(Ishti Kutum is written and scripted by Leena Gangopadhay. The following is a narration of the story so far in order to set the context for my forthcoming analysis. Click here for Part 1 – Introduction to the Analysis)

Archi, Baha and Mun – main protagonists

Rrishii Kaushik as Archisman Mukherjee

Archisman Mukherjee (Archi), 29 is a renowned journalist, known for his honesty and bravery and no-nonsense lifestyle, respected by his juniors and celebrated by his peers for the exemplary journalistic values and dignity displayed by him in both his work and personal life. Being a star journalist Archi is in constant demand among the big multi-media houses based in New Delhi as well as at international level. A decade into the profession, several job offers with high salaries from these houses still remains open in front of him, but he continues to stick to Prothom Khabor, the print media house that provided him just the platform he needed during his struggling days and till date gives him the unquestionable freedom to carry out his profession as per his rules. Archi is a bit of socialist, he prefers to ride his bike over an office sponsored car, he is not a fan of luxuries and riches, doesn’t appreciate when people praise his professional success too much and doesn’t even allow his friends and family to discuss his work with him. To most people he would come across as unsocial, unfriendly, rude and arrogant.

Ankita Chakrabarty as Kamalika Majumdar

Economics Professor Kamalika Majumdar (Mun), 25 is the daughter of an award winning and affluent Painter Dibyojyoti Majumdar. Archi and Mun have been in a relationship for over 6 years and they have finally decided to tie the knot. Kamalika’s high-nosed svelte mother Anu is unhappy to accept a middle class journalist as her son-in-law but Kamalika would not lose Archi at any cost. The girl who was born with a golden spoon, who had been brought up with the best and the richest, is ready to give up every luxury and comfort of the world to be with Archi. Archi is no fan of his would be mother-in-law either. Archi feels that there are certain social and ideological differences between Archi and Mun’s background and lifestyle which are never to be filled. He tends to ignore these differences because of Mun’s simple and down to earth behaviour nature but her mother always reminds him of the differences. So he prefers to keep a distance with Mun’s mother.

Ronita Das as Bahamoni Soren

Bahamoni Soren (Baha), 18, is a tribal girl from Palashboni, a remote village in the forest area of Purulia district infamous for its Maoist / Naxalite activities. Baha lives with her mother Kankaboti Soren at the mercy of her heartless step-grandmother who is always yelling at them and mistreating them. Kanka’s life is full of misery and tears but the only thing that keeps her going is her child, Baha born out of a relationship that never got its due recognition. A shahari babu once visited Palashboni to find inspiration for his art. He stayed there for seven months during which period he fell in love with Kanka, married her in front of the village deity and lived in with her in a small hut in shabby conditions. It was only after his city based first wife visited Palashboni and dragged him out of his shabby state that he left Palashboni to have never come back. Kanka remained his inspiration for a new series of painting which got him his life’s greatest honors and made him the man he is today.

Baha has never seen her father; her father doesn’t know she exists. But we know that the Shahari Babu who married Kanka was Dibyojyoti Majumdar, Mun’s father. Thus poor Baha is the illegitimate child of one of Kolkata’s richest and most affluent person.

But Baha’s greater identity is that she is a child prodigy duly identified by her school teachers who have been taking special care of her studies through the years. She has got star marks in the 10^th boards exam and is about to appear for her Higher Secondary examinations, the first girl from Palashboni to have ever studied this far.

Less than a month away from his wedding with Mun, Archi’s secret sources informed him that Satyakam, the fierce mystery rebel, leader of the ‘jangol mahol’ sought after by media, police and politicians alike, is about to visit Palashboni for the annual village fair. Archi had waited long enough to find this man for an exclusive interview, and so he followed Satyakam to Palashboni.

Satyakam the lover who turned a rebel

At the village fair Archi came face to face with the person he came to meet, Satyakam. But before Archi could even start talking, Satyakam got suspicious of his intentions and took him hostage. He and his men snatched away Archi’s cell phone, camera, bags and locked him up in a small hut for the whole day without food & water. Satya called him a ‘Sreni Shatru’ (class enemy) and threatened to kill him for good. Later that night, after the fair was over Satyakam came to meet Archi and engaged into a dialogue with him. Meanwhile the cops got information that Satyakam is in the village and a large fleet of cops raided the village to arrest him. Baha was coming to Satya’s hut to give him food, she saw the cops on the way and rushed to alert Satya. Inside the hut, Baha had just informed Satya about the cops and just then there was a large bang on the door. Satya looked suspiciously at Archi assuming he must have informed the cops. As the banging became louder, Satya took out his gun and attempted to shoot Archi.

Archi however stayed calm and asked him to go and hide somewhere inside while he’d take care of the matter. Archi opened the door, spoke to the cops, showed them his I-card and misled them away.

Archi saved Satya and took him in his scooter and escorted him out of the village safely to the tourist lodge where he was staying. In the tourist lodge Satya decided to open up to Archi. “Babu, you took so much trouble for me, ask now what you came to ask – where does this Satyakam live; where does he operate from; which all areas are his squads working; what are the latest plans – you want to know these right?”

“I don’t want to know any of these. I want to know the real story that nobody has ever asked, how did Satyakam become Bikramjit (the leader)?” asked Archi.

Satya’s story left Archi spell bound – the story of a heart broken lover turning into a rebel, a social leader. It all started years ago in one such village fair when Satya was mustering courage to propose his love to Kankaboti but a Shahari Babu came to the village that fateful day and bloodied Satya’s heart. The babu took everything the village had to offer, its fresh air, warm earth, open sky, sweet water, life’s melody and Kanka’s heart and then he left with his wife. Before leaving he gave Kanka a sign, Baha. He also left a promise un-kept. He said he would come back for Kanka, but he never did.

Archi was stunned at the revelation that Baha’s father must be a man from the city, having a perfect life while Kanka and Baha are pushed into the darkness.

Satya looked at Archi and said, “Why are you surprised, babu? This is what has been happening for ages. When it happened to me, when my heart bloodied I realized the pain. You know babu I would have asked for Kanka’s hand in marriage in front of the village God that day but couldn’t. Perhaps it’s a rather insignificant story of an ordinary man like me but this incident made me realize, that ages after ages, thousands of Bahas are being born like this, thousands of Kankas are shedding their tears in our villages but the city people, who are ahead of us in life, would never come to us and offer their hands and say, ‘Come up, be with us.’ They want the melody of our flutes, our air water sky, our labour, our body but they don’t want our tears, our sorrow, our pain.”

“And was it after this that you decided to bring a change?” Asked Archi

Satyakam continued to speak, “The systems have to change. I realized we all have the same pain but we lacked an organization so I started gathering voices.” Archi was barely able to speak anymore. His eyes were moist and voice was choked. Satya’s story has moved him to the point of no return. When he asked, “Do you think you have been able to bring a change?” Satya replied in negative, “change is no magic.”

But in Archi’s eyes we could see that at least one man has changed. A new Archisman Mukherjee was born that day. Satya said, “Some change has come, people of this village now know they have a right over these forests and the land. Babu, not anymore would a city man come and take away the honour of our women. Our girls and boys would not be in darkness anymore, they would go to school, get jobs.”

“Do you think you would ever be able to bring this change?” Archi’s heart was racing and there was a new light in his eyes. His questions were not that of a journalist anymore. It was coming from a man who was moved by this revolution, only a few steps away from himself jumping the battlefield and take up the weapons of change along with Satyakam.

“If I can’t there would be more Satyakams. One would die, more would come, they would come in lakhs. They would tell the world we are awakened. And there would be Baha, my daughter. Baha would one day fulfil all my dreams.”

Satyakam left that night for an unknown destination to carry on with his struggle. Archi was supposed to leave for Kolkata in few days. Baha and Kanka were at their hut, worried for Satya.

Meanwhile at both the Mukherjee and Majumdar households everybody had started to worry about Archi’s wellbeing. They couldn’t reach him on the phone, and he had also not called for the whole day. Mun started to panic and asked her father to try to find out if Archi is safe.

After Satya left, Archi called Mun. She expressed her worries but Archi didn’t encourage them much. When she said she had called his editor to find about his well being he seemed really annoyed, “why do you over react so much? And why are you being to irrational? I was busy with work that’s why couldn’t call.” Archi is not someone who is swooned by emotions and melodrama. As Mun got more panic stricken and insisted for his early return from Palashboni, he said, “Mun, I hope I am not talking to a 5 year old.” They hung up after a brief conversation and Archi slept off.

The next morning, Baha and Kanka came to the tourist lodge hoping they’d get to meet Satya but Archi informed them he had already left. While saving Satya, Archi had hurt his foot. Kanka noticed that and wanted to tend to his wounds. In the afternoon, she sent Baha with some natural medicine to apply on Archi’s ankle. It was her innocent visit to this tourist lodge that eventually devastated her life.

About 3-4 days later, with wild turn of events, that included several threats to his life, Archi returned from Palashboni as a married man with Baha his wife from a forced marriage.

Archi and Baha’s wedding under forced circumstances

Archi first met Baha in Palashboni when she ran into his two-wheeler. Usual arguments followed between Archi and Baha along with the villagers. “Seems like you don’t look where you are going” Yelled Baha, “Babu, you’d have to pay for the damage” said one of the villagers. “Why riding so fast inside the village?” asked another. Then one of them noticed Archi’s professional camera and got very intrigued. Archi’s assistant Krishanu immediately asked the villagers to pose for Archi Babu, “He would take your photo.” The cute villagers happily started posing for Archi, but Baha made a face and left the scene fuming. As she walked away, Archi took her candid shots. Surely, Archi was captured by her beauty and childlike innocence.

The day after Satya left, Kanka requested Archi to have a humble meal at her place. Kanka was grateful to Archi for saving Satya’s life and this was her way of expressing her gratitude. After the meal, Archi left Kanka’s place for the tourist lodge. He was still limping with a swollen ankle so Baha accompanied him just to be sure he reaches safely. By the time they reached the lodge, it got very stormy and rainy. With thick dark forests all around and a river flowing through it, it was too risky for Baha to go home alone from the lodge. The storm and rain only kept increasing through the evening into the night and flooded the local river as it happens whenever it rains. Scared and worried Baha started sobbing. She wanted to go home even in that rain and storm but Archi wouldn’t let her go. “Don’t worry Baha, your mother would understand that you got stuck in the rain,” he assured her.

After standing at the corridor for a long time, Archi asked Baha to come inside his room and eat dinner. Baha didn’t want to go. Her feet won’t move, and she turned pale and silent. Archi realized something was wrong. He asked, “What is it that you are worried about Baha? I think you want to say something, so say it” When she didn’t say anything, he assumed a few things and said, “Look Baha, know one thing it is one of the greatest insult to not trust a person. Are you not able to trust me?” Baha felt embarrassed. She said, “No babu it’s not about that, I didn’t mean to insult you.”  ”Then just listen to me. Come inside eat something and then we can spend the night talking.“

But they didn’t talk. They both fell asleep. Baha on the floor, Archi on his bed.  Baha, eleven years younger to him, was merely a kid in Archi’s eyes. He just couldn’t let that kid stand in the rain outside; neither could he let her go home alone. So he insisted she stays in his room. She tried her best to resist Archi’s insistence, but even though the words came up to her lips she never could fully tell him, out of embarrassment perhaps, that “in our village a man and a woman are not allowed to stay in the same room.”

The next morning, when the news spread like fire that Baha never returned home last night from the lodge, the whole village stormed inside the lodge and started banging on the door of Archi’s room. Baha opened the door and the villagers assumed the worst. They dragged Archi out of the room and took him to the nearby forests. The tribal law mandated he either married Baha, or chose death.

Baha in her shrill voice kept shouting that nothing has happened, they were innocent, it was because of the rain that she couldn’t go home and had to stay at  babu’s room. But nobody listened to her. There was madness all around. They would not let another babu repeat the same fate as that of Kanka in this village.

3-4 men had caught hold of Archi’s hands and pressed him against a tree and an angry mob armed with bows and arrows, sickle, spade and whatever have you circled around him. Baha stood shivering holding her mother’s hands. Archi still trying to be rational and polite tries to explain the reasons Baha couldn’t return home. But all attempt fell on deaf ears. He said, “if you don’t believe me ask Baha.” A man replied, “No need to ask her, I saw the two of you in the room with my own eyes. You have to marry her” No, said Archi in strong voice. Right then an arrow passed by his left ear and hit the tree. Another by his right ear and third one barely missed his forehead. A brave Archi closed his eyes for a moment to gather all his remaining strengths to face death and said, “No, not even on my death would I accept this madness (That of marrying Baha).”

