Shob Charitro Kalponik – Poetry and Introspection
The decadent Indian male with a heart of gold was best personified by ‘Devdas’. Over the years, Devdas came to us in different forms. Personally, Bimal Ray’s creation was by far the best. Prakash Mehra did his own version of ‘Devdas’ with Amitabh Bachchan in ‘Muqaddar ka Sikandar’ and on hindsight, that was very engrossing. They extended the character just that little bit and there came “Sharaabi”, which in my book, was amongst Amitabh Bachchan’s best. He embodied the character of a spoilt brat with a sensible and even somewhat poetic strain. It was in his slur of speech, his lurches, his gaze and even the pitch of his voice as he starts a conversation with his love, Jayapradha or his man Friday, Om Prakash.
Once again, I had an opportunity to meet the decadent yet sensible and poetic man in Indraneel, the lead character of Shob Chartitro Kalponik, a film by Rituparno Ghosh. Here was a poet, who while not being much of a character in real life, penning fabulous portraits and landscapes through his poetry, loved by people across all sections of the society and yet not being able to touch the heart of his beloved, his wife, during his lifetime. He dies.
But here’s where Ghosh manages to overturn all convention of ‘Devdas’ and the decadent Indian male. Radhika (Bipasha Basu in a career altering role), does not understand her husband Indraneel (Prasenjit Chatterji) when he is alive. She does not reckon with his milieu. Here is a man who is an engineer with a leading company in Kolkata, having passed out from Bengal Engineering College, and yet completely unable to put bread on the table. He misses office, sleeps late while his spouse rushes to work and yet produces sublime poetry. Ghosh does well to juxtapose Radhika’s inability to understand her husband with the readings of Indraneel’s poetry and subsequent applause at a tributory function after his death. (Joy Goswami has written the poems in this film and it has been read out by him too, the film is worth seeing just for the sheer magic of “Nondo’r ma”, a poem based on the house help of Indraneel, who is a refugee from Bangladesh, and her family’s journey across unknown lands to Kolkata). Radhika views Indraneel as the person who has stilted her growth as an individual. His awkwardness with English, his very ordinary friends, his forgetfulness permeates her dislike. But, that is mundane, the everyday relationship that gets poisoned because of habits, unforeseen and impulsive. She measures him against Shekhar (Jisshu Sengupta), a colleague, a confidant and a part time lover. A series of incidents lead Radhika to believe that curing Indraneel of his habits is futile and it is best that she left him for Shekhar, who made money, took care of her and was there everytime she needed a man, which was not often. But, Shekhar is also a lover of Indraneel’s poetry.
Shekhar sends across Indraneel’s larger than life photograph to Radhika’s house after his death on her behest. Indraneel is back as the husband he could never be in real life, holding her hand through the tempest of widowhood and being the moral fibre she could have never imagined him to be in his lifetime. Larger than life, actually.
His poetry leads her to explore his growing stature and myth provoked by his untimely death. His poetry affects her soul. It is as if Indraneel had all the answers all along and was indulging her whims. In life, it is the strangest when you come to know that what you thought were your own actions, were actually plotted and devised by someone else. She wants to read and understand all that he wrote. Even her half completed poetry from happier times, has been rewritten by him for posterity. She understands so, even while others do not. It is heart breaking for her. She was loved, all along, by Indraneel, even if he failed to communicate this.
Love as a feeling does not really adhere to relationships. Love does not understand or define boundaries. Indraneel knew that in his lifetime and Radhika comes to know beyond his lifetime. She rejects Shekhar’s overtures and decides to live with Indraneel’s memories. Yes, she, the modern laptop wielding, English speaking and designer saree garbed Indian woman!
Prasenjit is effortless as Indraneel and very apt for the character as he embodies the poet, arms him with dishevelled Bangaliana, right to the scene where he rejoices India’s win in a ODI with his friends, late at night, oblivious of the fact that Radhika is leaving him, forever. Watch him play tabla on the bedroom door.
Jisshu Sengupta is an evolved and nuanced actor, having grown leaps and bounds from his “Topshe” days. It shows. The gaze of his, when he implores Bipasha to rethink, is by far his best work in sometime. I was reminded of Riteish’s lovelorn look when Antra Mali leaves him in “Naach”. Please don’t ask me why I thought of that.
Sohag Sen as Nondo’r ma, the house help, is so natural that if one is not a Bengali theatre regular, one would be tempted to ask all around about this magnificient performer and then get “Kal paida hua kya” stares from the regulars.
Bipasha Basu, has managed to arrest her parade down the “bootilicious” ramp forever with this performance. She is Radhika. The lady who does not understand all the fuss about her hubby’s poetry, his friends, his milieu and his strange habits, she is Radhika all the way. Sohini Sengupta is to be acknowledged here as her voice embodies Radhika, even in the extended use of English as the spoken language. But as with Ghosh’s films, the change in voice does not jar, it is in sync and even very noteworthy, the inflections. Only grouse, Bipasha should know, just moving the cursor around does not make a financial plan on the laptop!!
