Aparajito by Satyajit Ray

 

Aparajito (The Unvanquished) is a 1956 Bengali film written directed by Satyajit Ray (1921–1992). It is adapted from the first half of Bibhutibhushan Bannerjee's novel Aparajito. The story as well as movie is one of the best I have ever watched.

In the story, a poor Brahmin family: a man, his wife and only son move from their village in Bengal to Varanasi where the man starts working as priest on the Ganga ghat. They are very poor, although the boy goes to school. Satyajit Ray has captured the images or old Varanasi so well that we are transported into that age and that place along with the camera. Then, the man catches fever and quickly dies. This episode is shown in such a touching manner that it has become a masterpiece. The man did not have enough money, so he did not want to call a doctor. He made some home medicine which makes him better. But next day, he goes to Ganga ghat for a bath, much to displeasure of his wife who would rather have him rest. While returning, he falls sick again. Before dying, he asks for Ganga jal and dies after having a sip. During his sickness of a few days, he does not complain, he does not curse his poverty, he does not call for any help. He showed a complete acceptance of his fate and his death, which was beyond imagination. I know movies and literature sometimes romanticizes death, but the manner in which Satyajit Ray has shown it, is unparalleled.

Now, even before her husband died, a neighbor tries to take benefit of the woman, whom she scares away. Then she works as a housemaid in some rich person’s home. But looking at the situation of her son Appu who keeps wandering here and there, she decides to rather return to her village in Bengal.

Once in village, the boy shows good talent in studies and after a few year when he is in teen age, he is sent to Calcutta where he studies in college during the day time and works at a printing press during the night to cover his expenses. His struggles are also shown in the movie, although the boy does not speak much and hence there is a kind of impending silence on the screen.

But after Appu moved to Calcutta, his mother becomes all alone. There is a very touching episode when Appu visits village for 4 days and she asks him to stay for one more day, but he decides to go. Later, he leaves the train, returns home and just goes to sleep.

But later on, as he struggles to cope up with the city life and his studies, he stops visiting village. His mother becomes sick, writes him letters but he declines to visit village. In the end, his mother stops asking him to come visit her, gets sick and dies. Appu gets a letter from a relative, visits the village, cries upon finding that she is gone and has already been cremated. But when a old man (relative) asks him to stay in the village for a few days and complete the last rites, he says that he would do it in Calcutta itself and leaves. This last climax stuns the viewers and this is also where a magic moment is created by Ray.

Here are a few pictures from the beginning of the movie.

This is one of the masterpieces that I am fortunate to watch.

- Rahul Tiwary

A Lover Boy

 

The title of this blog post is not to offend anyone. I am just describing an incident as it happened.

On a train journey, I came across a Muslim boy sitting on the opposite berth. He must be in his early 20s, had full beard of at least 20 cm (quite long for his age), and wore white salwar kameej like a lot of traditional Muslim men do. At first glance he looked like a regular guy. But on second look, there was something weird: in the name of luggage, he had carried only a red backpack which was also mostly empty. A “red” backpack did not go well with his looks! But I guessed that he could have loaned it from some friend, as a possible explanation.

The boy offered namaj right on his top berth with full yoga-like poses twice in the day – once in the morning and once in evening. After offering evening namaj, he started making some phone calls. I noticed his calls after a while, since he was talking for over an hour.

He was talking to some girl and she told him about some of her hobby or interest, and then he told her, “Now I am coming to know about your hobbies and how wasteful those are. It was much better if you could develop a hobby in namaj (Muslim prayers)”. It was weird. How could he call offering prayers as hobby? Anyways. After a while I noticed that he had been making one call after another. And then it went interesting when I paid a bit of attention.

It became clear that he was calling only girls and talking from the point of view of courtship before marriage. It seemed as if his marriage proposal was in progress with all those girls. And many of the girls were sisters of his friends, because he often talked about their brothers as his friends. And whenever the girl on the other side of phone told about some other girl, he would ask, “which number of sister she is – i.e. how many sisters she has?” It was clear that he was “expanding” his knowledge of girls in his target group.

He talked to one girl addressing her as “tum”, to another with “tu” and then with one girl he talked calling her “aap”, with full respect. He talked to one girl in Bhojpuri, one girl in very fluent Maithli and then many girls in Hindi. This guy was a James Bond!

The last call he made was really interesting. The girl on the other side of the phone told him that she considered him as a “bhai” (brother). Then he said, “If you considered me as brother, then why did not you come to meet me when I went to your home that day? What is wrong in meeting your brother?” I felt sick listening to this cunning guy.

Then, he asked the girl that she could stay at his parents’ home when she had to appear for some exam. She asked about how did his home look like. And he replied, “My house is not as good as yours, but you will feel nice there.” He said it in such a loving and polite way that it impressed me. He was playing with the girls' minds. Then, the girl said that she was not comfortable staying in a house which had other males. He replied, “There are no males in my house! Only my father is there, my younger brothers are there and my sisters are there. You will not feel bad there; there are no males there.” So, according to him, his father and brothers did not count as “males”? It seemed that his answers or arguments were not good enough - but he added a last sentence as assertion which was really convincing. For example, "my house is not as good as yours" was a weak argument, but he added, "but you will feel nice there" as a gimmick. Similarly, he counted the number of males in his house but in the end said, "there are no males in my house", as a gimmick. I think all frauds and cheats use certain techniques to trap and play their victims and perhaps this was his trick. He might have learnt that people did not remember our full answers but always remembered the last few words, so may be had devised such a trick. Otherwise, his contradicting statements did not make any sense to me. I could also notice that he mentioned both brothers and sisters in “plural”, indicating a large family. In the end, he told the girl that his mother will be calling her tomorrow, to ask her to stay at their house when she has to appear in her exams. 