A village head started countdown, “if you don’t agree within 10 count, you die. 1, 2…7, 8, 9… Stop all of you, yes he would marry me” Said Baha.

Young Baha was able to see it in the eyes of an angry bull headed Archi that he was about to choose death. His death was right their in front of him. There was no other way to save his life but to falsely admit that they have sinned and he had agreed to marry her. At that point, Baha knew Archi was soon to be married to a girl he loves. Archi had earlier told her that if she wanted to go to Kolkata for higher studies, his would-be wife would be able to help her as she is a college teacher. Baha knew Archi was not likely to accept this forced marriage. Baha sacrificed her future to save Archi’s life.

Archi suddenly lost all strength to fight once Baha said this. It was as if Baha was his last hope. From this moment on, he became strangely numb. He didn’t struggle anymore to break loose from the grip of the villagers. He just went silent and numb. Next thing he knew was that they had locked him up in a small hut. Scared, worried and a worn out Archi started recalling some of the latest events from his life. His promise to Mun a day before he left for Palashboni, “Don’t worry, I’d be back the same as I am going” is not to be kept anymore. Just one day before Baha had jokingly said, “If you make fun of our village God, he’d curse you and pit this Bahamoni with you, then you’d have to bear me forever.” Perhaps the village God really did curse Archi.

Archi barely registered that the village men had put a wedding attire on him and he had been taken to the wedding mandap. Everything happened in a trance. Moments before putting the sindoor on Baha’s forehead, he thought of Mun’s face.

It was a wedding under forced circumstances but not a forced wedding. As in when the wedding rituals were being conducted, Archi was in his full senses, albeit in a state of surrender. He knew what he was doing, he didn’t like it, but unlike many such cases, his hands and limbs were in his control and not being forcefully moved by other people.

In a nutshell, it was a valid marriage in the eyes of law.

Baha’s fate after the wedding in Kolkata

An enraged Archi left Palashboni in a local bus soon after the wedding with Baha, not knowing what to do with her. On humanity grounds he couldn’t leave a teenage girl stranded on the way somewhere between Kolkata and Palashboni. Throughout the bus journey he kept yelling at her and blamed her for everything while she sat next to him unable to control her sobbing for the humiliation, the cruel joke that her fate played upon her. Her whole future had turned dark and uncertain, she saw everything she ever had slipping out of her hands – her childhood, her studies, her ambitions to go to a college, get a job and build a better life for her mother – everything was over.

“Who the hell asked you to claim that I agreed to marry you? Why did you lie?” Archi yelled at her.“ “Had I not said that, they would have killed you Babu”, Baha replied in between her sobs. “Sure they would have, and that would have been better rather than living like this now” said Archi who still thought death would have been a better alternative than this forced marriage.

Archi however never could come up with an answer to the main question, “Now what?” Having sobbed enough, Baha came up with a solution or so she thought. She promised Archi that she would never tell anyone about this dreadful wedding, all she needed was a place to stay in Archi’s house, as she couldn’t go back to the village. At a tea halt in a local dhaba, Baha went to the washroom and washed away her sindoor and took off her Shankha Pala and all other signs of a married woman.

This was not a solution. An intelligent being would know. But this was the best Baha could do considering her tender age and experience of life. Archi should have handled this in a more pragmatic way but he didn’t. Why didn’t he we would analyse that at a later stage.

When they reached home, Archi’s family opened the door and asked who she is. Archi said, “She is Baha, from now on she would stay here.” Thereafter Archi kept quiet and let Baha face more questions from the Mukherjee family. To the most important question, why would a girl suddenly come and stay in Archi’s house, Baha said, “Don’t you guys need a maid? I can do all kind of household work.”

Archi’s family welcomed and accepted Baha with open hearts not as a maid but as a daughter of the house, giving her love and care and treating her as one of their own. Baha was overwhelmed with the love from everybody except one person, Archi.

In the Mukherjee household Archi is the cold hearted, emotion less, bull headed, straight forward angry man whom everybody fears. The children of the Mukherjee family would rush to their rooms the minute they’d hear Archi’s bike at the gate. Some of them would pick up their books others would quickly drink the milk or eat the food. The senior members, like Archi’s parents, uncle, aunt they’d all become alert. The family which was probably cracking jokes and picking up petty fights a while ago would suddenly go silent, all eyes on the door, “here comes our angry young son, hope all is well.”

In this house entered Baha the nut case, the headiest, the naughtiest kid in town. She is loud, restless and always up to some grand mischief. Baha’s adventures soon became famous all over the neighbourhood. One day she fought with the local boys and broke their cricket bats and wickets because one of them winked at her and said “Baha I love you.” Other day she snatched a rickshaw pullers rickshaw and pulled it on her own because he refused to ply. Another time she stole a jar of spices from the shop keeper and ran because he was too much time to attend to her. There was no end to Baha’s misadventures. One always expected the unexpected from Baha, nothing was impossible for her; the world was at her feet.

Except that the moment someone would even utter the words ‘Archi’ even from a distance, or the moment she heard Archi’s bike or his footsteps, Baha would turn pale, her feet won’t move, voice would choke and eyes would become moist. She was as scared of him as a lamb in front of a tiger. Behind his back she also called him tiger.

Archi despised Baha. The incident in Palashboni had defeated his existence as a free man, brutally murdered his free soul that longed for none other than Mun, humiliated him in front of the whole village and all he could now feel for the people of Palashboni was deep hatred. Baha represented Palashboni and she reminded him of his defeat and human rights violations. He thought everything that the capitalist society claims about these so called backward classes are true – that they are illiterate, uncultured and barbaric; they deliberately trap innocent city people into marrying their girls so that they can blackmail and extort money, find an avenue to come to Kolkata to seek work, do notorious activities, involve in crime etc.

He was insanely angry at Baha. He never trusted her for a bit and constantly lived in the fear that she would tell everybody about the wedding and would claim her right and jeopardize his family’s happiness. This fear led him to be more and more abusive towards Baha. He didn’t want to see her face; he would never eat or drink anything if it was being served by her, he won’t let her come near his bed room. He wanted to forget that someone called Baha existed.

Baha did her best to avoid ever coming into Archi’s vision, but she mostly failed. Every time she would fail, a lot of yelling by Archi would follow which she would silently bear with buckets of tears rolling down her cheeks. The other family members would try to reason with Archi, request him to calm down and stop scolding her but who has the guts to control Archi. Nonetheless, Baha’s adventures would resume the next morning.

Life went on like this for a while. Archi and Mun’s wedding day was fast approaching. On couple of occasion before their wedding, he tried to share the Baha incident with Mun but words didn’t come out of his mouth at the last moment. The truth remained unsaid and on the due date, Archi married Mun while having a living spouse from a valid marriage in his home under the guise of a house maid.

Baha was sad, but not devastated. She had accepted the fate and decided she would live alone forever with just the signs of her marriage, the sindoor which Archi had put on her forehead, whether willingly or unwillingly. Archi babu was her husband there was no bigger truth than this for her, but she decided to never want anything from him as his wife. She decided to live her entire life in absence of her true identity because she gave her words to Archi.

In Archi’s new wife, Baha found an elder sister. The feelings were mutual from Mun’s side. They both loved each other immensely. The Mukherjee family soon found out about Baha’s interest in studies and ensured that household work doesn’t interfere with her preparations for the higher secondary exams. Head of Mukherjee household, Archi’s Jethumoni (father’s elder brother) took deep interest in Baha’s studies. He also loved her the most, and would often say, “Baha, my child, you must have been my mother in my past life” Mun started making plans for Baha’s higher education and decided to enrol her in the same college where she was a professor.

The more Mun and other family members loved Baha, the more irritated Archi got. He would always say, you guys are going overboard with her, there’s no need to pamper her so much because after all she is just a maid. He couldn’t understand what was there to love her so much. And he presumed she must be playing good to win their hearts for some ulterior motives.

Archi fell in love with Baha

Life for Baha, Archi and Mun moved on this way but not for long. One fine day, Archi fell madly in love with Baha. And the world as he knew it was never the same again.

How did this impossible happen? We would come back to that question later. At the moment, about 7 months after Archi’s wedding with Mun, Archi is a torn worried man, unable to accept himself as Mun’s husband but unable to tell her the truth about Baha, because Baha stops him from doing so. Baha had made Archi promise that she would continue to stay in Mukherjee family on just one condition, that Archi would never hurt Mun and would not tell anybody about their wedding. Archi argued several times that it is not possible to love two women, that he cannot live the lies, secrets and double life anymore but Baha just wouldn’t let him to take an action that would break Mun’s matrimonial home. Her sole principle of life was that, “I cannot hurt someone for the sake of my happiness.”

Meanwhile, Mun has realized Archi is distancing from her. His behaviour towards her had changed drastically; he is often absent minded, restless and pale. He doesn’t even come close to her at nights anymore; they haven’t made love in a long time. She felt that for some reason, he is constantly irritated with her. At the same time Mun noticed a drastic change in Archi’s behaviour towards Baha. He has become over caring and possessive about Baha. Every now and then, he’d pick up a fight with Mun or somebody else on something related to Baha. From which college Baha should be enrolled to who would take her to the college, how she’d dress up, how she should be addressed – Archi had a say in everything about Baha and those often clashed with Mun and others. But Archi doesn’t think twice before making a rude comment to someone attempting to in anyway hurt Baha. On several occasions he had even given stern replies to his mother in law’s constant habit of calling or otherwise treating Baha as a servant in front of the whole family.

The same Archi who had insulted Baha in front of everybody day after day had now become his guardian angel, his knight in shining armour and Mun just couldn’t accept this.

The latest of such Baha related altercation between Archi and Mun led to a major crack in their relationship. Both of them engaged in a heated argument and yelled at each other in front of the Mukherjee family. Things went from bad to worse and the next morning Mun suggested they should take a break from each other. From her internal monologue we know that the suggestion was merely meant to test Archi’s reaction, which he accepted immediately thereby breaking Mun’s heart in several pieces. She doesn’t know about the Baha-Archi relationship yet, but she is convinced she has lost Archi’s love. The day after, Mun packed her bags and left for her father’s home. Nobody could stop her, not even Baha even after she literally lay on Mun’s feet and begged her not to leave.

After Mun left, the entire Mukherjee family turned towards Archi and asked him how is it that a relationship of 7 years cannot withstand a marriage of even 7 months, what can possibly be so wrong between them? In response, Archi prepared himself to tell reason, “There is enough reason and I could tell you that, if you all are in a position to hear a hard truth right now.” Archi’s elder brother Dhriti said, “We are ready, tell.”

At this point Baha jumped to the scene and said, “Barobabu (Archi’s uncle the head of the family) I have something to say.” Archi interrupted her and asked her to go to her room and not come in between when elders are talking. She insisted she be heard first and said, “Please tell your son (Archi) to bring back didimoni (Mun) otherwise I won’t live in this house any more. I would go the hostel.” She turned around to face Archi and said, “Didimoni is my elder, she can say whatever to me, she can insult me I don’t mind, why are you getting so bothered? Why did you fight with your wife because of me? She turned towards the rest of the family and said, “To everybody this is my last word, if didimoni doesn’t come back I won’t stay here.”

Archi felt hurt and humiliated. At one hand he is ready to face the world with his truth about Baha, and give acceptance and recognition to their love and marriage on the other hand Baha insults him in front of everybody by questioning his need to put up a fight for her. Archi thought he made a terrible mistake by falling in love with Baha.

Later, giving into family’s insistence he called Mun. He sounded soft and regretful. He asked her in a loving voice, “Mun, won’t you come back home? Should I come to your place tomorrow to bring you back?”

And this is where the screen split in 3 parts, raised the several questions I mentioned in part 1 of this thesis and the story of Ishti Kutum entered into a realm of uncertainties. I shall end my narration of the story here and pick up the various aspects one by one for analysis. I am ending the narration here because for my analysis, what happens next in the actual show is not important. I am going to limit my analysis to what has happened so far and would make a wish for an ending that I think this story deserves.

Coming up, in the next part:

How did the impossible happen? How could Archi fall in love with Baha and forget Mun, his love of 7 years.

