I met someone who recommended a bunch of bengali movies. I saw Dahan last night. Fabulous movie - there is beauty in its creation, in its characters, in their emotions, in the nuances of being Indian/ Bengali. I liked how the director did not make it a 'powerful' movie about rape, but rather about molestation born out of an act of instinct. I loved the grandmother in the movie.
There was a story about how many years ago, someone from her (grandmother's) family forgot a wallet full of money in the cab. Everybody was upset. In the morning, the cab driver returned with the wallet. Everybody was happy and rejoicing and distributing sweets and giving a tip to the cabbie. "They reacted as though stealing the wallet was the natural thing and returning it was something special."
I loved that story because it is thought-provoking.
Coming back to the movie... characters were thoroughly controlled. The husbands/ boyfriends were quintessential MCPs and may be a little more than that. When Romita (victim) thought about divorce, it wasn't made a big issue in the movie, but the snap response was, what will the people think? Think how much your parents spent on the marriage? Polash (Romita's husband) shied away from the incident and hoped to not face it in society; as a defense mechanism, he diverted his angst towards Romita and accused her of having pre-marital relations with the molesters. May be she was raped? That's the story which floated about in the community.
It was odd, how I thought the movie would be about the plight of a girl who had been molested and when I sat through the movie, the plight was shared by every character in the movie but based on the perceived thoughts of others in the community.
We Indians grow up with a cultural burden based on how society perceives events; luckily, things are changing in cities such as Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore but not as much as they should.
I am also reading Swami Vivekanand's letters right now and I see that the Hindu culture had a wonderful influence on Indian development, but somewhere, society has indeed become such an overwhelming force which dictates most people's behaviour based on what is the right or the wrong thing to do.
Strawberry fields forever. Nothing's gonna change my world. I am happy to be a Mumbai-ite. Thank you Rituparno Ghosh.
There was a story about how many years ago, someone from her (grandmother's) family forgot a wallet full of money in the cab. Everybody was upset. In the morning, the cab driver returned with the wallet. Everybody was happy and rejoicing and distributing sweets and giving a tip to the cabbie. "They reacted as though stealing the wallet was the natural thing and returning it was something special."
I loved that story because it is thought-provoking.
Coming back to the movie... characters were thoroughly controlled. The husbands/ boyfriends were quintessential MCPs and may be a little more than that. When Romita (victim) thought about divorce, it wasn't made a big issue in the movie, but the snap response was, what will the people think? Think how much your parents spent on the marriage? Polash (Romita's husband) shied away from the incident and hoped to not face it in society; as a defense mechanism, he diverted his angst towards Romita and accused her of having pre-marital relations with the molesters. May be she was raped? That's the story which floated about in the community.
It was odd, how I thought the movie would be about the plight of a girl who had been molested and when I sat through the movie, the plight was shared by every character in the movie but based on the perceived thoughts of others in the community.
We Indians grow up with a cultural burden based on how society perceives events; luckily, things are changing in cities such as Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore but not as much as they should.
I am also reading Swami Vivekanand's letters right now and I see that the Hindu culture had a wonderful influence on Indian development, but somewhere, society has indeed become such an overwhelming force which dictates most people's behaviour based on what is the right or the wrong thing to do.
Strawberry fields forever. Nothing's gonna change my world. I am happy to be a Mumbai-ite. Thank you Rituparno Ghosh.