I know that I found this guy interesting also because I have never had a girlfriend of my own, and hence I would have certain curiosity about such guys and their ‘charming’ ways. And I would also accept that I saw a Muslim “lover boy” like him for the first time. I have seen enough ‘road-Romeos’ in public places, but never a Muslim guy, whom I thought were better behaved and did not make girlfriends. Perhaps with mobile phones as a ‘game changer’, such boys are thriving even among traditional Muslim families.

Anyways, all said and done, it was an interesting experience to have. The last memory I had of him was when I thought that he was like "Musafir Ali" of the web series Ray (played by Manoj Bajpayee). 

- Rahul Tiwary

Our Women Ministers: What their ‘Bindi’ Tell Us

 

Today is Late Sushma Swaraj’s death anniversary (punya tithi). A stalwart in Indian politics, she does not need introduction. But one thing that stood out of her was that everyone could “relate” to her! People saw her as “one of own”. It was because of her work and views, but also because of her personality. She sported a prominent ‘bindi’ on her forehead.

Sushma Swaraj always put bindi - mark of Hindu women and sindoor - mark of married women in India.

Now, recently our govt has expanded the cabinet and made many first-time ministers who are women. We now have 11 female ministers. There was a very popular picture shared by the ministers soon after the oath taking ceremony. 

I tried to spot how many of these ministers are sporting bindi and sindoor, just out of curiosity.

I find that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman sports a very small, dot like bindi, and does not sport sindoor most of the time. She is married and has one child. 

On the other hand, minister Anupriya Patel almost never sports either bindi or sindoor, despite being married. Anupriya Patel is younger, and perhaps this explains. Many women these days are ashamed of putting bindi and sindoor. Some say that it is due to the influence of Missionary schools who discourage these signs of local religion.

Meenakshi Lekhi at times appears in Bindi and at times does not. And she seldom applies sindoor, at least that is what I can see in the pictures. She is married to Aman Lekhi, a senior advocate in Supreme Court.

Minister Annapurna Devi is a widow and hence she can be seen so as per the local custom among Hindus. Her husband Late Ramesh Prasad Yadav was Minister in RJD’s Rabri Devi Government of Bihar and she entered politics after her husband's untimely demise.

Minister Pratima Bhoumik has never married and hence she appears so. Do you know that she is the first politician from the state of Tripura to join Union Cabinet? Our current government has strong focus on giving voice to the areas who have been under-represented in the past and a strong North East policy. Pratima Bhoumik is popularly known as ‘didi’ (elder sister) in Tripura. 

Minister Shobha Karandlaje is never married but applies bindi which is alright since unmarried women can apply ‘bindi’. She is a prominent politician from Karnataka. 

Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti is of course never married; and she uses a religious mark (tilak) on her forehead. She comes from a small village in Uttar Pradesh and we should be proud of her presence in the cabinet.

I find that all other women ministers do apply ‘bindi’ and many also use ‘sindoor’ (though not all). 

Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar is a politician from Nashik in Maharashtra. She is also an MBBS doctor by education and used to work as a medical practitioner. She is the daughter in law of former minister Arjun Tulshiram Pawar. 

Mrs. Darshana Jardosh is from Surat, Gujarat. She won her election with a historic margin of 533190 votes which is the highest lead by any woman MP in Indian Electoral History after Indira Gandhi 

Mrs. Renuka Singh Saruta is from Chhattisgarh and minister of state of Tribal Affairs. 

And I suppose Mrs. Smriti Irani needs no introduction. 

As a conclusion, at an overall level I can see that our ministers have used the ‘bindi’ more often but ‘sindoor’ less often. 

The popularity of 'bindi' may be because it is very convenient to use - most women use a plastic bindi which has a glue on the backside. Though traditionally women used a bindi created with some home recipe. Sindoor may look inconvenient because there is a chance to 'mess it up' by touching and it would spread on the forehead. But there are some variants, e.g. one comes in a sticky paste format, which can be used even by women who are busy at work. 

There is no shame in showing the mark of being married. Keeping a traditional look only makes us looks better, confident and comfortable with ourselves. And when it comes to public fields like "politics", it plays a role like no other. Sushma Swaraj did not keep bindi and sindoor for any political gesture, but it did help her relate to the common masses more. 

This exercise was not to shame anyone for their choice of appearance. It was just a  leisurely research and reality check on the use of popular cultural symbols. We also got to know our ministers better through this exercise. We all should strive for a society which is not ashamed to keep the harmless traditions and marks of our culture intact in our daily life. And when it comes to culture, women excel in it more than men. 

- Rahul Tiwary