this film, her ghostly reappearance is in her usual beauteous bodily form.

In both of the above cases, Tagore’s tale is more of a horror story, and Mandal’s version moves back from the ghastly horror evoked in Tagore’s and Ray’s version and takes a turn towards sympathy and sadness for the departed love.  Monimala’s obsessive narcissism led both to the loss of her own life and to the loss of the life of the one person devoted to satisfying her self-love in all possible ways.  It is a sad reminder that sometimes we don’t know what we’ve got til it’s gone.
★★★½

Notes:

1. Rabindranath Tagore, “The Lost Jewels”, (1898), (translated by W. W. Pearson), The Modern Review, pp. 630-636, (1917), The Internet Archive, (4 July 2015).   
2. Durga S, “The Uncanny – Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (9)”, Writersbrew, (9  March 2016).      
3. The Film Sufi, “‘Teen Kanya’ - Satyajit Ray (1961)”, The Film Sufi, (8 November 2017).   

“Aparichita”, Stories by Rabindranath Tagore - Debatma Mandal (2015)

Rabindranath Tagore’s story “Aparichita” (“The Unknown Woman” [1], 1916) relates how the course of a young man’s life is fundamentally altered in an unexpected fashion by an “unknown woman”.  This story served as the basis for the 20th episode, “Aparichita” [2], of the anthology television series Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (2015), which was under the general directorship of Anurag Basu.  Samrat Chakraborty wrote the screenplay and dialogue for this episode, which was directed by Debatma Mandal.

Tagore’s story “Aparichita” is interesting in several respects.  In common with a number of stories in this series and in alignment with a significant Tagorean theme, it features an independent-minded young woman striving to find her way in a traditional male-dominated society.  In particular, aspects of this story hinge on specifics of the way traditional Indian arranged marriages are/were structured.  And although the story concerns a potentially romantic hookup between a man and a woman, it doesn’t evolve the way most such encounters do.

The story is told from the perspective of the young man who meets this unique woman, but there are some significant differences between the way Tagore tells the story and the way Chakraborty and Mandal tell it.  Tagore’s story is a first-person narration, and the events covered are described in a linear  timeline.  However, in this filmed version, the events are dramatized, and their presentation is laced with several flashbacks that may have a confusing effect on the viewer, as I will discuss below.

The story of “Aparichita” in this filmed version passes through six phases in a nonlinear fashion.

1.  On the Train

The story begins with a young man in his early twenties, Anupam (played by Kranri Prakash Jha), who is accompanying his widowed mother on a train to Haridwar.  Anupam is clearly a well-mannered son who is attentive to his mother’s comfort.  While their train is stopped at a station, Anupam hears from his train compartment a young woman, whose name we will later learn is Kalyani (Abigail Pande), outside on the station platform shepherding some young girls in her company as they look for some vacant seats on the train.  In Tagore’s story we are explicitly told that Anupam was bewitched by the mellifluous tones of the young woman’s voice, but in this filmed version we only see his smiling facial expression.  In fact in the story, Tagore expresses his appreciative wonder over the charms of the human voice [1] –

“I have always been fascinated by the human voice. The physical beauty appeals to everyone but to me it is the voice that really conveys the essence of what is unique and elusive in a person.”

– and this concern has some significance in the original story that may be overlooked by viewers of the filmed version.  In any case, the sound of this woman’s voice evidently causes Anupam to ruminate over some events that transpired two years earlier.

2.  Two Years Earlier – Harish Visits

Anupam has recently been graduated from the university, and he is visited by his friend (and perhaps cousin) Harish (Asim Ahmed) from Kanpur.  Hamish, after cordially scolding Anupam for not having the gumption to find a suitable wife for himself, informs his friend that he has found an ideal marriage candidate for him.  The girl’s name is Kalyani, and she is the only child of businessman Shambhunath Sen in Kanpur.  After getting Anupam’s consent, Harish approaches Anupam’s young uncle Ajit (Harsh Khurana), who is now the head of his mother’s household, to agree to arrange for the marriage between Anupam and Kalyani.  We see quickly that even though Ajit is only about thirty years old, he is an assertive and prideful man and that the respectful Anupam is always obedient to his demands.  As with many traditional Indian families, Ajit is not concerned whether Anupam and Kalyani are a good  match but instead whether the two families are a good match, i.e. whether the Sen family is worthy of being conjoined with their family.  So Ajit sends Anupam’s older brother Vinod to Kanpur in order to inspect the Sen family.