It’s 3 am. The sky outside is thundering and pouring. I can’t sleep. I find the night so much more interesting than day, that I don’t feel like sleeping over it. Right now, all is quiet. Am alone in my room, on my bed. This space is so secure, so comfortable, so completely mine. No intruders, no door bells, no phone calls. Nobody to see me or judge me or question me. I feel free of all inhibitions at nights.

Sometimes, I light up a cigarette, look outside the window and just stare at the still darkness. The residential buildings are all so still but it feels as if they are speaking. The silent motion less night speaks more than the commotion of the day would ever tell. This one time in Bangalore, I was driving back home from my friend’s place in Fraser Town. The city looked so different at night. Same roads seemed wider because there were no traffic, suddenly you feel you can see more clearly the colors of the buildings, the art on the walls and you can clearly read the sign boards. There seemed to be more dogs on the street at night and they had this look on their faces which suggested I was intruding in their business, serious business!

It was around 1.30 at night, I lived in Ulsoor, but for some reason I kept driving on the Old Madras Road towards Indira Nagar instead of taking the right turn towards my home after Ulsoor lake. Those who are familiar with the area would remember the graveyard on Old Madras Road. I stopped in front of its gate. I had this extreme urge to take a walk inside the grave but didn’t quite have the courage. So I just stayed in side my car and stared at the stillness of the graves for a while.  There was nothing around, no human, no dogs, just graves, darkness and silence. But in that brief moment, I gathered so much more than I ever could during the countless times I have driven on that road while visiting my then boyfriend who lived in Indira Nagar.

About ten fifteen minutes later, a police van distracted me. I noticed them driving by and parking at a distance. I didn’t want to catch their attention so I left.

The stillness of the grave, it lingered on.

Night comes with its own agenda. You are the master of your days, you are the doer. But night, night controls you. It controls your mind and soul in more ways than you would ever know. I have felt this control. I have done weird things that I would never do in the day time. Sometimes on something very important I have felt completely different emotions during the night, and the moment it dawned my emotions changed. There are several such things, which should better remain unsaid at this point.

Sharing with you an image of the night in and outside my bedroom. What does the night mean to you? Do share!

“Promoted status updates! That’s the lowest Facebook have stooped.”

If you haven’t already met someone online (I am assuming you no longer meet people offline), shrugging their virtual shoulders and typing those words on their social networking walls, doors and windows – you soon would. Because ever since Facebook introduced ‘Promoted Posts’ for individual users, every self-respecting social media user is talking about how disgusting it is to pay to promote your status updates:

“Pay to connect to my friends? I would never!”

“Pay to get a few more likes and shares. How low!”

These are just some of the obvious reactions you are likely to get. Before I go any further on this topic, I must declare, I paid.

I paid just this morning to ‘promote‘ one of my status updates. Does that make me a lesser person? No! I think we have to understand Facebook a little deeper than that. When a young guy makes a lot of money, its easy to jump the band wagon to call him ‘low’ and ‘evil.’

Facebook was long dead as the place to merely keep in touch with friends and moved on to be the place to promote brand ‘me’. And rightly so. Question really is, how awful  is this act of promoting ‘brand me’? Very awful is it? Don’t we do it anyway, in our lives with the people around us? So why is it a problem when we do it on Facebook in large scale and now with the involvement of money.

What does it mean by ‘pay to promote’?

Facebook long back had introduced something called an Edgerank. The higher your edgerank the better is the visibility of your updates. That’s right, your updates do not by default have a 100% visibility in your network. Read the rest of this article even more closely in case you didn’t already know that.

There are different ways to decide Edgerank for Facebook pages and users. It all boil down to the fact that not everybody you have on your Facebook network receive all your status updates. If you are an individual with 500 friends barely 50 of them get 50% of the status updates you make delivered on their news feed when they login to their Facebook accounts. And If you have a Facebook page for your business or NGO or community or campaigns with say 5000 fans, only 1-3% of those fans receive the page updates.

There are various ways to improve the edgerank and ensure better visibility. As an individual you see those people’s updates with whom you interact more. That means if after accepting a friend request from me out of politeness you never bothered to Like /Commnet/Share any of my updates, Facebook would assume, I am not important to you and would eventually remove me from your news feed. If however you suddenly remembered whatever happened to Sanjukta and so visited my profile, I would come up in the list again.

Facebook does this using some kind of secret algorithm that nobody understands. Facebook itself doesn’t talk about this thing much, except for the couple of lines of information that shows up on the Facebook Help Center if searched for the words ‘Edgerank.’

Few basic rules to ensure higher visibility are:

(1) Updates with photos and videos rather than texts

(2) Frequent updates, because the more recent is the update, better visibility

(3) Updates that have more interactivity, as in more people like / share / comment on an update more people see it and so on.

Increasing this edgerank is a constant challenge at times even frustrating. For commercial entities there are social media agencies like Samyukta Media which can be hired to do it. For individuals, well they mostly struggle and wonder, “why do I keep hearing from the same people, why hasn’t the horizon expanded?” And all our believes of being a Global citizen, of reaching the world with our work, to open our windows to worlds we didn’t know exist, remain a myth. Here’s how I had once put my frustration in words:

“As I just went through my friend list, I realized that Facebook doesn’t show me updates from even 10% of the total number of Friends I’ve got. By that same algorithm that same 90% don’t see my updates. That explains why all conversations keeps echoing against the same walls. This is the evil of Facebook and of mankind recently, we float in the same damn bubbles even with 5000 friends”

Now, Facebook  has a solution. You can pay Facebook to make sure your updates, the ones you think are imporant and should be read by all of your friends, are safely reaching everybody’s news feed without falling through the crack because of stupid algorithms.

Your status update about that new documentary film that nobody agreed to produce which is now available on YouTube; Your update about that new book, which tells the story of a woman so controversial that nobody dared to publish it and so you decided to self publish; Your invitation to the latest fund raising event in your NGO; Your latest blog post your insignificant yet interesting life – You want these updates to be promoted. Facebook seeks a small price for it. Do you mind? Why?

As for me, why would I want to see a status update that you are no longer ‘sharing’ but ‘selling’? Am a consumer of your life? Am I not? Why else am I friend with you on Facebook in the first place?

Madhur Bhandarkar makes films for the dummies. In the wake of the release of yet another cliched film for the dummies, Heroine, I am republishing my feminist film review of Fashion and other Bhandarkar Films. I have not seen Heroine yet, but I can predict what’s is it about.

Not only does he make films for dummies, and other people from the stone age or different planet, who know nothing of the world we live in and therefore a Bhandarkar script based on Google and Wikipedia search becomes an eye opener for them, Bhandarkar is also a dangerous enemy of feminism.

His women-centric films over and over again pits a good girl in the bad world and reiterates that the world is so bad for girls, they better stay inside the kitchens and bed rooms. Dare they come out and do something different than cooking cleaning and making babies, bad things happen to them.

When I was a toddler, I used to always extend my hands towards the pressure cooker while hopping around the kitchen with Mom. One day, mom took my fingers and made it slightly touch the hot cooker, just to put across the point that its dangerous to touch that thing when mom is cooking. I got scared, and got the point.

This is what Madhur Bhandarkar films does to an ambitious woman.

I will write a detailed review of Heroine after seeing it, below is the review from the past.

—

Before I put on my feminist glasses let me briefly tell you how was Fashion for me. Well it was definitely below expectations, I won’t say it was all bad. Spending Rs.115 on a Saturday morning was worth  only for all the eye candy the film has to offer, both to hetro and homo eyes.

Kangana Ranaut stole my heart. Every time she walked the ramp I was being transported to a world of ecstasy. There was so much that she conveyed merely by the way she looked at the camera and the way she moved. You could see a super charged life which had so much in it, success, pride, arrogance, pain, loneliness, helplessness and a hidden innocence.

Then comes the wardrobe malfunction scene and I don’t have enough words in praise of her performance in that. A bare naked soul standing there on the ramp embarrassed and shattered, she can’t run, can’t hide, can’t even close her eyes when a zillion cameras are flashing at her. Respect to Kangana for this scene.

This was also Priyanka Chopra‘s best performance, she have sincerely worked hard for this role and that shows. I would give it to her just for the hard work. Kitu Gidwani gave another powerhouse performance. I love that woman so much but we never see enough of her in Bollywood. I am not sure if she is more active in the theater circle or any other film industry.

Amongst the powerhouse performances by the ladies one man stands out and he is Harsh Chaya playing a gay designer. His limp hands, lisp tongue was all so perfectly done even though they didn’t justice to the script or subject.

Besides a few good performances, the film fails on many count. It was too long and slow. There were so many scenes which didn’t fit in and I was like, “why did we need this scene in the plot“.  At one point I was literally crying out loud for the ‘The End’ board to show up.

A complex subject handled realistically making an eye opener film – That’s how Madhur Bhandarkar films are usually described. But ‘Fashion’ was neither so complex nor an eye opener.

The story is simple. Meghna (Priyanka Chopra) a small town girl from Chandigarh dreams to make it big in the modeling industry. She moves to Mumbai to try her luck. Success comes easily to her, after a few rounds of auditions and a photo shoot, she becomes a super model, then success gets on her head and she becomes everything she never thought she’d be. Because of her arrogance and unprofessionalism she falls off the ladder. Will she rise again?

It’s simple and predictable. There was nothing in the film that I didn’t already know or that came as a shock to me. In fact there were a lot of annoying cliches. And here is where I wear my feminist glasses.

Dude, you are making this movie in 2008. Over the last 10 years of fashion boom in India we have seen them all, the Milind Somans and the Madhu Sapres, the Arjun Rampals and the Meher Jessias, the Rohit Bals and Manish Malhotras. We know its a tough world, we read their interviews, we read their life stories. So please get real, any girl who wants to be a super model today wouldn’t be so shocked to know that there is a ‘no marriage and no pregnancy clause’ in her contract. I mean c’mon, we know that since the Nutan and Suraiya days (and that’s like 60 years) that pregnant and married woman are a big no no in the media or film industry.

In any case why would a smart professional be stupid enough to even get pregnant? Whatever happened to the condoms and the I-pills. Why would she do it to her career? “Main tumhaare bacche ki maa ban ne wali hun.” So cliched. Mr. Bhandarkar really needs to meet the true professional women who would never be so stupid, and even if it happened accidentally, she wouldn’t even bother to tell the man anything and would simply get it aborted. And why would the man pay the abortion bills? Aargh. It’s time for Mr. Bhandarkar to open up, get real and learn that a ‘Sonali Roy’ of ‘Aitraaz‘ is the kind of professionals that we have out there in plenty in the real industry and his Meghna was anything but real.

Looking through my feminist glasses, there is this one major problem with most Bhandarkar films. He breaks the stereo-type, but very cleverly remains within a framework that proclaims that such non-stereotypes are not the right thing to be. In ‘Fashion’ his‘Meghna’ is this ‘good’ girl in a bad world. So even if she is unconventional enough to have an one night stand with a random guy after getting drunk, her world comes crashing down when she gets sober. Oh c’mon, so she had a one night stand, big deal. Who doesn’t. What was the drama all about? But hey, she is supposed to be a ‘good’ girl and ‘good’ girls don’t have one night stands, and if they do, they must repent. Like I said, Mr. Bhandarkar has no idea.

Good girls always want to get pregnant because motherhood is the ultimate goal they have in life and they don’t give a damn about their career when its pitted against her eternal role as a mother. So, his ‘Meghna‘ like a good girl attempted to gain motherhood. But its a bad world, her man was a jerk and her contract didn’t allow her to get pregnant so she had to go for an abortion. Till this point it’s not stereotype. But the way she handles an abortion was so cliched. Like the abortion was the end of the world, like it was the best thing that could have ever happened to her and now it is lost. Sadly, Mr. Bhandarkar has no idea how easy it could be for some women to get a pregnancy terminated without any qualms because it didn’t suit their scheme of things. But good girls must not be ok with it. They must not feel right about abortion, they must feel having sinned, they must repent to the point of insanity. No, Mr. Bhandarkar, it isn’t like that, its my body, my choice and if my circumstances don’t suit me I would happily decide against it.

