“Two Sisters”, Stories by Rabindranath Tagore - Sachin Deo (2015)

Rabindranath Tagore’s story/novella “Dui Bon” (“Two Sisters” [1], 1933) shows two contrasting womanly ways of relating to men, and in this tale one man experiences both types.  This story served as the basis for the 17th and 18th episodes, “Two Sisters”, of the anthology television series Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (2015), which was under the general directorship of Anurag Basu.  Basu wrote the screenplay and dialogue for these two episodes, which were both directed by Sachin Deo.

Tagore wrote a number of stories that sensitively considered man-woman relationships, at least partially and often substantially, from the woman’s perspective, and several of them are included in this series.  In “The Broken Nest” (“Nastanirh”), a young wife is faced with the attentions of two men, her husband and his cousin.  Here in “Two Sisters”, the roles are reversed, and a married man must choose between his wife and her sister.

The two sisters featured in this story each embody one of the two different ways that Tagore mentions at the story’s outset by which women may care for the men they are attached to:

• the Maternal type.  They want to satisfy all the needs of the men they care for.  This means looking after every last detail of their beloved’s lives and nurturing them with loving concern.
   
• the Lover type.  They want to dance endlessly with their beloved.  This means being a constant companion and playmate in the never-ending journey through life’s wonders.

Of course, most men would like to find a woman who combines both of these types, but that is extremely difficult.

The story of “Two Sisters” is concerned with four principal characters, each of whom is distinctly profiled:

• Shashaank (played by Bhanu Uday Singh) is a young engineer working for a British-owned company.  He is friendly and cooperative, but he is also self-indulgent and rarely looks beyond the horizon of his own selfish concerns.
   
• Sharmila (Shreye Narayan) is the daughter of a now-deceased wealthy zamindar, Ram Mohan, and is Shashaank’s loving wife.  She is the epitome of the aforementioned maternal type and devotes herself round-the-clock to looking after her self-absorbed husband’s every need.
   
• Urmimala, or “Urmi”, (Jayashree Venketaramanan) is Sharmila’s younger sister and is studying to be a medical doctor.  She is an instance of the lover type – expressive, fun-loving, and eager to engage in playful interactions with like-minded men.
     
• Nirad (Abhishek Narat) was a long-time friend and medical-studies schoolmate of Sharmila’s and Urmi’s recently deceased brother, Hemant.  Ram Mohan had established a hospital to help the needy, and he had wanted Hemant to run it in the future.  But after Hemant’s death, Ram Mohan chose Nirad to be the future manager of the hospital, and to secure that scheme and make Nirad a virtual family member, he had arranged for Nirad and Urmi to be betrothed.  Like Shashaank, Nirad is also self-absorbed, but in other respects the two men are quite different.  Unlike the ebullient but neglectful Shashaank, Nirad is dry, rigorous, and pedantic.  And Nirad is also totally self-reliant and doesn’t need to be looked after like Shashaank does.

In Tagore’s original story, each of these mental dispositions is explicitly articulated, and I consider that to be a strong tenor of the story [1].  However, in this filmed version of the story, Basu has largely eschewed such explicit exposition, and he reveals the characters’ inner landscapes more through their behavior that is shown [2].  This is a major difference and a somewhat risky divergence, but I think Basu and Deo manage to pull things off pretty well.  There are also some other narrative differences between this filmed version and Tagore’s original story which I will mention further on.

The 17th episode of the series, and the first half of this story, begins with some background material concerning the four main characters.  They live in their quarters at the lavish zamindar estate, where their upscale lifestyle is clearly in evidence, and we see that the main characters are all fluent in English.  Sharmila is shown constantly mothering the spoiled Shashaank at home, to the point where Shashaank sometimes complains he is being smothered by her affection.  And opposites Nirad and Shashaank clearly don’t like each other, but they are civil towards each other when they are in each other’s presence.  We also see that Sharmila is starting to suffer from dizzy spells and is perhaps showing the initial signs of a serious illness.