While Vinod is visiting the Sen family in Kanpur, Anupam calls up their residence to speak to his brother, and we see a young lady, presumably Kalyani, answer the phone.  At this point the viewer can see what Anupam can’t – what Kalyani looks like and that she is the same woman that Anupam would encounter two years later on the train.  In fact given the rigidity of Hindu Indian marriage arrangements, the lesser commonality of photographs at that time, and Anupam’s subservience, he is unable to see what Kalyani looks like until the actual marriage ceremony, itself. 

Note that this early connection between marriage candidate Kalyani and the unknown woman on the train is something that was not made in Tagore’s story, which followed a linear timeline.  Connecting the two of them at this point early in the film was an aesthetic decision on the part of the filmmakers that, similar to Random Harvest (1942), had dramatic tradeoffs that you may question (although the filmmakers of Random Harvest hardly had a choice in this matter). 

3.  On the Train (again)
Back on the train again two years later, Anupam can be seen overhearing with pleasure the chatter from the next train compartment, where the unknown woman (Kalyani) has found empty seats for herself and the young girls in her company.  Anupam would like to talk to them, but he is too timid to knock on their door.  It doesn’t matter, because after awhile Kalyani and her girls are dispossessed of their seats by people who have reserved them, and Kalyani asks Anupam’s mother if she and her girls can move into their compartment.  Anupam’s mother cordially informs her that she and Anupam have reserved the entire compartment for themselves and that Kalyani and her girls are welcome to join them. 

4.  Two Years Earlier – the Wedding

Continuing the narrative thread of two year earlier, Vinod reports back to Ajit that the Sen family is acceptably humble and that, as per his instructions from Ajit, he has gotten Shambhunath Sen (Kali Prasad Mukherjee) to agree to all their demands, since the bride’s family must host the wedding ceremony.  The wedding arrangements proceed as planned.  However, just before the actual ceremony, Ajit tells Shambhunath Sen that he wants his own goldsmith to assess the true value Kalyani’s wedding jewels, which are part of the bride’s dowry.  Naturally, Shambhunath Sen is silently offended, but he agrees to go ahead with the inspection if Anupam is in agreement with Ajit’s intentions.  Anupam is summoned and as usual quietly expresses his submissive assent to Ajit’s  inspection. 

The inspection goes ahead, and the bride’s jewelry is confirmed by the goldsmith to be authentic and of a high standard.  Then Shambhunath Sen unexpectedly feeds a dinner to all the wedding guests and afterwards informs everyone that the wedding is cancelled.  He will not have his daughter wedded to a family that thinks her father could be a swindler.  Ajit is furious and vows revenge.  And Anupam has still not set sight on Kalyani – he still doesn’t know what she looks like.  So it is finally clear to the viewer why Anupam doesn’t recognize Kalyani later on the train.

5.  On the Train (once again)

Returning to the later narrative thread on the train, we see Anupam again charmed to listen to Kalyani read fairy tales to the young girls who are with her.  But then at a train stop they are confronted by two pushy male British passengers who demand possession of their train compartment and order them to vacate.  Anupam is timidly ready to submit to their demands, but Kalyani refuses to budge, insisting that they have the legal right to remain in their compartment.  After a brief standoff, the insolent British passengers give way, and Kalyani triumphantly returns to her seat. 

This is a seminal moment in the story, because it delineates a fundamental difference between Anupam and Kalyani.  While Anupam is respectful and genteel, he is too timid to stand up for what is right.  Kalyani, on the other hand is a principled idealist and will fight for what is right.  Impressed by Kalyani’s brave stand, Anupam’s mother asks her name, and she replies that she is Kalyani, daughter of Shambhunath Sen from Kanpur.  It is at this point that Anupam finally learns that this charming woman is the person he was supposed to marry two years earlier.

6.  Two Weeks Later
Hoping to rectify his past errors, Anupam approaches Shambhunath Sen and begs his forgiveness.  He says that he has long since disconnected himself from his pride-hungry uncle Ajit and that he really wants to marry Kalyani.  Shambhunath Sen says he has no objection, but the decision is really up to Kalyani.

When Anupam approaches Kalyani, she courteously tells him that he just wants to assuage his guilt feelings and that he should forget about her.  She flatly rejects his renewed marriage proposal.  In fact, she tells him, their earlier marriage fiasco was a blessing in disguise for her.  It allowed her to discover something that would give true meaning to her life – a career devoted to educating young orphan girls.

