Saptapadi

Saptapadi

Uttam Kumar, Suchitra Sen, Chhabi Biswas, Chhaya Devi


Superlative performances by the superlative artists, as usual. But the script here gives more opportunity for them to do their best.

Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen the eternal romantic pair. Uttam Kumar playing a padre doctor who goes into a reverie with a shock seeing the woman brought in alcoholic stupor is someone he knows, Suchitra Sen, and recalls their history as he knew it, beginning with a football match where she, Anglo, cheered the opposite team and was furious when he, Bengali Indian, scored a goal. Their feud escalating, her western sophistication vs his traditional Hindu culture, the two in hostel in medical college in Calcutta, turning into a romance when he plays Othello to her Desdemona perfectly. The performance turns their animosity to love.

Her father, very Brit to the core, agrees to accept him as son in law, provided he converts. She, with her roots in India, her mother still wearing old fashioned style saree, disagrees strongly.

The debate at 1:28:00 on between the couple is interesting, in that it's about nature of faith. His willingness to convert is based in his perception of there being no difference between how one worships Divine, which fundamentally belongs to the faith he'sbrought up in! She on the other hand asserts that ones faith is part of one's being, and giving up perforce is changing oneself.

Here it's even evident, without saying so, that brought up as she is in her father's faith, she has nevertheless strong roots that go with her mother's, and she is concerned about his father not accepting their match.

This attraction to the Indian traditional life and culture is a recurring theme in much of bengal literature dealing with the reformed, westernised, Brahmo Samaj social sections. Here it's about the dilemma of an Anglo Indian, about the duality of roots vs bringing up.

The then prevalent left leaning thinking of the time in the region, unfortunately, portrays not only the Indian tradition but the Deities too in a light that can only be described as unfavourable, a point of view of an outsider rather than that of India, accepted as reform by some of the society that was influenced by the logic of conquistadores of power being superior in thought too, and subjects being perforce wrong. This thinking couldn't be more incorrect, lead as it dies to denigration of victims and elevation of brutal to pedestals completely undeserved, as evidenced with holocaust, and with the travails of India, but most of all, with the misogyny that prevails through much of the world, chiefly so in abrahmic faiths.

His father's opposition to their match is stronger, and he reminds her that their marriage will deprive their children along with the couple, of their place in his society. She is brought up in a very English house as a completely English girl, with a lifestyle to match, but is nevertheless is far from unaware of either the realities of the society or of her place in it. She counters with her confidence in her ability to make up for everything with love, but he reminds her that eventually it's likely she will be held responsible for their being outcast.

His pleading with her behind the son's back to let him alone, not deprive him of his son - his only child - in his old age, has effect. She promises she will remove herself from the life of her love. The strange and yet natural interaction at this point, in the twisted, yet natural reaction where the old man, in his relief, showers her with his love and blessings with his hand over her head, just as she had needed and deserved as a daughter, but only because she has promised not to be, is heart breaking. She promises she will leave and no longer be in his son's life, promising him what he wants, everything he asksfor including keeping this reason for breaking up a secret from him, a bit of Camille without the question of character.

Funny part is, neither of the four - the couple and the two father's- have really tried to get at the core of this twisted knot. Her father won't consent to the match unless he converts, his father can only see the devastation brought them by the exile from his society, she can see no point in the marriage if he converts, and he has converted before she could persuade him not to!

He is already converted before she promised his father she'll no longer be in his life, though, and she's shocked to the core. Here one begins to get an inkling that their love went beyond the normal attraction of young, and that deep to their cores they wanted the other with the "other"ness that was a world away across a glass wall they could only see through but not break - a crossing would amount to leaving one's own world forever behind. He was willing to do this, but she wanted a different solution, not where he was deprived of his own.

Secular solution? He is ordained as a priest, after she gave in to his father's plea and gave up on their life together. But here the author's rising above the normal indoctrination of any sort comes through, and realities of the other side are revealed - when she returns to her father with a decision of being a nun, she's informed by him that she has no religion, that the servant quietly always with her is her Hindu Bengali mother, and the father has no intention of ever giving her her rightful place or allowing the daughter to leave - so the mother dies of the shit meant for the daughter within minutes of the revelation. That, in a microcosm, is the Anglo Indian identity personified.

It isn't until the confrontation post his reverie which tells the story as much as he knows, that one realises this is set in WWII - she is in uniform. He is serene despite the pain of having been abandoned by her, and her pains are alive, she is now an atheist in the twist and he is perhaps no longer so. And here again the twist, of his father writing to him about her having risen in his esteem due to her sacrifice, which reaches the son past their second separation in midst of war.

Written by the renowned author Tarashankar Bandopadhyay.

Wonder if the glitches belong to the author? Doubt it.

At 40:45 - 45:45, after she throws a coconut at him, with leaves sprouting, he catches it deftly, takes of the fibrous covering that the raw coconut comes in straight from the tree, cracks it over his head, uses his fists to twist it open, and proceeds to eat it along with his friend - with no sign of the coconut water either dripping anywhere or enjoyed by either of them! This throws a puzzle for most people familiar with a fresh coconut, as to whether they come without coconut water in Bengal.

Who is the beauty in the frame 47:00 - 47:30?

Who plays Amy, the bride of John 1:00:00 - 1:00:51?


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KOG6HFhQK90