So, appropriately enough, first Rani Padmaavatie of Hindi films was Hema Malini.
The title of the film, Sunehra Sansar, isn't easy to translate, for the word Sansar (or samsaara as pronounced in South India) can be translated to world, universe, family of one's own (as apart from that one belonged to until marriage), or all of the above, and not because there is a confusion, but because of a deep recognition of the universal oneness at heart, of all of this - and so, "Golden Creation" is the best one can amorphously paraphrase this word that eludes a European limitation of thought.
Heart breaking film. Heart breaking, not because it's a tearfest, but because, having presented the viewers with a set of sterling characters facing hardships and fortune reversals and more, then it presents a conclusion that seems like unavoidable tragedy - but isn't.
The lovers are separated because he's duty bound to marry the orphan sister of the dying sister in law who has been loco parent is to him and other two younger brothers of her husband, but he fails to imagine he might have thereby been parent to a child before he married, and nor does he ever go inform the young woman he loved about his dilemma and the solution he saw he was forced to choose.
Much worse, when everything is straightened out finally, the young woman now united with her lost daughter who, it turns out, grew up in the father's home with all but the elder widower brother unaware of the relationship, and the family is finally aware of it all, do they accept then the mother if this girl who grew up as one of their own, as indeed she is? No, she leaves, with a letter informing them she now blames No one but only her own fate for her travails.
Why wouldn't they accept her as part of the family? Because, legally at the time the film released in India, she couldn't have been a second wife, and if she were accepted as the first, then the orphan he did formally marry would now be without a respectable status, for no fault of her own - and with nothing else to depend on.
Is this true for all of India? No, only for some communities, chiefly the majority. But religion isn't against this, it's only the legal reform, accepted by most. Was it merely the question of legality then why the young mother of the daughter is all alone finally?
No, and therein the heartbreak.
Indian culture woukd hold her in position if a wife hes bound to honour and cherish, all the more so because she has been alone through the years since she was so suddenly left alone by her love of her life. She hasn't married, and with her wealth and beauty she could very well have. So why, then?
It seems the obvious punishment from a conservative agenda to a young woman who faiked to keep her virginity despite being not yet married formally, but this isn't culture of India, and that's the reason why the conclusion is tragic - apart from the complete lack of logic and the misogyny therein, since he isn't punished except by her, for which she's been berated by almost everyone including him.
It's the agenda of ex colonial regimes related institutions, most specifically the church, that sets the tone of the least punishment set for the woman, and it's completely arbitrary, because the man would have been seen as her "natural husband" had she, rather than he, had tried marrying someone else despite her dalliance - as the son of a pastor the bridegroom in Tess Of D'Urberville informs his bride of hardly a day, when he finds her candid confession to him of being a rape victim.
So, according to abrahmic - but not Indian - rules, its the woman and only the woman, who is bound to the male, but the male is still free! Why is civilisation of humanity needed in any way to set this up as a rule, since it's based in merely nature, as can be very well termed jungle law, or Red Riding Hood danger of the forest?
If the film had a suitable candidate waiting for her, it wouldn't be a tragedy, but no, they saw it fit to send her off alone, with her wealth to console the viewers about her future with a promise she's not going to starve. If that's good enough for her, why isn't it good enough for him to go away instead while she takes his place in the family? He could go with the orphan he married, so no one would be lonely. But no, she must be seen to suffer due to her having crossed the line!
Wish one could say this was the India in 1970, and India is no longer quite so much a slave to powers associated with the ex colonial regimes. But a film decades later, Dil Kya Kare, had a very similar storyline, albeit without the extended family and with possible consort for the mother of the daughter who she did not turn to after all.
So the slave mindset continues, and it's not in those termed orthodox or conservative - those epithets are usually stuck to people attached to India and not as heirs of invaders - but those who would brand themselves progressive, secular et al.