Then Nirad gets word that he has been admitted for professional medical study at Bristol Medical College in London, and he informs Urmi that he will go there alone to study.  Meanwhile Shashaank, who had been anticipating his promotion to chief engineer at his company, is disgruntled to learn that he has been passed over.  Sharmila, mindful of her husband’s wounded pride, strongly urges him to quit his job and find another one.  To facilitate this move, she secretly uses her own personal, inherited wealth to arrange with her uncle Bimal for Shashaank to team up with Bimal in a joint business venture.  When he is informed of this deal, Shashaank reluctantly agrees to it; but once he starts working on the new project he feels that his pride is at stake, and Shashaank devotes himself to the new work as a workaholic.  He spends most of his time working in his office.  Shashaank’s hard work, though, is paying off, and he proudly announces that he has made enough profit to pay off Sharmila’s investment.  So now we have the two men, Nirad and Shashaank, totally focused on their own careers and neglectful of their women partners.

However, Sharmila’s medical condition worsens, and she becomes basically bedridden.  So her sister Urmi comes to her household to look after her and her household duties. This means that we now have Sharmila, Shashaank, and Urmi living in the same quarters, and this gives Urmi and work-preoccupied Shashaank occasional opportunities to interact.

As we move to the 18th episode of the series, there is further coverage of those scant opportunities when Urmi and her workaholic brother-in-law Shashaank can interact alone together, and it can be seen that their similar fun-loving dispositions match well together.  For entertainment Urmi gets Shashaank to take her out to the theater and other places, and it can be seen that they enjoy each others’ company.  When Urmi gets a letter from Nirad informing her that he is going to pursue further medical studies in England and that he now intends to marry an English girl that he has met, thereby breaking off his engagement with Urmi, she just laughs it off.  She is happy with her current preoccupations with Shashaank and Sharmila.

Sharmila watches this budding relationship between Shashaank and Urmi with mixed emotions.  As always, she wants what is best for her loved ones.  Then she gets the shattering news from her doctor that she is terminally ill and may have only weeks to live.  So she urges Shashaank to take Urmi for a brief vacation to Baralpur for a few days.  While there, Shashaank and Urmi, increasingly attracted to each other, share a kiss.  And when they return to their estate home, they surreptitiously spend the night together in bed.

Aware of what is happening, Sharmila is tearful.  And then she gets the further disturbing news from her uncle Bimal that during the time Urmi has been living with them, Shashaank has been totally neglecting his work responsibilities, and that their joint business is now bankrupt and hopelessly in debt.  So Sharmila uses all her remaining wealth to repay Shashaank’s business losses and restore the viability of his business.

Then Sharmila gets Shashaank and Urmi to take her before the idol of Kali at the family temple so that she get them to accept her self-sacrificingly loving and maternal vow.  She tells them:

“Goddess Kali did not make me fit for you.  I did what I could do.  I tried a lot and sometimes I overdid it.  I have made many mistakes, Shashaank. . . . Til today Goddess has never refused anything to me.  I request that even you both will not refuse me the promise that I am going to take from you.   Don’t refuse . . . This is my last wish.   If after my death you both stay together, then I will be able to die peacefully.  Whatever you did not get from me is there in Urmi.  Urmi will not let you feel my absence.”

Then Sharmila tells them that as long as she is still alive, they should live together as a ménage à trois.  Urmi and Shashaank remain shamefully silent and then separately go to their own rooms to think about what to do.

Ultimately, Shashaank vows to stay monogamously with Sharmila and make a personal and concerted effort to nurse her back to health.  Meanwhile Urmi departs silently and leaves Shashaank and Sharmila with good-bye letters.  In her letters she tells them that she is going abroad to diligently study medicine and that she will devote herself to living up to Sharmila’s high standards of loving compassion.  So both Urmi and Shashaank, now going their separate ways, have finally been changed for the better by experiencing the depths of Sharmila’s maternally loving nature.


