Arogya Niketan

Arogya Niketan

Shubhendu Bandopadhyay, Bikash Roy, Ruma Guha Thakurta


When one first saw this film, it came across to begin with as a typical duel between old and new, tradition and knowledge. Until there was a turn where wisdom appeared, and courtesy, and knowledge that was hard earned with experience and sacrifices of pleasures, all wrapped up in the old tradition! It was a beginning of revelation, then. A subsequent viewing, equally by chance, but more attentive this time, brought out much more.

There was the loneliness deep in the cold lives of each character, with only one who knew who everyone was and hoped to find the bonds that existed, to make a home. This loneliness was long accepted by the old couple with open eyed courage by one, grief of the mother by her, and by the young grandson with his pride holding him up despite the smarting of rejection that in fact was non existent - the old couple simply were unaware of the bonds!

And then, the climactic scene on the train station no longer seems so outrageously sentimental but is in fact all natural, and nor is it the climaxvafter all - that epithet belongs rightfully, when seen with a deeper perception, to the finale where the old man takes leave of his wife, telling her he isnt after all leaving her alone - he's brought her daughter in law, her grandson and his young new wife, to make a home with her. She never was alone, one realises, with all the depth of her husband's understanding of her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0bhz0TNTio