And therein the tragedy of those blinkered by slavery to Macaulay.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HIs47fVzXYU&t=241s
The title of the film, Sunehra Sansar, isn't easy to translate, for the word Sansar (or samsaara as pronounced in South India) can be translated to world, universe, family of one's own (as apart from that one belonged to until marriage), or all of the above, and not because there is a confusion, but because of a deep recognition of the universal oneness at heart, of all of this - and so, "Golden Creation" is the best one can amorphously paraphrase this word that eludes a European limitation of thought.
Heart breaking film. Heart breaking, not because it's a tearfest, but because, having presented the viewers with a set of sterling characters facing hardships and fortune reversals and more, then it presents a conclusion that seems like unavoidable tragedy - but isn't.
The lovers are separated because he's duty bound to marry the orphan sister of the dying sister in law who has been loco parent is to him and other two younger brothers of her husband, but he fails to imagine he might have thereby been parent to a child before he married, and nor does he ever go inform the young woman he loved about his dilemma and the solution he saw he was forced to choose.
Much worse, when everything is straightened out finally, the young woman now united with her lost daughter who, it turns out, grew up in the father's home with all but the elder widower brother unaware of the relationship, and the family is finally aware of it all, do they accept then the mother if this girl who grew up as one of their own, as indeed she is? No, she leaves, with a letter informing them she now blames No one but only her own fate for her travails.
Why wouldn't they accept her as part of the family? Because, legally at the time the film released in India, she couldn't have been a second wife, and if she were accepted as the first, then the orphan he did formally marry would now be without a respectable status, for no fault of her own - and with nothing else to depend on.
Is this true for all of India? No, only for some communities, chiefly the majority. But religion isn't against this, it's only the legal reform, accepted by most. Was it merely the question of legality then why the young mother of the daughter is all alone finally?
No, and therein the heartbreak.
Indian culture woukd hold her in position if a wife hes bound to honour and cherish, all the more so because she has been alone through the years since she was so suddenly left alone by her love of her life. She hasn't married, and with her wealth and beauty she could very well have. So why, then?
It seems the obvious punishment from a conservative agenda to a young woman who faiked to keep her virginity despite being not yet married formally, but this isn't culture of India, and that's the reason why the conclusion is tragic - apart from the complete lack of logic and the misogyny therein, since he isn't punished except by her, for which she's been berated by almost everyone including him.
It's the agenda of ex colonial regimes related institutions, most specifically the church, that sets the tone of the least punishment set for the woman, and it's completely arbitrary, because the man would have been seen as her "natural husband" had she, rather than he, had tried marrying someone else despite her dalliance - as the son of a pastor the bridegroom in Tess Of D'Urberville informs his bride of hardly a day, when he finds her candid confession to him of being a rape victim.
So, according to abrahmic - but not Indian - rules, its the woman and only the woman, who is bound to the male, but the male is still free! Why is civilisation of humanity needed in any way to set this up as a rule, since it's based in merely nature, as can be very well termed jungle law, or Red Riding Hood danger of the forest?
If the film had a suitable candidate waiting for her, it wouldn't be a tragedy, but no, they saw it fit to send her off alone, with her wealth to console the viewers about her future with a promise she's not going to starve. If that's good enough for her, why isn't it good enough for him to go away instead while she takes his place in the family? He could go with the orphan he married, so no one would be lonely. But no, she must be seen to suffer due to her having crossed the line!
Wish one could say this was the India in 1970, and India is no longer quite so much a slave to powers associated with the ex colonial regimes. But a film decades later, Dil Kya Kare, had a very similar storyline, albeit without the extended family and with possible consort for the mother of the daughter who she did not turn to after all.
So the slave mindset continues, and it's not in those termed orthodox or conservative - those epithets are usually stuck to people attached to India and not as heirs of invaders - but those who would brand themselves progressive, secular et al.
And therein the tragedy of those blinkered by slavery to Macaulay.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HIs47fVzXYU&t=241s
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