Again in Corporate it was so cliched the way Nishigandha Dasgupta (aka Nishi played by Bipasha Basu) fell into a trap and rotted for the rest of her life. Did he mean to say she was that stupid? She thought she could make a mark in the corporate world by agreeing to take responsibility of a crime to save her husband and his family? I can’t believe Mr. Bhandarkar got away with falsely claiming Corporate to be a film on women’s liberation, because it so was NOT. It was just a corporatized version of a sati savitri who would take any shit in the world to save her husband and his honour because that’s what good wives should do. An ambitious woman wouldn’t jeopardize her whole life for the sake of family and honour but then she wouldn’t be known as a good wife.

Problem is he makes films behind its time. Today India has one of the top notch businesspersons, entrepreneurs, managers who are women. Gender biases are being done away with in most corporates, following the historic Vishakha Judgment today most respectable firms have a ‘prevention of sexual harassment’ cell in place. Today we have a Chanda Kocchar of ICICI Bank who came at No.37 in list of world’s most powerful businesswomen, we have Naina Lal Kidwai who has been listed among the World’s Top 50 Corporate Women from 2000 to 2003 by Fortune Magazine, we have Latika Thukral, CitiBank’s business head, we have Sulajja Firodia Motwani, Joint Managing Director of Kinetic Engineering Ltd. We have ICICI bank which built its business by hiring smart women managers and creating a female-friendly environment. The list is endless. Indian women have come so far and yet all Mr. Bhandarkar could think of was a dumb good girl succumbing to the bad world.

Fashion is largely dominated by female actors. The natural expectation was to see many more progressive and non-stereotype scenes from a feminist point of view. But there weren’t many. First of, there weren’t many female designers. All designers throughout the film were Gay. Ok, we know we have gay fashion designers but showing 8 of them in one film was a bit too much. You have all kind of gays in Fashion, the funny ones, the smart ones, the ones with limp hands, ones with no limp hands, the committed ones, the forever-eyeing-cute-guy ones.

You show a couple of strong gay characters with enough depth and complexity, and I would say you handled homosexuality with maturity and respect, you show too many of them, none leaving a significant impact on the audience and it feels like you are mocking them. Like I said, he’ll break the stereo types but not really break it. Also, there are no lesbians in Mr. Bhandarkar’s understanding of the Fashion world because that would have been too much of a risk taking with the moral police. And there are no strong willed gay ready to take the heterosexual norms head on.

Another thing that he gets away with every time is the claim to have made eye opening movies. In all his films he really shows things that we already knew. It’s like Bhandarkar telling us, “all you sorry people who live in Yash Chopras’ dream land and know nothing of the real world, come to me I will show you how things in real world are.” And then I go, “but dude this much I knew, I read papers you know, I know what goes around in the world.” and he is like, “Oh no you know but you don’t know how it happens, so now I show you how it happens.” But I know. Ok whatever.

I knew it when I was probably 15 that there are these cruel kidnappers who steal new born kids and put them in earthen pots and leave them like that so that they’d grow up to have a deformed body and then make them beggars. That begging is no less an organised business with a proper structure complete with agents and sub agents was shown in the film ‘Gardish’ some 15 years back. Time and again each one of us have been conned by a decent guy whose wallet got stolen and he had no money to go back home or an innocent mother who was going to medical shop for buying medicines for her ailing son and on the way she lost her purse. I have myself been conned like that, so what new did you see in Traffic Signal?

I was in my school final days when my parents told me, “my child, don’t dream of working in these big companies, those are not for middle class people like us, you need to be beautiful and smart to get a job there, for people like us, best is a Government job.” And so I was advised to prepare for IAS, SSC and UPSC exams. So how was Corporate offering anything new?

The same was told to me when I wanted to study ‘Film Direction and Scripting’. Film industry media industry are not places for good middle class girls. We know there is a casting couch, we know people do drugs, we know people have extra marital affairs: dude all that we know. Thanks to so many news channels and the page 3s we know exactly what shit is happening in these glamor industries. So what good are these so called “realistic thought provoking” films doing in order to make a change.

It would have made me much happy if the woman protagonist in Corporate did win in the end or if the gay couple in Fashion could finally assert their sexuality instead of succumbing to the constant pressure of a heterosexual marriage. Showing a change on reel might bring a change in real. Showing the already depressing shit and how it wins over dreams and ambition would further perpetuate the moral police telling us “corporates and fashion industry are not the places for us to be, its a bad place.”

Think responsibly Mr. Bhandarkar.

[Crossposted on Mutiny]

Hyderabad Police has denied permission to carry on LGBT Pride Parade in Hyderabad. Every citizen in a democracy has the right to peaceful protest, and here we are not even talking about a protest, this is a Pride March. That one needs permission to be proud of one’s identity is weird enough, to deny permission is simply outrageous. It seems the denial is not final, more details on this would follow. Please keep an eye on this space. Meanwhile spread the word. Below is a public statement by activist Aditya Bondyopadhyay:

“I am sorry to inform you about the blatant state sponsored homophobia exhibited by the Hyderabad Police when they refused permission today for the Hyderabad Pride Parade. This is just a prior warning. Things will become clearer when actual communique from them will be received on Monday. But may be the time has come when the queer community of Hyderabad (and of India as a whole) needs to take a stand and say “ENOUGH and NO MORE” to such hooliganism in uniform. To march peaceably is our constitutional fundamental right. The courtesy of seeking permission should not be mistaken as weakness…people should be ready now to make sacrifices…the struggle is long from over.”

Some of you might not even know what Queer Pride is. Read my earlier post to understand what it is and to read about the various annual queer pride events in many Indian cities.

“People should be now ready to make sacrifices” – I particularly liked this statement made by Aditya. In June, 2008 I had written an article ’It is time to stand up and stand tall‘ where I tried making this point. I would quote myself,

“…unless the society gets to see an upsurge of people calling themselves gay / lesbian / transgendered / transexual or simply put NOT heterosexual; unless the number of people calling themselves queer is large enough and the faces known enough would the society realize it is not something so unnatural after all…And this responsibility lies with the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered) people themselves to come out of their closets and be confident of their sexuality. It’s time to stand up and stand tall. I think enough have been said and written about LGBT rights already its high time each one every such person, start asserting their rights themselves. You can’t seek respect from others unless you respect yourself and respecting yourself would mean being comfortable with your sexuality.”

I ask our celebrities, our actors, film makers, musicians, writers, politicians and social activists, why don’t we have a self proclaimed self respecting Queer among them? Where is our Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, Elton John, Ellen DeGeneres and Rupert Everette?

Am I to understand that there are none? Is that possible?

I don’t understand why we keep our identities hidden in the name of a false sense of privacy. I suggest we stop taking our privacy so seriously, and let the world know what sexual preferences we have.

If at all the gay men had a fear of being harassed by the cops because of Section 377 of the IPC, that fear too is now gone.

So dear queer people, if this is a fight for freedom, all be prepared to shed some blood. Come out, take up the flag and proceed with your march, if need be take up that weapon and fight. Don’t keep waiting for the NGOs and activists to fight this battle, time each one of you come out.

My readers would be happy to know that the writer’s block has been lifted. A lot of writing is coming out these days, some personal, some for the book ‘This Is My Truth‘ and some for this space, my blog. The book hasn’t found a publisher yet, but am writing it anyway. These days if your content is good you can self publish and it would sell. The obsession for the TV Show Ishti Kutum continues as the show has become even more interesting. The that I was writing on it is going good, it is going to be a very long one, you all need to have patience to read it.

So I heard Rani Mukherjee is back. I already knew for quite some time now, that she is appearing next to Aamir in Talaash but that there is another release, a light comedy this October came as a pleasant surprise. Pleasant because I always look forward to a Rani Mukherjee film. I miss her from Bollywood these days. At times I feel that just because she isn’t around, we are making good with a Vidya Balan. Not that I am underestimating Vidya Balan’s talents, but still, somehow she remains a shadow of Rani for me.

‘Aiyyaa’ that’s the name of the comedy releasing on October 12, 2012, produced by Anurag Kashyap along with Viacom 18 directed by Marathi film maker Sachin Kundalkar. Rani’s co-star is southern actor Prithviraj. This is his Bollywood debut.

A poem by me on a woman’s desire for a man

There are several reasons I absolutely loved the trailer. Firstly, the subject of the film. A woman’s desire for man or men, her sexuality her feelings and attractions are some of my favorite subjects. I have earlier written about my disappointment with our popular culture which has little mention of woman’s carnal desire for a man/men. We don’t have enough depiction of thoughts and feelings a woman goes through when she sees a good looking, sexually attractive  man. We know when a man sees a beautiful woman, he sings songs like, Chaundvi ka chaand ho; yeh reshmi zulfe, chandan sa badan and such. But what does a woman think or feel?

To some extent, Aiyyaa showed me glimpses of that. The plot itself is quite a breakaway from the gender stereotypes. Its a story about a marriageable girl Meenakshi’s search for her kind of man. In the trailer we see that a matrimonial ad has been published by Meenakshi’s family which depicts her as young, shy and homely but as the scene opens up, we realize she’s none of those.

Then the central theme of the film is revealed when Meenakshi says, “Gore log nahi mujhe kaale log pasand hai”

Breakaway from middle class India’s obsession with the fair skin. Meenakshi desires the dark. A tall dark angry young man soon catches Meenakshi’s fancy and she is seen following him in a state of trance to men’s loo, libraries and whatever have you. She is seen turned on by his smell, and the sheer proximity of his body. She also bursts into absolutely crass typical south Indian style song and dance sequence expressing her sexual desire in rather raw bordering to vulgar words (the song Dreamum Wakeupum)

I loved every bit of the song ‘dreamum wakeupum’ and couldn’t help drawing a comparison with ‘Ooh la la ooh la la’ from Dirty Picture. As it turns out, you have to see dreamum wakeupum to truly understand what southern masala vulgarity actually is. Choreographed by Vaibhavi Merchant, you have an unapologetic Rani Mukherjee thumping her ‘thunderous thighs’ in manner most un-lady like, at one point she even air kisses the man’s ass, her dress and make ups are downright stupid and if you thought in spite of all that stupidity she still looked pretty and sweet, you are wrong.

The song dreamum wakeupum is just crass. There is no space for but in it. And that’s why its so authentic.

I read somewhere somebody speculating “would Rani be able to outshine Vidya’s oomph?” I thought that was a stupid speculation. Rani is the original. She sets the standards, others try to live up to it.

Happy to see that finally a comedy has ensued from a woman’s search for a suitable man. Looking forward to the movie which shouldn’t be disappointing from the look of it. I am keeping faith in Anurag Kashyap and Rani Mukherjee.

[Excerpts from a book I am writing]
[Part of the Manoshi's story thread]

Moving on is easy, there is so much work to do. You remain so preoccupied you don’t even have the time to think about anybody or anything. Manoshi certainly had moved on. It was almost a year since he last called. Before leaving Manoshi insisted he returns her book of Oscar Wilde, the one he borrowed long back. She had said with sweet anger, “Dekho, please return my book. I am quite certain we are never going to meet again and then years later I would sing that stupid song ‘mera kuch samaan tumhare paas para hai‘.

Prithvi smiled and said, “Aisa karo, tum pehele gaake sunao. Sing it for me right now.”

Manoshi got damn annoyed, “This is not the time to flirt. You are not leaving any options open for me to get in touch with you. How am I supposed to know when are you back? That’s one of my favorite book…“

“Forget the book, and forget me” Prithvi had said calmly leaving no more space for Manoshi, in the conversation and perhaps in his life.

Suddenly, today on this beautiful sunny breezy morning, he is back after several months of disappearance. They both seemed happy to see each other. He ordered for his favorite coffee and cheese toast for both of them. She was on Facebook via her new Samsung Galaxy Tab.

“New fancy gadget for Twitter eh?” Teased Prithvi. He had never understood Manoshi’s obsession to stay connected on her social networks.

Manoshi kept away her tab and turned towards Prithvi, she was feeling very vulnerable, she wanted to hold Prithvi. She smiled and came closer, nudged his shoulder with her head and then swiftly planted a kiss on his left cheek.

He turned a stern face towards her, “What?” He asked.

“Can we go home and have a drink, please? I have to show you something I’ve been working on at home.” Manoshi asked like a baby asks for a box of chocolates.

He didn’t reply but rose from the sofa attempting to leave. Manoshi held his hands and said, “Where are you going? Don’t go, I promise I won’t insist.”

“Well I was going to clear the bill, so that we could go home, but if you don’t want to…” Prithvi teased again and smiled.