I should emphasize that this is not so much of a moral tale as it is a narrative exploration of the nature of love.  Even so, there are some significant differences between this filmed version and Tagore’s original story (at least as I read it in English translation [1]).  For one thing, in Tagore’s story the relationship between Shashaank and Urmi never becomes explicitly amorous, as it does in this filmed version.  In addition, in Tagore’s story there is an indication near the end that Sharmila has been given a miraculous medication and that she will make a recovery.  This, of course, offers an altered perspective with respect to how we view the future of Shashaank and Sharmila.  In this connection, there is a key moment late in Tagore’s story, but not present in the filmed version, when Sharmila vows to learn more about her husband’s routine engineering and business activities.  This suggests that she will in the future try to be more of a loving companion.  So at the end of Tagore’s tale, there is a promised coming together of the two womanly types – the lover Urmi vows to be more maternal, and the maternal Sharmila vows to be more of a lover.  This optimistic symmetrical assimilation of virtues at the close of Tagore’s story is missing from the filmed version.

Overall, though, and despite deficient English subtitling once again (they are often held too briefly onscreen), the production values of this filmed version are excellent.  In particular, I would like to call attention to the fine acting, especially that of Shreye Narayan in the role of Sharmila, as well as the atmospheric music and Raja Satankar’s superb cinematography.
★★★½

Notes:

1. Rabindranath Tagore, “The Two Sisters: Rabindranath Tagore”, (1933), (trans. by Arunava Sinha, 10 August 2012), Translations – translations of contemporary, modern and classic bengali fiction and poetry by arunava sinha.       
2. Durga S, “Dui Bon (Two sisters) – Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (7)”, Writersbrew, (15 February 2016).   

Sachin Deo

Stories by Sachin Deo:

• "Wafadaar", Stories by Rabindranath Tagore, Episode 11 – Sachin Deo (2015)
• "Two Sisters", Stories by Rabindranath Tagore, Episodes 17 & 18 – Sachin Deo (2015)

“Wafadaar”, Stories by Rabindranath Tagore - Sachin Deo (2015)

Rabindranath Tagore’s short story “Khokababur Pratyabartan” (“The Return of Khokababu”, 1891) [1] features an interesting plot twist that triggers our consideration of several social themes.  It served as the basis for the 11th episode, “Wafadaar” (“Dutiful”), of the anthology television series Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (2015) created by and under the general directorship of Anurag Basu, with this episode directed by Sachin Deo.

This filming of Tagore’s story is relatively faithful to the original, but since many of the episodes in the Stories by Rabindranath Tagore series are sequentially linked, there are slight narrative adjustments that serve to accommodate these linkages.  With the case of “Wafadaar”, for example, rather than follow the original story’s third-person presentation throughout, the story’s first two-thirds are presented as a narrative flashback – “Wafadaar’s” main character recounts his experiences to a character from Episodes 9 & 10 (“The Broken Nest”), Bhupati Babu, who is here only a passive listener and has no significance to this narrative.

As the story unfolds, we can make out some issues associated with three social themes that are of interest:

• Duty  
  What is the scope of duty and what are its boundaries?  To what extent is one’s very identity, both as perceived by him/herself or by others, characterized by his or her adherence to socially prescribed duty?
   
• Nature vs. Nurture 
  To what relative degrees are we the products of (a) our biological inheritances compared to (b) the behavioral moldings of the environments in which we are raised? 
   
• Class in India 
  What is the relative significance of class loyalty, as compared to more instinctual loyalties such as those of the family?

The story of “Wafadaar” evolves over three acts, the first two of which are told in flashback.

1.  Raicharan and “Little Master”
As a young boy, Raicharan is assigned, in accordance with some deal arranged by his father, to move into the house of an upperclass family and be both the servant and playmate of their son, Anukul, who is the same age as Raicharan.  Raicharan willingly and enthusiastically accepts his assigned role, and over the years becomes Anukul’s inseparable companion.  When Anukul finally gets married, Raicharan is fearful that his lifelong role is threatened, but he is soon overjoyed when Anukul and his wife give him the assignment of looking after their newborn boy.

