Parineeta

Ratiyaan, kaari, kaari raatiyan.
Ratiyaan, kaari, kaari raatiyan.

I could have named this post more dramatically. In fact, I usually think of the title after having written the post. However, whatever I think of, can never out think the master storyteller himself.

Raat hamari to chand ki saheli hai,
Kitne dino ke baad, aayi wo akeli hai,
Chuppi ki birah hai, Jhingur ka baaje saaz.

The past week was exhausting. I went back to work on Wednesday. After three 20-hour workdays, I had to turn down S's offer of a Saturday morning movie. I just wanted to get back home and sleep. Sunday morning plans were also cancelled at the last moment and I was all set towards having another lousy weekend. I even wandered into the nearby mall to catch the matinee show alone and guess what - it was house full! I was doing aimless rounds of the mall, when I decided to buy myself a VCD. When my eyes fell on the lovely Vidya Balan, looking towards me with those intensely questioning eyes, I couldn't help but buy Parineeta. I remembered having decided that I would not watch the movie before I had read the original story. I had finished reading it long back. But I had not managed to see the movie. So I came back home, popped the VCD into the player and...

...I was there. I do not know how the City of Joy looked like in times of the novel, but in the movie, it seemed enough 1962'ish to me. But then appeared Shekhar, and then Lolita. And I might as well have been a character penned by Sarat Chandra himself, for I was right there, beside those two.

Raat hamari to chand ki saheli hai,
Kitne dino ke baad, aayi wo akeli hai,
Sanjha ki baati bhi koi bujhade aaj,
Andhere se ji bharke karni hai baaten aaj.

What had struck me when I had read the novel was, that how subtle and yet how powerful it was. My prowess in Bangla leaves a lot to be desired but even I could feel the story in my heart. Yet I had to re-read portions of it to figure out what did Shekhar actually do to her - the briefest of the intimate - that sealed the strongest of bonds. It was then that I realized what the writer intended to say. What he meant by Parineeta. How overwhelmingly strong he had painted his protagonist.

Andhera rootha hai,
Andhera aentha hai,
Gumsum sa, kone main baitha hai.

The movie is not so subtle. It could not have been. It would not have worked. But as I saw the movie, I realized something. I realized the genius of Sarat Chandra. His acute understanding of human nature - of men and women. Man hasn't changed much since his times. He is still given to his flights of fancy, his fits of jealous rage, his overwhelming desire to possess his loved one - I don't know about others, I know I am. In other words, he still acts like an idiot mostly and gets away with it mostly (though not as often as before). The woman, however, I wonder. I wonder if what Lolita portrays as a female protagonist makes sense to a modern day feminist crusader.

Andhera pagal hai, kinta ghanera hai,
Chubhta hai, dasta hai, phir bhi woh mera hai,
Uski hi godi main sar rakh ke sona hai,
Uski hi bahon me chupke se rona hai.

Before my blog is summarily torched by all my female readers, I beg that my question be considered without bias. I am curious to know. I am not talking about the later part of the story/movie when Lolita would have surely walked away, and not uttered a word, if Shekhar would not have owned up to their union. I know that idea may not (and perhaps should not?) make sense to a woman of today. What I am asking is that, in times when even the idea of marriage has mutated into something totally new, whether that one act in the movie - a garland thrown around a beloved's neck (or the golden chain in the movie), that too in innocent play - is enough to evoke even an idea of life long trust. I know that the love story is about so much more - it is about what has transpires between the two protagonists over years and years of knowing each other very closely. I submit that they both loved each other, but I also suspect their story would have treaded a different path had it not been for that one night of intimate confession - all sparked by that garland. I want to know if a woman can, in times like these, gift her trust so totally, so unconditionally, so innocently to... merely a man.

Aankhon se kajal ban, behta andhera.

Or would she rather trust the pre-nup?