Manoshi blushed. She let go of his hand. As he walked towards the cash counter, she gathered her gadgets, car keys and purse, and waited for him. He took a bit too long to be back, meanwhile she dozed off leaning back on the sofa.

When she woke up, she was alone in her bed. There was no sunny breezy day, no Prithvi. The night was still as dark and her dream was still as painful as ever. A terrible realization that quite contrary to what she thought, she has not moved on. Not even a bit. A realization that whatever she thinks, feels during the day in her conscious state is in complete conflict with her subconscious which only gets revealed via her dreams. She felt helpless for her soul, which speaks to her in her dreams and tells her where it hurts and what it still hopes for, because she knows it is not in her hand to find answers for her eternally longing soul. She knows that he would never know. He would NEVER care.

“Why don’t you just die soul. I have, why don’t you?” Manoshi asked her longing soul.

[Before reading this, you might want to read the Ishti Kutum Analysis Part 1 - Introduction, Ishti Kutum Analysis Part 2 - Story so Far. The paper I am writing on Star Jalsha mega serial 'Ishti Kutum' would continue in its own pace, the 3rd chapter 'How Archi fell in love with Baha' is still not complete. I am not getting enough time to write, but work is in progress. Please subscribe to this blog so that you don't miss the, when I publish them. Meanwhile a reaction to some of the latest developments in the story.]

Story from 2nd Aug till date:

After Mun left the Mukherjee houshold, she attempted to commit suicide, but was unsuccessful. Baha, saved her life by giving her blood. In the hospital after gaining consciousness Mun created a fake story, that an old flame from her college days is back in her life and her own infidelity created a guilt factor and was the reason for her attempted suicide. Archi believed the story with a sigh of relief. He told her that he is at peace now that both of them are committed to new relationships. Before Mun was discharged from the Hospital, Baha was driven away from Mukherjee household and taken to Majumdars where Anu started mentally and physically abusing her everyday. Meanwhile, to say everything that was unsaid, to hear each other out with open hearts and free minds, Archi and Mun decided to go on a vacation, arranged and sponsored by their elder brother as a honeymoon trip. The same day that they left for the trip, Baha was further abused by Anu and she left for Palashboni. In Palashboni, seeing Baha in misery and pain, everybody assumed Archi had used her, abused her and driven her away from home. She didn’t say anything clearly as to why she was back, but said this much that her marriage is over. Maddened by anger and emotion, Satyakam decided to kill Archi and take the revenge of both Dibbojyoti Majumdar and Archi’s sins.

Archisman and Satyakam’s relationship

Archisman and Satyakam, after Archi saved Satya’s life

Satya is, what the bourgeoisie would call, a fringe rebel; the American corporate would call, a terrorist and the Indian government would call, a Maoist. But for the people of Palashboni, Satya is their God, their hero and the fountain of Palashboni Law. Needless to say, truth has two faces, the good truth, and the bad truth.

Years ago, Satya made a promise to the people of Palashboni that he would lay his life for their upliftment and since then, he’s been on a war with the ‘system.’ The administration, police, politicians, media – all have been after him, chasing him everywhere but he has never been caught. In one such chase, when the police knocked Satya’s door, Archi risked his life and career to save him. And it would be heartening to know that the only reason Archi was present at Satya’s hideout that fateful night, was because he was taken, rather dragged to that hideout by Satya’s men, on Satya’s instructions and was kept in captivity. The ironies of life and Archisman’s magnanimity.

Satya attempts to kill Archi, thinking he has called cops. Archi asks him to go and hide, while he takes care of the cops.

Nobody, not even Baha or Kanka, knows where does Satya live and what does he do. He has people who work for him, they have secret missions and plans but those are not talked about much. Archi first came to Palashboni to find out the good truth about Satyakam the hero. He wasn’t interested in knowing about his plans and missions, his whereabouts or targets. He was searching for the story behind the making of this hero. He found it during that turmoil which first led him face death at Satya’s hands and then save the same person from police.

On returning to Kolkata, he wrote a heart wrenching piece on Satya the hero and raised a storm. The ordinary people were overwhelmed by the truth of Satya’s life. Many of them had tears in their eyes. And the administration, from the Police Commissioner to the Home minister to all the top notch editors and media houses in the country wanted to offer Archi whatever he could lay his hands on, in exchange of  just one information from him, “how to find Satyakam” a man who has escaped everybody for so long.

Archi didn’t want to meet any of the big shots. He felt embarrassed that all these people had suddenly started calling him to congratulate on this magnificent achievement. In Anjan da’s chamber at ‘Prothom Khabor’ office, a humble Archi had said, “Please don’t talk like this Anjan da, I have just done my job, that’s all,” resisting his endless praise session.

Forthcoming episode of Ishti Kutum, date 1-Oct-2012, Archi faces death as Satyakam seeks a misconstrued revenge

This man, Archisman Mukherjee today stands in front of a Satyakam who has a revolver in his hand, adamant to kill Archi. What happened, that after everything that Archi did for Satyakam for his life and his cause, this is how Satya have decided to pay him back?

Observations on Satyakam’s recent actions:

Satya’s personal got mixed up with his political. To some extent this is understandable, since his very struggle began in his heart break. A city man (Dibbojyoti), a representative of the oppressive bourgeoisie class came to the village and stole his woman’s (Kankaboti) heart, used her and ultimately abandoned her to have never come back. Satya realized it was easy for this man to ruin Kanka’s life because she was an illiterate, under privileged, backward class girl from a tribal village. He realized, that in order to put an end to this age old practice of the city people dishonoring the village women, it was important to climb up the social ladder, be a part of the mainstream society by getting educated and taking up jobs etc. And so he made a promise to the people of Palashboni that his life is dedicated to their development  Not another man would be able to take the honor of another Palashboni’s daughter.

Many revolutions happened, when the personal was attacked. The Sepoy Mutiny is a classic example. The problem occurs when you cannot separate the two any more, when you can no longer identify the actual motives of your actions and distinguish them as to whether an action is meant to achieve personal goal or socio-political?

This is Satay’s problem. He can no longer make this difference. He is blinded by his hatred towards the Dibbojyoti Majumdars of the world. He sees a Dibbo in every city man. He calls all of them “Sreni Shatru” (class based enemy) and is always looking for an excuse to avenge himself. Is there a larger socio-political goal in this revenge? A question Satya fails to ask his conscience. This was the reason when he first saw Archi at Palashboni fare, he immediately used force against him. Satya would have probably killed Archi that very day, had various other crisis not cropped up.

Satya had always wanted to kill Dibbo. When one day after a gap of 18 years, Dibbo finally came to meet Kanka, Satya got outraged and maddened by anger, hatred and jealousy. He caught him by the collar, dragged him to the jungle and attempted to kill him. He never bothered to engage into a dialogue, or ask Dibbo what was the purpose of his visit. He just wanted to kill him, because he was a ‘sreni shatru’.

Surrendering himself at the will of Satya, Dibbo had asked, “Satyakam, please know that today I do not fear death. Are you sure by killing a man who anyway doesn’t want to live, your class enmity would end? Or would it be better if I socially accept my daughter Baha and give her everything I couldn’t give so far?” For a second there Satya realized the enmity with Dibbo wasn’t making sense, but the next moment he turned violent again. His foster son, Prakash tried to stop him but he blasted, “Prakash, leave this is my fight alone.“

At one hand he said this was ‘his’ private fight, and another hand he said it was a class struggle. Clearly, he was confused, and had terribly mixed up the agendas. It was only after Kanka revealed on his face, the harsh and insulting reality, that he was mixing up his personal vendetta with his political struggle, “this is no longer your fight for the country Satya, this is your personal fight, at least I can tell that, if not anybody else” that he let go of Dibbo.

Deep inside he still wanted to kill a Dibbo. When last week, Baha came from Kolkata with a wound on her forehead (Anu had hit her with a flower vase) and confessed that Archi has another wife, and from now on, she’d stay in Palashboni, Satya’s secret desire to kill a Dibbo to make a strong statement got fueled again. He thought killing a famous journalist would create an uproar in the city, it would give out a strong message and thereafter no man would dare to take the honor of a village woman.

Class struggle, personal vendetta, fatherly possessiveness, protectiveness, Baha’s honor – everything is getting mixed up for Satyakam.In his blind rage and deepening pain he is not thinking the way a leader is supposed to think. He has lost rationality and logic. Satyakam shouldn’t be an impulsive person. A person who runs a secret rebel group, challenges the system, has been able to always escape the cops would be anything but impulsive. He must have a strong sixth sense to understand facts even from a distance, he would never do something without first understanding the whole of it.

Satyakam talking to his men Manglu and Dhanai plotting Archi’s murder

Then how is it that when it comes to killing Dibbos and Archis, his leadership qualities disappear? The answer lies in the bad truth about Satya. He is a tyrannical controlling patriarch of Palashboni.

Just because he is the tribe leader, the only man in Kanka’s life and Baha’s foster father, he has wrongly assumed he has the right and power to control Baha and Kanka’s life even against their wishes. A patriarchal man’s obsession to control his women, particularly their sexuality is what is leading Satya to this blood shed. Let us not for a minute be so naive and pass off Satya’s misdeed as his acts of passion and emotional outburst. Acts of passion happen in a moment, even the law pardons such acts including murders. But in Satya’s case there is enough space and time to use logic and reason, only if he doesn’t deliberately avoid them.

Have Satya forgotten that the very premise of the two men, Dibbo and Archi are different, while Dibbo came in search of his muse, Archi came to Palashboni in search of Satya. He certainly have not. The very fact that Archi took the risk of coming to Palashboni, riding 300kms on his bike, on the day of Bharat Bandh (nation wide strike) should raise a curiosity about his motives in the mind of a person with even the most ordinary prudence. Does it not occur to Satya? One is likely to wonder,  when it took Dibbo 18 years to visit Palashboni, why does Archi keep coming back over and over again, why does he shower immense love and respect upon the very people who once attacked his life, treats them to a grand feasts and gets them new dresses on ‘Paila Baishakh’? Why does Archi love them so much?

Manglu Dhanai ask Satya, why the jamai pretended so much for so long?

Quite naturally these questions did occur to Manglu and Dhanai, Satya’s men who were instructed to capture Archi. They said, “We were just not able to believe that jamai (Archi) could betray us this way, we loved him so much and he also loved all of us. And he used to be with Baha such a way it seemed he loved her more than his life, as if he cannot stay without her even for a minute. We don’t understand Satya, why did he pretend so much?”

The answer Satya gave reflects a great problem of the patriarchal mindset. A problem the feminist movement have been trying to address for so long. He replied, “Keno bujhte parcho lai? Bhog karar ligge” (Can’t you understand why? So that he can user her sexually)

The fact is Archi and Baha’s marriage is still not consummated even after almost a year. The reasons – although find mention in the story are none of anybody’s business – Arhi felt Baha is too young and he believes that to start a new relationship one must come out of the previous one in its entirety.

Satyakam tells Manglu that Archi lied and pretended for the same reason as Dibbo did, to use Baha. (sexually)

It is a shame that Satyakam assumed a man like Archi would do so much for so long just to be able to get Baha to bed. This is not only an insult to Archi but also insults his own daughter Baha. She is an adult, she had a valid marriage with Archi. She is capable of taking her own decisions. If at all there had been any relationship between her and Archi, that is a matter of love and affection between a husband and wife. To call that ‘bhog’ (sexual use) is just an insane objectification of Baha the person. Problem is patriarchal society imagines sex as something that only men desire and women oblige, women can neither desire nor enjoy sex. They do not have a mind of their own to take decisions about their own body and sexuality. They don’t have their own choices when it comes to physical relationship with a man, with or without marriage. Even where a woman willingly enters into sexual relationship with a man, assumption is, it must be a result of the man’s lies, pretense and deceit. It is because of this mindset that after Kanka was impregnated and abandoned by Dibbo, Satyakam issued an unwritten irrational law for Palashboni, “No man and woman are not allowed to spend a night together in a room. If they do, the man must marry the woman, otherwise would be killed” To enforce this very law, Baha was forcefully married to Archi. Her entire destiny was trampled that day because of this unreasonable law made by Satya.

Still, her decisions post marriage were her alone. In truth whatever form of physical relationship was established by Kanka and Baha with their men, was done only and only because of love. They loved their men. It is as simple. They were not so weak or stupid that the men could get make a fool out of them.