The final scene shows Anupam writing a letter to his friend Harish.  He tells him that he is now working in Allahabad supporting Kalyani’s efforts to launch a school there for orphan girls.  He adds further:

“Kalyani can never be mine.  The two banks of a river can never meet.  But they can at least move together.  I just want to be a small part of Kalyani’s big dream.”

So the story ends on a curiously positive note.  What the rudderless Anupam needed was not a traditional wife, but a person who could inspire his basically well-intentioned self to take the bit between his teeth and positively engage in a meaningful mission, one based on the idealistic principles that his new life’s guide, Kalyani, believes in.

This episode is interesting and well-made, with excellent dramatic performances by all.  However, as I mentioned above, it would have been good if the filmmakers had placed more of an emphasis, as did Tagore’s original story, on the engaging effects of Kalyani’s sweet-sounding voice on Anupam’s soul.
★★★½

Notes:

1. Rabindranath Tagore, “Aparichita” (1916), (trans. by Meenakshi Mukherjee ,1992), Scribd.  
2. Durga S, “The Happy Endings – Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (10)”, Writersbrew, (27 March 2016).   

“Waaris”, Stories by Rabindranath Tagore - Debatma Mandal (2015)

Rabindranath Tagore’s short story “Sampatti Samarpan”, aka “The Trust Property” [1] (1891-92), is a mordant tale of madness and desolation brought about by overweening greed.  This story served as the basis for the 16th episode, “Waaris”, of the anthology television series Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (2015), which was under the general directorship of Anurag Basu, with this episode having been directed by Debatma Mandal. 

This could almost be considered a horror story, but one that is more focused on the plane of human  feelings rather than on external circumstances.  It begins by showing middle-aged Yagyanath Kundu (played by Rammakant Daayama) laughingly playing with his four-year-old grandson Gokulchandra.  At the same time, Yagyanath is carelessly unmindful of the life-threatening medical condition of his son Vrindavan’s wife in the same household.  A village doctor comes and prescribes some medicine for Vrindavan’s wife, but the selfish and stingy Yagyanath refuses to spend the money on it.  The woman soon passes away, and horrified by his father’s unfeeling behavior, Vrindavan announces to him that he is going to take his son, Gokul, with him and leave the home.  But Yagyanath is unfazed by his son’s departure – it will just mean that he can save some money on his household expenses.  And Yagyanath’s village neighbors, steeped in the traditional customs, are equally unsympathetic towards Vrindavan and think that the son should  not have moved away from his father.  After all, one of them tells Yagyanath, “if your wife dies, you can always get another wife, but you can’t find another father”.  (A similar traditionally misogynist sentiment was expressed in another Tagore story in this series, “Punishment” [2].)

Although Yagyanath is miserly and hardly a good social companion, he misses playing with his little four-year-old grandson Gokul. That’s the one kind of unbalanced relationship he was able to cope with.  Now he is lonely and miserable.  As time passes (which we can discern by the greying of his hair), he becomes a crotchety and eccentric old man, known for his miserly and antisocial ways.  Increasingly he appears to be a lunatic, and he finds himself an object of derision by naughty young village boys, who run by and poke him as he walks down the road.

One day Yagyanath observes among his youthful tormenters a new rascal who seems to be their new leader and who is even more impudent than all the others.  This cheeky boy, Nitai, even boldly comes up to Yagyanath and rips the man’s garment as a rude way of insulting him.  But since the boy is willing to talk to Yagyanath, the lonely man invites him to his home.  Soon Yagyanath  learns that Nitai has away from home, because his father wanted to send him to school.  So Yagyanath invites the impertinent boy to stay with him, and Nitai readily agrees. 

Nitai enjoys being spoiled by Yagyanath, but after awhile he becomes bored and threatens to leave.  Yagyanath panics over the idea of losing his only companion and offers the boy everything he has if he will only stay.  Later a neighbor warns Yagyanath that a man named Damodar Pal has been looking for his runaway son, Nitai, and if the authorities discover the boy at his place he could go to jail.  It is Nitai’s turn to panic now, but Yagyanath assures the boy that this very night he can hide the boy in a place where noone can find him.

