Antardwand (2007)
A Son’s been studying in Delhi while his parents live in the small-town of Kaanti in Bihar. The Son’s presumably no dilettante, preparing for the much sought-after [& competitive] Civil Services. Son has only-recently impregnated his girlfriend of 4 years, meant as an accident or as a Freudian slip. The couple broaches the topic of Abortion but consent to settle with marriage. “But what about your parents?” asks the girlfriend. “I’ll talk to them.” says the Son. Talking to his parents is what brings about the opening of ‘Antardwand’.
Son gets home, greeted by two fathers – One his own, & the other a father of a daughter. Father #2 is here to seek Father #1’s Son as his Daughter’s husband. Father #1 wouldn’t undersell. He has higher aspirations for himself. Flatly rejects Father #2, & his offer of a 30% increase in the dowry.
News of Son having already chosen who he wants to marry brings out the worst in the Father who seemed reasonable till now. Son’s told (like he needed reminding) of how his dalliance with the opposite sex would’ve been most definitely paid by Father’s purse. Distraught, & defenceless in the Father’s offensive, the Son terminates his visit & heads back to Delhi. As soon as the Son hits the road, away from home, he’s ABDUCTED. By a Father. Father #2.
Groom Abduction. Now this is a story that Indian cinema hasn’t surprisingly addressed on its screens. A story that seems to be practiced in an India that India seems to have not cared enough.
From this point onwards ‘Antardwand’ keeps you wondering & guessing, while mostly staying a step ahead of your guess. The Son is locked-away in a field & taken-through the drill by Father #2’s hired help before eventually invited to his own wedding with Father #2’s Daughter. The bride-to-be Daughter hears of this forced wedding, disapproves only to be muted into submission. Wedding ensues. So does a revelry for the boys – Father #2 & his buddies (men who collaborate with Father #2 in running their small-town) painting the household red with Nautch girl in tow, waxing eloquent about their reclamation of ijjat (pride).
But it is an unfair battleground for the bride to find herself in. As unfair as it is for the unwitting groom. The Son/groom even summons up coherence to tell his bride that he wouldn’t want any part in making it worse than it already is for the bride. He’s been rendered morally responsible for 2 women. But mostly he’s fighting his own battle – the humiliation of his abduction, having been made to fail his girlfriend who he promised to fight the whole world for if need be. His earlier attempt at fleeing was met with body blows. He dreams of making the flight yet again, only to fail even in the dream. What his body also dreams of is the comfort of the girlfriend’s caresses that can assuage his sense of guilt towards her. In this bodily dream he ends up stoking fires in his bride (by imagining her the girlfriend) who has been advised the sole responsibility of steering her marriage towards consummation. [How their marriage finally consummates has got a lot to do with the 2 Fathers than their children]. It is the Son’s sense of guilt towards both the women in his life that renders him almost altruistic with them. He warms-up to his bride only after blaming himself squarely for the previous-drunken-impotency accused-night. On a previous coherent occasion on the groom’s part, bride is told of the girlfriend’s presence in his life & her being pregnant. The bride at this point tends to become possessive of something she doesn’t unfortunately own yet, & probably will never make the grade. She even apologizes for her Father’s grave folly. But Mr. Son doesn’t come equipped with any sort of priors, primary or that of secondary acquired knowledge. Imagine Sarat babu. Imagine Paro’s Father (or Mother for that matter) abducting Devdas. Instead of the other way round – Devdas’ parents playing accomplice in Dev abducting himself. [But then where would we have found our Chandramukhi?]
Father #1 by this time has been pulling some strings himself, exerting pressure to find his disappeared Son. The pressure can be felt at Father #2’s household. There is a great gloomy doom-like atmosphere that has set-in in the wake of the Fathers’ being Fathers.
‘Antardwand’ becomes a ‘tale of two fathers’ when the Son manages to eventually escape his conjugal imprisonment & put a call to his own Father from a Pay Phone [the lumps-in-the-throat-moment], the Father goes back to being what he’s always been – his Son’s Father!! Father #1 enrages Father #2 further down the progeny-destructive path that a Son/Daughter has to resort to severing the umbilical.
‘Antardwand’ is directed by Sushil Rajpal, written by Amitabh Verma and stars Dulhe-Raja Chaudhary, FTII acting course alumni Swati Sen & Vinay Pathak.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
i have heard a lot about this film…
somehow know people involved in the project and so have been hearing about it since quite long..
and it has come out so well … people who have seen it have liked it …
i just hope it releases in the theatres….
I’ve read this story by Vijay Detha, the same person who wrote Paheli. The story is interesting and has few elements of Paheli, Amol Palekar is making the movie and will be Rajasthan based. I dont know how will tbe movie turn out. but story seems to be interesting, but lets see if the story meets the same fate as Paheli.
Mohit, as far as what the film’s credits suggested ‘Antardwand’ is not based on any work of literature. It is interesting though that you bring-up the ‘Duvidha’ connection ‘coz there seems to be few parallels, including their titles. I take it then that Vijay Dandetha did work around similar yarns for his novels. As did Sarat Chandra.
I don’t know about an Amol Palekar version being in-the-making. But what i do know is that ‘Antardwand’ is ready & should be soon out in cinemas.
If any of you do know more about & around the film please feel free to share here.
I think Duvidha was ‘paheli’ and this is antardwand… a different story…
Mohit, would you like to elaborate a bit on this. I’m not familiar with Vijay Detha’s works.
Also my contention & surprise is over cinematic non-representation of material such as above.
What is the meaning of the word Antardwand ?
@kcp..antardwand would be turbulent (with respect to mind: maansik antardwand)..torn with issues.
‘Antardward’ means the conflict and the dilemma of mind, body and soul- at all level- if I am right! The origin of the story is not any novel or a short story but a true incident in Bihar. In 80s, forced marriages were very rampant in areas like Daltonganj and Begusarai where an eligible boy would be kidnapped at the gun point and forcibly married to a girl by the girl’s family. The newly wed would then be locked up in a room till they accepted each other….the consequences were disastrous in many cases! Even now people say such forced marriages are happening but since I have been away from my home state for long, I am not fully aware of it. Yes, Rajpal has made a very good film on an extremely tight-almost on a ‘no-budget’ basis! Hope it finds a release soon which would prove a lot of things!
many thanks for shedding more light on this practice Sanjivan. My reaction stemmed from having been not-enough-aware about the same & on another level seeming very much like the stories that have played-out for us about father-figures. The film should, in all probability, make the Dec-Jan release season.
All along since I was a child, I thought that the word is “dwandwa” which means “conflict” in Sanskrit ( like dwandwayuddha )
I have never heard of a word called dwand
Knowledgeable people, please correct me if I am wrong.
KCP
Groom Abduction is a common practise in Bihar even now, not something that was done in the 80s, incidently was talking about this with some Bihari friends
and they told me that young,good looking Bihari Engineers and Doctors routinely go about with bodyguards to prevent such catastrophes.
Sometimes the groom gets lucky, as happened with my friend’s uncle, his bride was apparently the beauty of the town and expressly asked for the said “groom/uncle” to be kidnapped!!
After marriage everyone accepts the relationship
as sacred and live-happily-ever-after.
Not sure if this is a Bhumihar ‘custom’ only but apparently it happens a lot in that community, I could be wrong but this is what I was told.
Also a wonderful anecdotal account of Bihar is a book by VIJAY NAMBISAN called “BIHAR”, which throws light on this very ‘mysterious’ state.
K-3
Excellent theme and beautifully directed.
i liked the plot of the film. looking at some footage i really wana see this movie. can any one reply when this is going to be released in theater or weather DVD hav been released or not.