If follows, since the decisions were their own, the responsibilities of facing the consequences are also with them alone. Satya or anybody else need not interfere unless they are specifically asked to. When Satya asked for the details about her situation with Archi, and suggested he would get even with Archi for hurting her, Baha categorically said she doesn’t want anybody to discuss this matter anymore. She wanted everybody to stay out of it. Consoling a tearful Baha, Satyakam in his mind said, “I would kill Archi babu, otherwise I won’t be a just father of my daughter.”

Hear yea, fathers, brothers, husbands, sons, village heads, pack leaders et all – none of you have to perform any feats to save the honor of your women, which you believe only lies in her actions related to her heart and hormones, unless you are specifically told to. Least of all, the great deed of killing the man I once loved just because we have a misunderstanding among us.

The countdown has begun for celebration of love in Palashboni. Drum rolls are on, the air is filled with love. Ishti Kutum audience are eagerly waiting for the latest episode (8th October) of Ishti Kutum. But why is it so special? Because today is the opening day of a week long romance.

When the last episode on Saturday, 6th October ended, an elated audience also felt exasperated, “why do we have Sundays in between Saturday and Monday. Never before have anybody hated a Sunday as much as they did on 7th October. Because it came in the way of love, the abundance of which we hope to see on Monday, 8th October.

On Saturday, Archi-Baha (played by Rrishii Kaushik and Ronita Das), one of the most popular couple in contemporary Bengali entertainment,  the winner of Best Couple at the 2012 Sangbad Protidin Tele Samman Awards, were reunited after almost two months of tears, tension and trauma. This was also the first time since their marriage a year ago, that Archi-Baha have been able to come close to each other absolutely free from all lies, bondage and inhibitions.

From the pre-caps of last episode and from the two back to back weekly promos, it is clear that this week, it would be pure unadulterated romance on Ishti Kutum recreating a magic the audience have seen during Jun and July 2012. Archi-Baha’s onscreen chemistry is one of its kind and the fans are often comparing them with Uttam-Suchitra, the benchmark of romance in Bengal.

Last episode of Ishti Kutum also marked the end of the first phase of Ishti Kutum as the year long turmoil ended with Archi’s social confessions and acceptance of Baha as his lawful wife. The latest week of Ishti Kutum, particularly last episode have been arguably one of the boldest and most progressive scenes in the entire popular Indian entertainment industry. A man with two wives / women is nothing new, it is one of the most repetitive themes in soap operas. We either see them as matter of joke in David Dhawan’s comedies like Gharwali Baharwali or we see them as terrible melodramatic triangles where in the end one of the life inevitably is lost because nobody has ever thought of an alternative.

The alternative that Ishti Kutum dared to show. That a man can be brave enough to deal with the situation, accept the truth, listen to his heart, break up and move on. Yes, this hurts the other woman, who is left alone. But it is better than keeping her in the dark, sharing a life with her without love, keeping a marriage that has lost its soul.

“Those days I could not tolerate Baha, I used to humiliate and hurt her in every possible ways.” Said Archi in front of the entire people of Palashboni village while confessing the truth about his and Baha’s relationship.

Archi speaks to people of Palashboni, confessing his mistakes and accepts Baha as his only wife.

What Archi did only one in thousands and lakhs of men can do, he literally stood in front of the society and confessed every mistakes he has made. He showed immense courage by doing this because he didn’t know how people would react. He was ready to face consequences. He accepted that even after trying many times he could not tell the incident about Baha to Mun and that’s why their marriage happened on the due date. When Kanka asked, “Is it not adharma to your other wife?” He said, “One cannot control one’s heart, but I would always be good friend to her and help her through thick and thin”

Let’s find out those answers after the week of romance. Enjoy!

[For story reference, visit Ishti Kutum Story So Far]

Panchasayar, Garia, one of Asia’s largest housing societies, a cooperative society for the staff of Accounts and General West Bengal and Income Tax Department of West Bengal, is the place where I spent the first 7-8 years of my life.

Once upon a time this place was a wet land with just shrubs and bushes and water. There was no public transportation except a local train dropping you at Garia stat

The Delhi gang rape victim died in Singapore Hospital. She had one life, just one and now its lost. We can keep talking about rape and justice, means and methods, causes and reforms but for her and her family its ‘The End’

We say, ‘we want justice.’ I don’t know what justice can we possibly give to her deceased soul and her family. What would compensate the loss? My first reaction is, bring those six, just bring them to us. Let’s set a terrifying example out of them. Let’s be barbaric, let’s be hellish. Do hell with ‘need for reforms‘ ‘change the mindset‘ ‘kill the crime not criminals‘ bull shit.

But some of us are educated citizens of the largest democracy. So our anger would soon give way to logic, as we would be told that purpose of punishment is not revenge, it is to reform and to work as a deterrent for future criminals. That means those six men arrested would be tried in a Court with due process, with state providing them a lawyer, if they can’t afford one themselves. The lawyer’s job would be to ‘defend’ them. We know even Ajmal Kasab had a lawyer to defend him. They would be tried for Rape, culpable homicide not amounting to murder.  I am not sure if they would put charges for Murder, now that she is dead. 3)  Maximum sentence they are likely to get if proven guilty is perhaps life time imprisonment, that’s 12-14 years. It cannot be said whether owing to the strong public demand, the Courts would be compelled to award death penalty.

If not hanged, after their term, these men would be reinstated in the society, get married, produce children and then die of old age or something. During their stay in prison they would be undergoing various prison reforms, make pretty handicraft items that would be sold in Dastkar mela. That’s the end of their story.

That leaves us with us the protestors, the the women who are not yet raped. What about us?How long would we carry on with these protests? The state would announce a few more measures, a few more police vans on the road. But who would keep a track of how much promised is being delivered?

Ever since the incident happened several thinkers have written about how to bring that thing called ‘change.’ I too tried writing my response but failed to articulate my thoughts. Somehow writing and talking seemed very pretentious to me. The scattered thoughts were angry and ran in various directions from the patriarchal mind-set that prefers boys and treats girls as second class members of the society; to the archaic Victorian laws; the inefficient police; the corrupt courts; the moral policing of the traditionalists; the regressive religious rituals and practices; the deplorable celebration of men and masculinity along with objectification of women in media and popular culture; the double standards of the society…the list went on.

This morning when I woke up to the news of her death, suddenly I realized all my thoughts had stopped at me. I could be her, I could be dead. One evening I was there, and then I was dead, because I was a woman, because some men decided to have sex with me by force, because…whatever, point is I am dead.

So before my soul rests in peace, which I doubt is going to be anytime soon, let me ask a few questions to myself, and to all you girls out there:

• Did I really live those 23 years of my life that I thought I was living?
• Did I spend each day feeling proud to be born as a woman chasing my dreams, listening to my heart?
• Did I unconditionally refuse, in loud and clear voice, to suppress my feelings, dreams and aspirations, because I was told to listen to what elders were saying, which had something to do with my being born as a girl?
• Did I reject every notion around me that I felt was created to treat me differently and unequally from the boys relying upon the sole reason of me being born with a vagina, even at the cost of being called the bad girl?

If I didn’t, I wasn’t living anyway. And if I did, I would know, and the world should know that I survived the RAPE.

Note: If you are not a follower of the show, please read Ishti Kutum’s Story So Far for context.

One part of the story of Ishti Kutum is a rather simple, one of the most repetitive in popular culture – Man, wife and the other woman.

Such plots are often food for comedy, like in a David Dhawan or Govinda movie namely Gharwali Baharwali, Sajan Chale Sasural, Sandwich. But more often they are food for over the top melodramatic tear jerkers, where in the end one of the characters is sure to get a cancer or die in an accident while trying to save the life of the other. Or one of them would make a draconian sacrifice create misunderstanding summoning buckets and buckets of tears and finally leave the scene, Anil Kapur Sridevi starer Judaai comes to mind. When Ishti Kutum started, the most common prediction among audience was that Mun (Kamalika Majumdar) would get pregnant, die during delivery and give the child & husband to Baha, it was the Kuch Kuch Hota Hai effect of course.

It is very rare in popular culture, TV or films, that a nondramatic, logical and pragmatic alternative have been shown. In real life there is no drama. In real life when a sensible honest upright man falls in love outside his marriage and finds himself caught between two women, what does he do?

The answer brings us to the word ‘DIVORCE.’ One of the simplest solutions to many complex situations, yet one of the most dreaded word in India. A couple and its family would use every eye wash possible to keep the grand show of successful marriage, staring emotional and physical infidelity, marital rape and bitterness, running.

How does a typical Indian middle class joint family deal with a divorce?

Archi confronts his Jethumoni, the head of the Mukherjee Family about his divorce

With paranoia, hypocrisy double standards and melodrama. As exposed through the story of Ishti Kutum – the Mukherjee family is shattered on hearing the DIVORCE word from Archi.

As a society, we believe in preserving the marriage at the cost of individual happiness, of not one but everybody involved. Evidently, compared to modern progressive societies across the world, Indian marriages have a higher success rate. Success here means longevity. There is no statistics on happy marriages, because happiness quotient is immaterial. But if each one of us would take a look at our families, extended families and neighborhood the truth would stare into our eyes.

Many, if not most marriages are an eye wash. The couple is not happy with each other, they have no love and respect, there is no fun and spice in their sex life. Often, the man would have a woman outside the marriage, his wife would be aware of but would pretend otherwise as long as he doesn’t ignore the duties of a husband – earn, spend and save for wife and kids, take them to vacations, buy them presents etc.

As a society, we are extremely comfortable with a man having two women and we call them Souten (in Hindi) or Shotin (in Bengali). There is no English equivalent for this word. Words like ‘kept’, ‘mistress’ or ‘paramour’ is not the same as ‘souten‘. These words merely define the state of a relationship, but ‘souten‘ reflects a culture, a very horrid one at that. ‘Souten‘ defines our comfort with the idea that a husband could have another woman and its all about a wife’s travails in dealing with that. We have hundreds of films and TV serials made on the concept of ‘souten’. Just recently another mega serial has been launched by ETV Bangla called ‘Shotin Kanta’ (The thorny Shotin, shotin being the name given to a husband’s other woman). The tagline of the show reads, “sangsarer bhanga garaye dui sotin er galpo” (The story of two soutens through the rise and fall of a family) the two girls being of Hindu and Muslim religion as seen on the posters.

Archisman Mukherjee is a man of honour, he would not live a life riding two boats, the day he first realized he is in love with Baha, there was no looking back for him. He knew at once that he’d have to end his relationship with Mun and start a new life with Baha, who happens to be his first legally wedded wife, from a marriage he initially didn’t accept owing to his insane stubbornness and despise.

Archi takes a look at Baha standing at the door, as Jethumoni asks him the reasons of his divorce.

So finally, Archi announced to the Mukherjee family that his relationship with Mun, his socially wedded but legally invalid wife, was not working and so a divorce is inevitable. He mentioned that while she has got involved with another man, he too has his own reasons behind this divorce, that none of them were to be blamed and that the decision was mutual.

On hearing this, the family head, Archi’s jethumoni insisted the estranged daughter-in-law be persuaded by Archi and be brought back. “Did you try to stop her?” He asked. “You are the husband, if your wife made a ‘mistake’ it’s your duty as a husband to correct her” he preached even as personal liberty and freedom of choice fled out of the window. When Archi firmly replied that he has not and shall not pursue her, because a relationship once broken cannot be mend by force, and even if it is restored temporarily, it might disintegrate any time, Jethumoni insisted that as a guardian and head of the family he would speak with Mun in this matter. Archi firmly said “no, you won’t” and Jethumoni got furious, “Do you think you are alone? You have no family or roots? Do you think you are self invoked.” While Jethumoni went on lamenting about how this break would affect the structure of their joint family and how Mun has failed the love showered upon her, Archi tried to defend Mun, “Please don’t misunderstand Mun, try to understand her problem” he said. Jethumoni got further furious and called it ‘a sign of insanity‘ on Mun’s part that she has fallen out of a relationship after seven years. Indirectly, it was meant to be a remark about Archi’s sensibilities because in truth, Archi and not Mun have fallen out of this seven year old relationship.