Then in the middle of that night, Yagyanath wakes the sleepy boy and ushers him out into the jungle.  He takes Nitai to an abandoned temple and upon entering the main chamber loosens a floorboard, which turns out to be a hidden trapdoor to a secret chamber below.  After the two of them climb down a ladder into the dark, hidden room, Nitai can see pots full of jewels and gold coins.  This is where the miserly Yagyanath has been hiding his great wealth!  And now this will be Nitai’s undiscoverable hiding place.      

But in this connection Yagyanath has a crazed plan.  He madly intends to convert Nitai into a tantric yaksha nature-spirit to guard over his hidden wealth [3].  So he coercively orders the sleepy boy to repeatedly recite a mantra-like declaration that if his grandson, Gokul, or any of Gokul’s heirs, ever appears at the temple and wants the hidden treasure, Nitai  must hand it over to  him.  Nitai is now frightened by these ghostly developments, but he is now in something of a trance and is repeating his mantric declaration over and over.  Then with Nitai still chanting, Yagyanath climbs the ladder and exits the secret chamber.

In the morning, Yagyanath is awakened by his son Vrindavan, whom he hasn’t seen since Vrindavan and Gokul departed his home years ago.  Vrindavan tells him that he is looking for Gokul, who recently ran away from home and who, rumor has it, may now be staying with his grandfather.  He also reveals that, because of Yagyanath’s embarrassingly bad reputation in the area, he had changed his name to Damodar Pal, and he had changed Gokul’s name to Nitai.

With this news – that the naughty boy that he had condemned to be a yaksha in the temple dungeon was actually his beloved grandson Gokul – Yagyanath slips into complete madness.  He absently looks off into space, asking to noone in particular if anyone can hear a child calling.  At this, Vrindavan, in turn, panics and runs off in the wrong direction searching for his lost son.  As the story ends, Yagyanath continues to stew alone in his delirium.

At the close of Tagore’s original story “Sampatti Samarpan”, it is clear that Nitai did not survive his grim imprisonment, but in this filmed episode, “Waaris”, Nitai’s fate, though dire, is left somewhat open.  We are just left to mull over the vengeful trick fate has played on Yagyanath and his demonic scheme. 

Indeed this ironic twist at the end constitutes the appeal of this story, which otherwise suffers from the weakness of having a deranged main character with whom it is difficult to empathize.

★★★

Notes:

1. Rabindranath Tagore, “The Trust Property”, Mashi and Other Stories, The Literature Network, (1918).   
2. The Film Sufi, “‘Punishment’, Stories by Rabindranath Tagore - Debatma Mandal (2015)”, The Film Sufi, (6 March 2018).  
3. Malabika Roy, “Chapter - III: Myths, Symbols and Imagery of Tagore’s Short Stories”, The Poetic Counter-point in Rabindranath Tagore's Short Stories : a Critical Study, University of Gauhati, (Guwahati, Assam, India) (PhD, 2011).  

“Tyaag”, Stories by Rabindranath Tagore - Debatma Mandal (2015)

Rabindranath Tagore’s short story “Tyaag”, aka “The Renunciation” (1892) [1], concerns the eternal conflict between what feels right in the heart and what is dictated by social customs. In this case it is a matter of romantic love up against the rigid constraints of the Indian caste system.  This story served as the basis for the 15th  episode, “Tyaag”, of the anthology television series Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (2015), which was under the general directorship of Anurag Basu, with this episode having been directed by Debatma Mandal. 

This Tagore story, which was scripted for the screen by Samrat Chakraborty, not only features the emotional urgings of romantic love in conflict with the traditional caste system; it is also laced with strains of personal revenge.  Much of the story is told in flashback, as a newly married couple come to face a crisis associated with their marriage.

The story begins with Hemant Mukherjee at home expressing his rapturous love for and to his new wife, Kusum.  But Kusum has a troubled look on her face and doesn’t express what is worrying her.  Then we move into a flashback relating how the two of them met each other. 

The distinctions between when we are in the “present” and when we are in the past in this presentation of the story are often obscure and poorly signaled.  The primary telltale indicator here is that Hemant in the present sports a mustache, while he is clean-shaven in the flashback scenes.  Here we see in flashback the clean-shaven Hemant immediately smitten when he first sees Kusum on the street in a rickshaw.  He soon starts following her around on his bicycle whenever he sees her rickshaw.  These lyrical sequences of their cautious flirtation via furtive exchanges of glances are the highlight of this episode. They are accompanied by evocative music, notably the beautiful “Come, O’ Monsoon Shower of the Night”, which I believe is a song by Tagore.