“Journey of the Imaginary”, as the english subtitle says, is another milestone in Rituparno’s engrossing and introspective cinema, replete with Joy Goswami’s poetry, Rabindranath’s songs and some characters that stay with you even beyond the shadows.
Tags: Bipasha Basu, Jisshu Sengupta, Joy Goswami, Prasenjit, Rituparno Ghosh, Sohag Sen, Sohini Sengupta, the dream team
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
Good that you mentioned Sharabi. One of amitabh’s best performance. If the writing was entrusted to someone with a little more literate, this would have been a classic.
As for Ritu, he is really wonderful in using Tagore’s songs and Bengali poetry ( Shakti’s poem in Titli, Tagore’s songs in Utsav, shubha Muhurtam )Cant wait to see Shob Charitra..
Sharaabi is a classic, for me. Discounting the abrasive BG score by Bappi Lahiri. Oh, you know about Shakti’s poetry in Titli…to die for, that is!
although sharabi had its genesis in arthur, its interpretation was very different. just because he boozes and oozes poetry, it cant be put in the same league as devdas. we need a chandramukhi and a paro to complete the devdas saga. muqaddar ka sikandar…that was definitely a take on devdas for the 80’s, but not sharabi. bigB was fabulous in both the movies, he looked the part and walked the talk.
.
thanx for this review, will watch out:)
Oh no, I am sure about this, Prakash Mehra had his inspiration from Devdas. Only, it was not nuanced enough.
Ah!well from the moment I read the plot of the movie a few days prior to the release I did get interested.The principal characters and the very way in which Bipasha connects to Bumbada afer his death but fails to do so while he is alive sounds interesting.Jisshu again is definitely an actor with potential,still waiting to strike it rich.Hope to see this movie soon.Yes Muqaddar Ka Sikandar and Sharaabi were certainly interpretations of Devdas in their own ways and AB gave it an extra special dimension.
See it bro, this is quality film making.
Wow, sounds like another Rituparno Ghosh masterpiece. Joy Goswami’s poetry, Rabindra Nath’s songs, should be a tremendous movie.
I loved his last Lear too. Was quite astonished, it didn’t get the applause it deserved. Of all the indian directors, he arguably makes the most nuanced and layered movies.
Last Lear was very good with the women and not so good with the men. Problem with Ritu is, the moment he has to move away from the Bangaliana in his men, he is a little confused, so they come across a little made up, dunno, my feeling. Look at Utsav, all men are typical bengalis and perfect as characters.
He does not face any problem with women. BTW, Shefali in Last Lear was the most awesome female character enacted in recent times. I fell in love with her that day. Hope Vipul bhai won’t mind.
very well written….but i wonder if jishu ever played topshe…i think you might have mixed him up with parombroto chatterjee….
Sorry guys, my error. I had completely confused and I dunno how to edit. Lemme try.
indraneel-da, very well written indeed. unfortunately i cudnt catch the film while in kolkata recently, as i was on a very short trip, and the plan was already set for watching Frozen.
.
another reason we cudnt get a place in nandan for frozen was that shob choritro… was playing there already!
.
has this film released in mumbai? if yes, wud luv to catch it whn im there on saturday. plz cnfm the show-timings and theatre around malad, if u can.
.
btw, not nitpicking, but jisshu never played topshe, it was always parambrata.
No, it is not playing this week. It was playing only in Kharghar last week in one show where I saw it. Big Cinema release and so they are peddling it in all Bengali probon areas!
I think the movie had a simultaneous release in Mumbai ( 28th Aug ) and I do remember discussing the same with Indraneelda.it did release in a few screens with limited shows.But yes I dont think its playing this week.
Thank You Indraneel for such a Lovely Review. Will try my best to catch it in Bangalore.
Hi Abhijit,
Do you know if this would be releasing in Bangalore? Please let me know the dates….
Thanks!
Arijit.
Thanks for the great review! Will definitely watch the movie!
Nice review. I look forward to watching Rituparno’s movies. Am pretty sure its not gonna be released in the US. Will check it out whenever I can. Its also interesting that not many of his films have been mentioned at PFC. Right from Bariwali, Shubho Muhorat (watched it about five times now!), Titli to Chokher Bali, Utsav (probably one of his best) and Antarmahal…each one a masterpiece.
ONe of the best things about Rituparno is that he thinks his audience is very intellignet..in most of his films the things which are left unsaid or not shown on ur face are the best. Very few filmakers understand relationships and show them on screen as well as Rituparno. BTW his prasenjit- Manisha starrer Khela is also quite a nice watch..definitely a shift from his normal style