This was insensitive. Jethumoni had become so paranoid about saving the marriage that he refused to understand the seriousness of the matter. Archi’s statement ‘our relationship is not working‘ was aggressively dismissed by him as a ‘western dialogue.’ With all his worldly wisdom, he have not learned that relationships are so delicate and so personal that nobody except the two people involved should make any judgmental remarks upon it.

Divorce is still considered a western import in our society. The Great Indian Family considers it a matter of right to interfere in their adult children’s most personal matters, marriage and relationships. Not only do they interfere they do so with self righteousness, like its not a marriage they are saving, but the mankind. Family patriarch in every household is far from realizing the simple truth that sometimes, relationships don’t work, and at such times, instead of lingering with a dead relationship it is best to make a sharp surgical cut and restart life.

Broken marriage mean different thing for family’s sons and daughters:

Jethumoni’s daughter Rupu sharing her feelings about her broken marriage with Baha

Ironically, the patriarch of Mukherjee family who is so concerned about Archi’s broken marriage and its effect on his family, have never uttered a single word regarding his own daughter’s estranged marriage. Rupanjana, Archi’s sister was married to a man from a high family but on the first night itself the guy told her about his incestuous relationship with a maternal cousin sister, and that this marriage was just for the show. Since then, Rupu had walked out of that marriage and returned home. It has been more than a year she is living at her parent’s home with feelings of anger, rejection and hopelessness.

She believes that her estranged husband was a man beyond her league, it was an unequal marriage to begin with which her parents fail to gaze, she blames them for not being able to judge his true intentions behind agreeing for this marriage, which was perhaps creating a facade and pursue an illicit relationship behind it. She gets no sympathy from her parents either as they have easily assumed that the marriage didn’t work because she couldn’t ‘adjust.’ Rupu’s bitter behaviour towards her family members further strengthens this assumption.

In more than one year of separation, Rupu’s family made no move towards either restoring the relationships or putting a formal end to it by proceeding with divorce so that the girl can start a new life. The family patriarch is sitting upon his daughter’s future, where she is neither married, nor divorcee, nor single, feeling comfortable as long as the dreaded DIVORCE word is kept away. Do whatever just do not awaken the Divorce Devil.

When his Europe returned son, Rupu’s elder brother asked them why they were not initiating a divorce proceeding for Rupu, the father snapped back, “You may have come from the foreign land, but we don’t live in a foreign country, here these talks make us uncomfortable.”

Presumably, if the daughter is deserted by a man she must accept her fate and make no noise about it and be dumped in a corner of the house. But if the daughter-in-law of the family walked out, because the couple mutually felt the relationship was not working, the family must turn the world upside down to keep them together. Son’s marriage is a concern, because he is part of the Mukherjee lineage. The daughter’s marriage, good or bad, either way is of no consequences to this family because she would never be part of the lineage, she won’t beget a family heir.

Discomfort with divorce is seen in the other home of Ishti Kutum story, the Majumdars. The relationship of Mun’s parents, Dibbojyoti Majumdar and Anushree Majumdar is at the verge of being irretrievably broken. The couple fight all the time, verbally abuse each other, disrespect each others family but their marriage is rock solid. Eighteen years ago, Dibbo went to the tribal village Palashboni and established relationship with Kanka. He cheated on his wife, impregnated Kanka, and returned back to city wife. The man spent the rest of his life in guilt of having cheated both women, but never had the courage to confess his misdeeds. His wife knew everything, when Dibbo didn’t return from Palashboni for months, she herself went there and dragged him back. For the rest of her life she accused him of his irresponsibility, infidelity but never thought of walking out on a husband who cheated her. Theirs is a happy marriage by certain social parameters.

The legal position of both of Archi’s marriages, legal requirement of divorce and validity of Tribal marriage:

Archi’s family failed to dissuade Archi from the decision of divorce. Though there was no urgency from his side, this divorce is important for Mun. As far as Archi is concerned he is clear that he doesn’t need a divorce from this marriage with Mun, because it is invalid right from the start and Baha is his only legally wedded wife. But just like for Archi his wedding with Baha is a truth, for Mun her wedding with Archi is also one of her greatest truth. Her marriage was conducted both by socially following all rituals as well as registered. She cannot suddenly walk out of this marriage and pretend like it never happened. She needs a closure on this truth, and only a formal legal piece of paper would be able to give her that.

Mun Archi at Advocate Argho Sen’s chamber discussing about their divorce.

Another reason the divorce is important to Mun is because she wants to be known as the one to leave her husband, rather than the one whose husband dumped her for a poor young tribal girl. Her greatest loss, as she perceives it, is not so much of the pain that Archi fell out of love after 7 years of their relationship but that her paramour is Baha, of all the people, the uncultured uncivilized village girl. She would never let ‘her’ world know that it was not her but Archi who fell in love with a new person outside this marriage. So she created the false story of Dhrubo Sen, an imaginary man she is in a relationship with and thus the urgency for divorce.

The date for divorce petition to appear in Court is 26^th of December. But before the story goes on to show this divorce, as a responsible TV series, one which represents the tribal movement as seen through young Baha’s life, the story of Ishti Kutum must make the legal position of both marriages clear for the audience who do not know the laws.

City people routinely take advantage of villagers ignorance and insecurity. They participate in matrimonial ceremony with unsuspecting tribal girls in the village only to reject them as invalid customs and push those girls into darkness, poverty, sex trade. Lack of knowledge and finance prevents them from accessing justice and so they remain invisible, like Kanka and Baha did for so many years unaware of Baha’s right in her father’s property.

For the benefit of those who are still confused about the legal position of a marriage done as per tribal customs, the following law must be reiterated:

• As per law, any marriage solemnized as per tribal customs is 100% valid. Let no one from the upper class and upper caste claim that the tribal village customs and practices are in any way inferior. The law gives full respect and recognition to customary marriages as per Section 7 of Hindu Marriage Act as long as such customs are not against the constitution.
• Consent is an important part of marriage, any marriage performed agaisnt the consent of boy or girl is invalid. As the story of IK goes, at the heat of the moment, Baha had claimed that Archi had agreed to marry her and Archi went silent, he didn’t deny. After that he performed all rituals of marriage without resistance. Thus it was a valid marriage with proper consent of both.
• Registration of marriage is still not mandatory across the country, and in places where it is mandatory, non-registration doesn’t make the marriage invalid, it only imposes a fine on the parties.
• According to Section 7 of Hindu Marriage Act, Archi and Baha’s marriage is the one and only legally valid marriage. Per Section 11 read with Section 5 cl. 1 the second marriage with Mun is void ab initio (invalid from the start).

Where a marriage doesn’t exist, there is no requirement of a divorce. However if Archi and Baha’s marriage is kept hidden from courts, then a divorce decree to end Archi-Mun’s marriage is desirable, just to avoid later legal complications. The knowledge about first marriage would put Arch in trouble as he would be guilty of Bigamy. But still Archi have already made several attempts to tell Advocate Argho Sen everything about his marriage with Baha but Mun always interrupted and stopped him from revealing the truth.

Archi’s future action in this regard is going to be very significant and I am very keen on it.

Click here to read all the Ishti Kutum posts

Archi and Baha spend romantic time with each other after Archi’s safe return from Pakistan.

Let’s admit there is a discomfort in the word ‘RAPE.’ Often during light coffee table discussions we would not even utter the word and instead would convey what we mean by gestures or by typing special characters. To me the discomfort is to such an extent that I was seriously pained by the famous ‘balatkar pe balatkar‘ scene from 3 Idiots.

Stop giving her convenient names to hide our discomfort and shame in calling her what she exactly was, a Delhi gang rape victim. Every time we call her by some random feminine name like Nirbhaya or Damini what we do is brush aside certain uncomfortable facts, that a girl was gang raped, beaten to death and it happened in Delhi.

So there, we don’t need to give a false name to the girl. But, what is wrong in revealing the real identity? And this question is not to media or public but the survivor herself, or the family members in case she is no more. Why do we hide our face and identity in shame in case of rape? Every time the media whether print or TV reports on rape cases they have an image of a shattered woman hiding her face in shame sitting in darkness. Why?

We don’t hide in shame in case of murder, theft, robbery, cheating. Then why in case of rape?

Shashi Tharoor was right in his tweet where he questioned, “what interest is served by hiding the name?” Really ever wondered what interest? Whose interest?

Rather, let’s name and honor her for who she has become, the face of a national movement against rape, except that we don’t know the face. An identity is what we all aspire for, our own identity by which the world would remember us. She too must have had an aspiration, of being something. That was abruptly ended and now she has become something else, now let’s honour for the identity she has acquired.

It is important to take the ‘sex’ away from ‘rape’ and the shame would leave automatically. Rape is not about sex. It was wrong to have ‘rape’ categorized under the heading ‘sexual offense’ in the Indian Penal Code. Murder, hurt, grievous hurt etc are offenses against the human body; Theft, robbery, cheating, misappropriation are offenses against property, but rape is a sexual offense. Why is rape about sex instead of being about body, consent, force and violence? 

Clearly this was the work of a mind that thought a woman’s virginity is of religions, political, social and criminal importance. That thing called virginity defined human existence. If virginity is lost, paradise is lost, humanity is lost, or so it seemed. Once virginity is lost, the woman becomes an used / defective item in the marriage market. No man would take her anymore. This explains why forced sexual intercourse against a women’s will is NOT considered rape if it is done by her husband. Because that’s the whole purpose, right, to treat the woman’s vagina as the husband’s property.

Thus hide the fact that you were raped so that nobody would know your ‘defect’.

Last year, my laptop and money bag was stolen from my car even as I was driving. I had stopped at the traffic signal, my window glasses were rolled down and it was lifted. I narrated this bizarre incident in minute details to everybody I knew, just to alert them about how cunning these thieves have become and how swiftly they carry out their operation, at the blink an eye.

We tell these stories to prevent the same thing from happening to someone else. Except that if its a rape, a child sexual abuse, an incestuous abuse, domestic violence…basically anything that bothers women, and is not of any consequences to men, we are told to shut up and go hide

I am proud of the family of the Delhi gang rape victim who have agreed to reveal her name. I urge every woman to talk about their experiences of sexual violence. And I specially urge the rape survivors to look straight in the societies eyes and share their stories without a fear or guilt or shame. We need to hear those experiences, those feelings that are unknown to people who have never gone through it. What happens to the rape survivor, how soon does she resume normal life, how does she cope, what kind of cooperation is extended by her family friends and neighborhood, if she had a boyfriend before the incident did he stay by her side? If she got into a relationship after the incident, did he bring the topic to her? Did that make her awkward?

The more girls would talk about these, the more easy it would be to overcome the trauma and move on. Talking about your experiences makes it easier to cope, there is no rocket science in this. So please, talk. Some links where people have spoken:

A Rape survivor’s blog

Sunitha Krishnan talking about her experience on TED’s stage.

TEDxITMU

I was recently invited as a speaker at TEDxITMU, the TEDx event at the Institute of Technology and Management University, Gurgaon. I shared the stage with a range of very interesting speakers like, Actor Vipin Sharma (of Taare Zameen Par fame), Delhi FM station Hit 95′s popular RJ Suroshree Dasgupta, Jazz musician duo Adil Manuel & Vasundhara Vidalur, Babar Afzal Founder, KashmirINK, Artist Roop Chand and others. Here is the complete list of speakers.

One thing that makes me sad about these conferences and gatherings is that there are some speakers who always come minutes before their talk and leave soon after. They never become a part of the full event. I find that very rude and condescending. I think it should be a mandatory rule that TEDx speakers should stay for the full event, just like TED conferences are residential conferences where participants stay for the whole duration of the conferences.

The event was good, though some of the talks were not that interesting. There should have been some sort of rehearsals, some of the speakers spoke very randomly and had no preparations at all. TEDx curators should take up the responsibility of giving the speakers and orientation on how to deliver a captivating and entertaining TEDx talk. Perhaps, they can run the speakers through a bunch of TED videos for the purpose. That should explain.

My favorite talk from the event was that by Babar Afzal founder of Kashmir INK. His work in Kashmir is very motivating, and I would love to make a personal visit and learn more. Also felt honored to personally know a veteran artist like Sh Roop Chand.

The subject of my talk was ‘very heavy’ everybody said. It was about Rape and that makes people go ‘Hmm.’ Strange. We should be talking about these issues always, every time, at every gathering.