Then back in the present, we learn what was troubling Kusum.  Unbeknownst to Hemant, who belongs to an orthodox Brahmin family, Kusum is not a Brahmin – she is a Kayasth, which is a lower caste, and it is forbidden to orthodox Brahmins to marry outside their caste.  Hemant had believed when they were married that she was a Brahmin, and she had been meaning to tell him ever since about this lie.  But before she could muster the courage to tell her husband, he is informed of the problematic situation by his father, Harihar.  Harihar orders his son to immediately cast out Kusum from his home, insisting her presence is polluting their entire family.  Already the father of his sister Hemlata’s fiancé, Sumont Banerjee, has cancelled their upcoming wedding because of this supposedly scandalous situation.  When Hemlata asks Sumont what he is going to do about this edict, Sumont meekly tells her that he will abide by his father’s’ wishes.

Now in another flashback we learn about Kusum’s background.  As a very young girl, after her parents had passed away, Kusum was adopted and raised by a kindly Brahmin, Biplavdas Chatterjee. Everyone always assumed that she was Chatterjee’s legitimate daughter and therefore a Brahmin, too.  But now that Kusum has come of age, the elderly Chatterjee has started to worry about Kusum’s future.  His relative Pyarishankar, however, urges Chatterjee to go off on a long put-off religious pilgrimage and that he, himself, will look after Kusum while Chatterjee Baba is away.

During this time Pyarishankar sees that Hemant and Kusum are enamored with each other, and he arranges for them to get married, with Kusum presented as being a Brahmin.  When Kusum expresses misgivings about this lie, Pyarishankar tells her that

“a lie that can unite two hearts is better than a hundred truths”. 

When Chatterjee returns from his trip, Pyarishankar convinces him, too, to let the marriage go ahead in the name of true love.  So Hemant and Kusum were then married in a sumptuous and traditional ceremony.

Now we return to the “present” again, and Hemant is shown to be greatly troubled about having been deceived about Kusum’s background by Pyarishankar.  Pyarishankar explains to him that his marriage was arranged in order to take revenge on Hemant’s father, Harihar, whom he had known earlier.  Years earlier in a Bengali village where Pyarishankar lived, Harihar had led the locals to banish Pyarishankar from the area for the crime of funding his son-in-law’s study abroad, something forbidden to orthodox Brahmins.  Pyarishankar was accused of polluting Brahmin purity.  Although as a penance Pyarishankar had offered to douse his house in river Ganges holy water and force his son-in-law to eat cow dung, his pleas for forgiveness were rejected, and he had to leave the village and move his family to Kolkata.

Later when Pyarishankar saw that Harihar’s son was in love with a non-Brahmin, he saw his chance to take revenge and pollute Harihar’s family.  Then after the unholy marriage took place, he wrote a letter to Sumont’s father informing him how Hemant’s blasphemous marriage had polluted the Mukherjee family and had consequently rendered Sumont’s marriage to Hemlata untenable.  It was all done not to support true love but in the interests of revenge.

In the final scene, Hemant sees Kusum, having been ordered out of their home by Harihar, packing her bag to leave.  Harihar tells Hemant that it is necessary for him to forsake Kusum in order to salvage Hemlata’s intended wedding to Sumont.  But Hemant, having thought things over, tells his father that he will forsake his wider family and his caste before he will forsake his wife.  He is going to stick with Kusum, come what may.  And at this point Hemlata informs them that she doesn’t want to marry Sumont, anyway.  She, too, it seems, stakes her future on true love above traditional ritual.

Then in the very last shot, there is a knock on the door, and Pyarishankar is shown getting in his last vengeful dig.  He has come with some Ganges water and cow dung to give to the still-stubborn Harihar so that the man can serve penance for his sins.

That final shot was tacked on to the tail of Tagore’s story to give what I think is an unhelpful sarcastic twist at the very end.  However, another, and in my view more productive, addition to the tale was an amplification of Hemant’s sister Hemlata’s role in the narrative. This expansion ties up something of a loose end that was left unattended in Tagore’s original story.  Overall, this is a slight tale, but it is eloquently told.
★★★

Notes:

1. Rabindranath Tagore, “THE RENUNCIATION”, (1891), The Hungry Stones and Other Stories, ©. F. Andrews, trans.), The Project Gutenberg, (2013).   