When the infant boy is first uttering sounds, he calls Raicharan, “Channa”; and the young servant is thrilled to be given a name by the boy, whom he calls, “Little Master”.  Raicharan’s loyalty  to serving his master is so strong that he leaves his pregnant wife to be looked after by his sister in their home village, and he accompanies Anukul’s family when they shift to another town.  So here is an example of socially-defined duties taking precedence over more basic, primordial loyalties.

Raicharan lovingly looks after his Little Master, but one day while taking the little boy to the riverside, he momentarily loses sight of his charge, and the little toddler wanders off into the water and is presumably drowned in the river.  Naturally, both Anukul’s wife and Raicharan are overwhelmed with grief over this tragic event. 

2.  A Second Little Master 
Having now lost his self-defining role, Raicharan returns to his home village.  While he is still wallowing in drunken grief over what has happened, his wife dies giving birth to their son, who is given the name “Phelna”.  The still-self-pitying Raicharan doesn’t pay much attention to the infant, but one day he hears Phelna say, “channa”.  Raicharan is instantly overjoyed to hear this, because he concludes that his former Little Master has now forgiven him for his earlier neglect of his caretaking duties and has come back to him in the form of Phelna.  In other words, Phelna is taken to be the reincarnation of Little Master.

Raicharan immediately sells his few assets and property so that he can raise Phelna properly as the son of an upper-class family.  He takes Phelna to be schooled in Kolkata.

3.  Return to the Present  
The recounting of Raicharan’s experiences in flashback now comes to an end, and we see that in the “present” Phelna, aka (to Raicharan) “Little Master”, is now 18-years-old.  Because of Phelna’s always having been told the story that he is the son of an upper-class couple who died long ago in an accident and that Raicharan was assigned to look after him, the young man has grown up to be spoiled.  He looks down on his real father as a mere servant.  So it is evident that Raicharan has fashioned a snobbish upper-class playboy out of his own lower-class flesh-and-blood (although Raicharan, himself, fervently believes that Phelna is truly his original Little Master’s reincarnation).

However, at this point Raicharan’s resources are utterly exhausted, and his sister is threatening to tell Phelna who his real father is.  So Raicharan decides to return to Anukul’s wealthy household and “return” their son (which is what Raicharan takes Phelna to be) to them.  In order to get Anukul and his wife to accept this transfer, Raicharan falsely confesses to them that he had stolen their young son years ago when he was lost by the riverbank and raised the boy on his own.  With this gift Raicharan now hopes that he can return to being a servant in the Anukul home and be permitted to see his prized Little Master from time to time.

But although Anukul and his wife accept that Phelna is their real son, and Phelna accepts the idea that Anukul is his father, the couple flatly reject Raicharan’s request to return to their fold.  To them, Raicharan has committed a heinous crime and has been profoundly disloyal.  Phelna, taking pity on the menial servant who raised him, condescendingly suggests to his newfound “dad”, Anukul, that Raicharan can be made to go away for good if he is just given a little cash.

Seeing this complete dismissal of his very personhood after all his years of personal sacrifice, Raicharan is crushed.  He disconsolately wanders over to the riverbank where he had originally lost his Little Master and mournfully walks into the streaming waters.

So Tagore’s tale of “Wafadaar” is a sad one.  Duty and loyalty, and the way they affect personal affection, are manifested differently by the various characters in this story.  For Raicharan, duty and loyalty fueled the genuine love he felt for the people he served.  But in the end it is sad that all his sincere and innocent efforts to support the people he served, misguided though they may have been, did not have better outcomes for him.

★★★½

Notes:

1. Rabindranath Tagore, “The Child’s Return”, The Literature Network, (1891/1918).