Pathey Holo Deri

Pathey Holo Deri

Uttam Kumar, Suchitra Sen


First three quarters of an hour and a few minutes more, the film is sheer beauty and delight. Beautiful setting of Darjeeling that begins with the reverie the doctor goes into, when the nurse asks him how long he will be so caring of just this one patient, and indeed their being completely given to one another is so obvious even as she is a patient of his! Beautiful pair! And they were so well tuned, too, apart from each being superlative artist individually.

The first two songs, Palash Ar Krishna Chura Sajiya Tuli and Tumi Na Hoy Rahite Kaachhe are a slight surprise, since we as this pair's connoisseur audience are used to her natural beauty. But in this film, this song anyway, presumably early in her career, she has more than resemblance with the senior beauty, Kanan Devi,
and here she has been given rather heavy make up, to perhaps accentuate that similarity. This was and perhaps still is a natural tradition, in that new artists often are made to imitate or copy their current top of the rung colleagues, in looks and style, until they come into their own. The thumbnail though is herself, as is she more of in another song Ae Shudhu Gaaner Din.

Thereafter, though, there is the shock of a sudden drop to earth, what with the grandfather discovering the new couple just after he promised her hand to a friend's son, and impressing it on them that they are financially unsuitable to one another. She is of sterner stuff though, and fights back with everything she has as best as she knows how.

Here, in the reaction and behaviour of the grandfather, comes a curious fact to the fore, clear in view for the unblinkered.

Indian caste system has been so abusively maligned, so much false propaganda against it has been spread around without allowing any real unprejudiced view of facts, that few realise that caste is not a word invented for India, much less in or by India, and caste systems exist everywhere in the world. The only difference is, the system itself - everywhere else, it is based on not only birth and is impossible to transcend, but is based on power and wealth, land possession and titles, race and faith, colours of skin and physical features, gender, and last but not the least, profession. What's more, the earthly desirables such as wealth and property and power are usually in hands of the top castes with a pyramid structure, and they share the top positions in any professions including priesthood. And marriages across castes are abhorred, as was any possibility of allowing a low caste genius to be included in high caste society - examples, the Battenberg history of being considered inadmissible to royals due to a morganatic marriage, and the resistance and veto against Michael Faraday being admitted to Royal Society, respectively.

It's only India where the sole basis of the structure is category of work and professions, with power and wealth being relegated to separate castes, neither at the top, while the two top castes were not allowed to charge for services rendered but instead only accept offerings, normally. The words "Brahmin " and "poor" almost always were associated, but even the royalty was only on par with all the warrior caste. And when it came to arranging a match, if the couple managed it themselves that was final, but if arranged, wealth wasn't a consideration, instead the family and it's level of culture were.

This was so until the colonial occupations changed things for the worse, as evidenced in this film. Here the grandfather represents a westernised strata of Bengal that through centuries of Islamic occupation has been used to landholding and property being considered a criteria, and that comes to fore as he lets loose his disdain at first encounter against the brilliant doctor from a poor family who, going by Indian caste system, should have been seen as not only an appropriate candidate for the match but a desirable one.

Elsewhere in India, even at that time, where invaders' cultures were less entrenched in society, his family being that of a poor school teacher would be no criteria whatsoever for an objection, as it was here, and taken so for granted too. Therein the germ of the story, that could only happen in a society that not only experienced occupation by invading cultures but accepted them and changed in parts, albeit not completely, with them.

Funny, it is less than half an hour before the end when the no longer quite so poor, now well qualified and more, but still humiliated by the old rich man, doctor meets the love of his life, and even though there is much more to come, it isn't happy circumstance, still, one suddenly feels all shall be well - they had a very ancient tradition approved Gandharva Vivaaha, after all, with the Himaalayan ranges, Abode of Gods, as witness!

And she is far more beautiful without the makeup, as in the last few minutes, meant to be looking deathly sick - which one can believe only due to her performance.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GPYFojb68Cg


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng-8Og-RxGo