“Chhooti”, Stories by Rabindranath Tagore - Debatma Mandal (2015)

Rabindranath Tagore’s short story “Chutti”, aka “Chhuti” or “The Homecoming” (1892-93) [1], concerns something that most all of us are familiar with but which all too rarely attracts our sympathies – the confused awkwardness of early teenage boys.  This story served as the basis for the 14th  episode, “Chhooti”, of the anthology television series Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (2015), which was under the general directorship of Anurag Basu, with this episode having been directed by Debatma Mandal. 

The problem with boys of this age period (12-14-years-old) is that they are in-betweeners – no longer children, but not yet adults.  Thus they are no longer given the accommodating tolerance that little kids get, and at the same time their often confused early adult-like assertiveness is not tolerated and given gentle refinement, either.  This story “Chhooti” is about one such boy and his struggles.  In connection with this awkward age for boys, Tagore made these explicit authorial comments in his story [2,3], which were not included in the filmed episode under discussion:

“In this world of human affairs there is no worse nuisance than a boy at the age of fourteen. He is neither ornamental nor useful. It is impossible to shower affection on him as on a little boy; and he is always getting in the way. If he talks with a childish lisp he is called a baby, and if he answers in a grown-up way he is called impertinent. In fact any talk at all from him is resented. Then he is at the unattractive, growing age. He grows out of his clothes with indecent haste; his voice grows hoarse and breaks and quavers; his face grows suddenly angular and unsightly. It is easy to excuse the shortcomings of early childhood, but it is hard to tolerate even unavoidable lapses in a boy of fourteen. The lad himself becomes painfully self-conscious. When he talks with elderly people he is either unduly forward, or else so unduly shy that he appears ashamed of his very existence. “

Tagore goes on to say that what a young teenage boy in these circumstances needs – and what he for the first time in his life feels a craving for – is love [2,3]:

“Yet it is at this very age when, in his heart of hearts, a young lad most craves for recognition and love; and he becomes the devoted slave of any one who shows him consideration. But none dare openly love him, for that would be regarded as undue indulgence and therefore bad for the boy.”

Note that the anglicized version of the title of Tagore’s story “Chutti” is usually given as “The Homecoming”.  However, it is my understanding (using Google Translate) that the word ‘Chutti’ could be translated into English as ‘Holiday’, and this rendering seems meaningful at this story’s end.

The filmed version of this Tagore story, as is characteristic of the Stories by Rabindranath Tagore series, once again makes excellent use of closeups and slow-motion sequences to shape the subjective ambience of the main character.  In addition the cinematography by Abhishek Basu (Anurag Basu’s brother) and film editing also effectively contribute to the emotive psychological atmosphere and is very well done throughout.

The story of “Chhooti” begins with a gang of young boys engaged in rambunctious game-playing in the sylvan outskirts of a rural village.  Their boisterous leader, Phatik Chakravorti (played by Suyash Shivaji Shirke), is by no means an attractive or winsome lad; he is just a naughty, self-centered boy up to no good.  When his pestering young brother Makhan gets in his way, he rudely pushes him to the ground, which evokes Makhan’s vow to run home and report Phatik’s misbehavior to their mother. 

Once Phatik is home, his widowed mother, Shanti, harshly scolds him for his habitual bullying of his younger brother.  It is clear that she is used to punishing him for his perpetual naughtiness.  In the middle of this, she looks up to see the surprising appearance of her older brother Bishamber (Ravi Gosain), who has come to visit her after a long absence.  Feeling guilty that he has not been fulfilling his traditional Indian familial duties by looking after his unattended younger sister, and also seeing that her sons Phatik and Makhan are incessantly quarreling, Bishamber asserts his family authority and tells Shanti that he will take Phatik away with him to his home in Calcutta.  There he will raise the boy as a member of his own family and enrol him in a proper school.  Phatik is delighted to hear this news, and Shanti, powerless to object, quietly submits to Bishamber’s intentions.

When they get to Calcutta, Bishamber introduces Phatik to his wife, Kumud, as their new son.  Kumud, though, is an urbanized woman and unabashed about expressing her displeasure over this new situation.  She complains that she already has two sons to look after, and she wasn’t even consulted about the idea of adding another one to her burden.  Her two sons, Sidhu and Kanai, are equally unwelcoming to Phatik and look down at the new arrival as an unsophisticated yokel to be laughed at.

Phatik, though, is at first oblivious of his unwelcoming surroundings, so dazzled is he over the wonders of the big city, Calcutta.  He is amazed that the city never seems to sleep; and he marvels at the way schoolboys spend so much time collectively chasing after and kicking a little round (soccer) ball.  But soon he begins to suffer from the scornful treatment he is getting from Kumud, Sidhu, and Kanai.  After he gets into a scuffle with Sidhu at school, Kumud angrily calls Phatik an uncouth illiterate; and she wonders aloud why he just doesn’t go away.  Later, from his bed at night, Phatik overhears Bishamber and Kumud vehemently arguing about him.  There are few things more disturbing for a child than to hear his or her parents, even if they are surrogate parents as is the case here. engaged in an angry argument.  Then Phatik also overhears from the adjoining bedroom Sidhu and Kanai expressing their shared wish to each other that Phatik would go away.

Despite these negative signs, Phatik begins penning a letter to his real mom.  At first he lies and asserts to her that everything is rosy with his life in Calcutta.  But when he starts recollecting how harshly he was treated by his aunt Kumud on the occasion of his losing his school bag, he changes his tone – he writes that he wants to return home.  He promises that he will be a good boy from now on and do whatever his mother tells him to do. 

Then Phatik goes to his uncle Bishamber and tells him he wants to be taken back home.  Bishamber, though, is busy, and, besides this is the middle of the school term.  He tells Phatik that the soonest he can take him back to his home village is when Durga Puja holiday comes, which is several months away.  Phatik insists he wants to go right away, but he gets nowhere with the authoritative Bishamber.  That night Phatik goes to bed and makes a decision.

The next morning Bishamber and Kumud learn that Phatik has run away during the night, and Bishamber notifies the police about the missing boy.  Now for the first time Bishamber, Kumud, Sidhu, and Kanai feel anxiety about their own culpability in Phatik’s disappearance. 

That evening in a pouring rain, the police carry the weakened-by-fever Phatik back to the Bishamber residence.  It is clear that the delirious boy is critically ill, and a summoned doctor is not optimistic.  Meanwhile, in his delirious state, Phatik has idyllic visions of his mother and little brother, evidently recalling, or dreaming of, some precious moments when he felt loved.

Soon Phatik’s mom Shanti, having been notified about her boy’s serious condition, tearfully rushes to his bedside and lovingly fondles his feverish head.  Phatik looks up at her, and in his closing words asks, “has the holiday finally come?”  Indeed it has.

The story is a sad one and reminds us that the awkward years of early adolescence, while exhibiting the first impulses of boastful assertiveness, also feature a newly intense, but unexpressed, need for love and affection.  It was love that Phatik so desperately needed but didn’t get.  And in the end Shanti, Bishamber, Kumud, Sidhu, and Kanai, having failed to express to Phatik their love, could only express their remorse.
★★★

Notes:

1. Rabindranath Tagore, “Chutti”, aka “Chhuti” (“The Homecoming”), (1892-93).  Available English translations:
• Rabindranath Tagore, “The Home-Coming”, Wikisource, (1892-93/2014).   
• Rabindranath Tagore, “THE HOME-COMING/CHUTI”, Wattpad, (1892-93/n.d.).   
2. Rabindranath Tagore, “The Home-Coming”, Wikisource, (1892-93/2014).   
3. Rabindranath Tagore, “THE HOME-COMING/CHUTI”, Wattpad, (1892-93/n.d.).    

Debatma Mandal

Films of Debatma Mandal:

• "Detective", Stories by Rabindranath Tagore, Episode 6 – Debatma Mandal (2015)
• "Punishment", Stories by Rabindranath Tagore, Episode 8 – Debatma Mandal (2015)
• "Chhooti",  Stories by Rabindranath Tagore, Episode 14 – Debatma Mandal (2015)
• "Tyaag", Stories by Rabindranath Tagore, Episode 15 – Debatma Mandal (2015)
• "Waaris", Stories by Rabindranath Tagore, Episode 16 – Debatma Mandal (2015)
• “Aparichita”, Stories by Rabindranath Tagore, Episode 20 – Debatma Mandal (2015)
• “Dhaai Aakhar Prem Ka”, Stories by Rabindranath Tagore, Episodes 23 & 24 – Debatma Mandal (2015)