The transcript of my talk

[This is not the exact transcription, slight deviations are likely]

My introduction you already heard. Feminist, non-feminist, I don’t like to have these labels. Though you need to write something on your profile otherwise people would ask what do you do and you have no answer. But I prefer to not have any labels at all, I am just me.

Before I start talking let me ask, how many of you had a look at this thing (holding up the schedule) this morning and thought “whoa! Rape! She’s going talk about Rape?”

[Few hands were raised]

Let’s be honest, its not easy to talk about Rape. It’s a difficult word, just like Vagina is. We don’t even use the words, we use special characters or hand gestures. But Eve Ensler started talking about Vaginas 15 years ago and that led to a movement. If you don’t know about her, Google her. Also find about the One Billion Rising Campaign scheduled for 14^th February 2013. So Eve Ensler talked about Vaginas, I thought I’d talk about Rape. Because we should.

The word’s etymology

If we look at the meaning and usage of the word rape, in 15^th century the word meant ‘seize prey; abduct, take by force.’ Eventually it came to define the crime of forceful sexual penetration by the man. Besides the legal and medical definition the word also have a social construct – shame, dishonour and silence of the woman.

When the recent incident of gang rape happened in Delhi, news and opinions started pouring in from all directions and one thing I noticed was that everybody was trying to give her a name, Abhaya, Nirbhaya, Damini etc.

Let’s not do that. Let’s not give her convenient names to hide our discomfort and shame in calling her what she exactly was, a gang rape victim or survivor. Every time we call her by some random feminine name what we do is brush aside certain shameful uncomfortable facts, that a girl was gang raped, beaten to death and it happened in Delhi. Let’s keep reminding us of these brutal truths. Lest we forget.

Having said that I understand that there is a need for an identity, millions of women across the globe facing violence every day and yet we don’t have a face or identity. This invisibility keeps this issue away from mainstream discussion. We don’t talk about the subject at gatherings and conferences such as this. When Chinmay (TEDxITMU curator and licensee) invited me to speak, I could have chosen any subject to talk about, from Law to Social Media to Photography but I chose this because I knew no one else would.

So we need an identity. But why not the real name and real identity? And this question is not to media or public but the survivor herself, or the family members in case she is no more. Why do we hide our face and identity in shame in case of rape? Every time the media whether print or TV reports on rape cases they have an image of a shattered woman hiding her face in shame sitting in darkness. Why?

Rape is not about sex

We don’t hide in shame in case of murder, theft, robbery, cheating. Then why in case of rape? Why can’t sex be treated like another crime? It is rather strange that the law itself categorizes Rape under the heading ‘sexual offense.’ Murder, hurt, grievious hurt – offense against body; Theft Robbery – offense against property; Rape is a sexual offense. Why is it not about body, consent, force and violence?

It is important to take the ‘sex’ away from ‘rape’ and the shame would leave automatically. Rape is not about sex. Actually it is never about any one thing. It is about power, violence, oppression, and more but never about sex.  It is a man’s way to prove his superiority and power over women; man’s way to correct a women, man’s way to seek revenge from another man et all.

Popular Culture

Another common reaction to the Delhi gang rape incident was to attack the item songs in Bollywood films and the talk about objectification of women. I say, leave alone the item numbers and item girls. If you think the item numbers and item girls are the problem, you are again saying women are the problem. You are asking women to not dance in a certain way, not dress in a certain way so they won’t ‘provoke’ rape. That is wrong. Stop telling the Munnis and Shielas what to do. Tell the men what they CANNOT do. If the Munnis and Sheilas after finishing the dance gets down from the stage and visits a local bar, the men cannot rape her. Nothing should provoke rape.

If you see the item songs as part of the film’s narrative, you’d see they are actually sexually empowered women happy about their sexuality and singing and dancing out of their own free will. When you talk about objectification of women, please read the concept of consent and choice in it. Is she allowing to be objectified? Has she given her consent? If yes, leave it there. We are nobody to make any further judgment.

And what about objects? Can you take an object by force? What about a delicious chocolate cake at display in the baker’s window? That’s an object. But can you break open the window and take it? No, you have to buy it. Similarly even if a woman appears like an object, because she allowed herself to be, one can’t take her body by force.

So leave aside the item girls. Let’s look at the item boys:

[I showed them an image of the song ‘Kiss me baby’ from the film Garam Masala staring Akshay Kumar and John Abraham.]

If you consider this song in the film’s narrative, the men here are aspiring to be with many bikini clad women along with their cars and other gadgets and gizmos that men fancy. This is no great a message either, is it? So leave alone both item girls and item boys, what we just cannot accept is this.

[I showed them an image of a rape scene from an unknown south Indian film]

Violence against woman (VAW) should become invisible from our popular culture. First there should be no violence, unless that’s a part of the story where the film itself is based on that issue, like a Damini or Bandit Queen. Second, if at all there is VAW we just don’t need a hero jumping from the roof top as the only saviour of a miserable and weak women facing violence. Enough of making these senseless films.

The language used in popular culture

Films should come with a disclaimer about VAW including sexist abuses like MC and BC. Recently seen in the trailer of a South Indian masala film, the villain is threatening the hero “I would ruin your sister” This is a demented mindset, to take revenge from the man, attack the women related to him. The routine MC / BC abuses between two men fighting are in reality abuses against women who have got nothing to do with the fight. The origin of such abuse is in the patriarchal mindset that treats woman as man’s property. In a land based quarrel, crops are burned down; in a riot women are raped.

In a patriarchal society, Rape is the ultimate manifestation of the enemy’s defeat and destruction. There should be no depiction of this mindset in the popular culture. Like they show cigarette smoking is injurious to health and that the film doesn’t support smoking, they should also give a disclaimer that ‘abuses against women is injurious to human kind’.

The real faces of rape survivors

I showed them two photos, of Eve Ensler and Sunitha Krishnan. Two women who didn’t hide, who shared their real stories, real faces and inspired million other girls.

Real faces of rape survivors, inspiration for millions.

Tell your stories

This is an appeal to the girls, victims survivors of violence, share your stories. There are questions for which we have no answers. We need to hear those experiences, those feelings that are unknown to people who have never gone through it. What happens to the rape survivor, how soon does she resume normal life, how does she cope, what kind of cooperation is extended by her family friends and neighborhood, if she had a boyfriend before the incident did he stay by her side? If she got into a relationship after the incident, did he bring up the topic? Did that make her awkward?

The more girls would talk about these, the more easy it would be to overcome the trauma and move on.

Finally coming back to my personal thoughts during the Delhi gang rape incident, ever since it happened I wanted to write about it on my blog, like I always do, but I couldn’t articulate my thoughts. They were scattered and ran in various directions from the patriarchal mind-set that prefers boys and treats girls as second class members of the society; to the archaic Victorian laws; the inefficient police; the corrupt courts; the moral policing of the traditionalists; the regressive religious rituals and practices; the deplorable celebration of men and masculinity along with objectification of women in media and popular culture; the double standards of the society…the list went on.

And then when the news of her death came, suddenly I realized all my thoughts had stopped at me. I could be her, I could be dead. One evening I was there, and then I was dead, because I was a woman, because some men decided to have sex with me by force, because…whatever, point is I am dead.

So assuming I am dead, I would like to look back and ask, did I at all live those 23 years?

• Did I spend each day feeling proud to be born as a woman chasing my dreams, listening to my heart?
• Did I always unconditionally refuse, refuse to suppress my feelings, dreams and aspirations, at the cost of being called ill-behaved and bad?
• Did I reject every notion around me that I felt was created to treat me differently and unequally from the boys relying upon the sole reason of me being born with a vagina?

If I didn’t, I wasn’t living anyway. And if I did, I would know, and the world should know that I survived the RAPE.

Girls, remember our lives are political battle fields where we have to constantly assert our rights, never get too comfortable with your life, protest gender notions and inequality every single time, at the slightest violation, even at the cost of being called whiny, boring and spoilsport. And as I say that, I would make my personal protest right on this stage against my previous speaker who made a sexist joke about girls being bad at shopping. Please girls, do not accept gender notions, even as a joke. ‘Girls can’t drive’, ‘girls take too much time to shop’ please protest at these statements. And you have to do, men won’t. Trust me the men won’t. Thank you!

[End of transcript]

At the lunch break several girls and boys, all students of ITMU came up to me and said they loved the talk, but they had queries and concerns. I chatted with a group of them over lunch. It was an interesting discussion. The girls were all very vocal, men were supportive and enthusiastic about women rights. There was an air of positivity, I felt good. I felt the next generation would do better. Some men were a bit hurt though, “Mam, you became a bit pessimist in the end, you said men won’t do.”

I smiled and said, “True, I was being pessimist.  I am sorry.”

At the end of the 3^rd session post lunch, I requested to have the stage for a minute. I took the microphone and addressed the crowd. “Friends, I think my talk ended on a negative note and have hurt a few men here. Imagine how angry we feel when these notions are thrust upon us for all our lives. Anyway, since some of you mentioned it, I want to ask, how many of you are ready to take a pledge with me right here right now, that you would never make another sexist joke, and you won’t laugh at a sexist joke?”

Barely one or two hands were raised. I said, “I understand it’s not easy to face this question publicly, but do so in your heart. Ask yourself and if you can take that pledge, never make a sexist joke. Small change but means a lot”

Thank you!

Oye Lucky Lucky Oye that Abhay Deol starer film was one of my all-time favourite films. Not anymore for I met a Lucky in my real life.

It happened in broad day light at the Hauz Khas – IIT gate traffic signal, opposite to Essex Farm, amidst a heavy Monday evening traffic and right under the nose of 4 traffic cops posted at the signal.

I was on my way back to my residence in Dwarka after finishing a meeting at the Adchini area. If you know the map of that area you’d know that in order to go to Dwarka or Airport from Adchini which is on your left you have to drive till the signal opposite to Mother’s International School and take a U-turn so that landmarks like Essex Farm, Indian Oil petrol pump or Turcoise Cottage are now on your right. Straight ahead is Hauz Khas and on your left is the IIT gate, you take a free left turn for Dwarka / Airport from this point. Free left turn only if the traffic allows, sometimes it doesn’t.

So there I was, a few meters away from the point where I would move my steering wheel towards the left for my ‘free left turn’, graduate the gear from 2^nd to 5^th and hit the outer ring road at 60 kmph, that was the moment when I met him.

Earlier, I had taken the mentioned U-turn, and as I was driving slowly due to extremely heavy traffic I noticed a lean short boy around 16 with a plastic carry bag in hand, walking on the foot path looking straight at me. I felt strange, “Never seen a woman drive? New in Delhi?” I thought and sped up. Few meters ahead the traffic had come to a standstill denying me my ‘free left turn.’ After about ten minutes the jam opened, I shifted gears started moving when I saw a man, in his 20s around 5’7 dark complexion curly hair shabby clothes typical of the traffic signal vendors, coming towards my car from the signal side. I assumed he was selling something, though he was empty handed which I didn’t notice until he came close to my window.

And then a thud! I felt something went under my front right tyre and the man held my window with both his hands and yelled, “kya kiya aap ne mere pair pe gaadi chala di (What did you do, you drove the vehicle on my feet”

Both my front windows were rolled down. On my side it was fully down, on the left it was half way. I was saving fuel and enjoying the evening breeze by not switching on the AC.  Ironic it was.

I was startled. I opened my mouth to yell back, “khud to sadak ke beech mein chal rahe ho, dikhta nahi hai traffic khul gayi hai”

But I barely uttered the full sentence and decided to drive away when he held the window again and fumbled something. I didn’t follow what he said but opened my mouth again to yell back, but before I could say anything the man suddenly started walking away.

I felt extremely strange that he gave up so easily. Anyway, I looked to the front to be on my way. Suddenly I noticed the central lock of my car was open. I had never switched off the ignition so all doors should be locked, but they weren’t.

And that’s when I realized my bag which was sitting on the front seat was gone. It was a jute bag from CSE which had my Dell laptop worth 40k, my wallet containing my Driving License, vehicle registration certificate, PAN card, credit cards, debit cards, Delhi Metro card, CGHS card, Titan watches warranty card etc and Rs. 1000+ in cash.

I was robbed.

In this life, I’d never forget what I felt at that moment and would never be able to fully explain. In a lightening speed I connected the dots. The frame in my mind was split in two and replayed what just happened from two different camera footages. One camera was on me from the point I took the U-turn and the other was on the young boy on the footpath looking at me my car’s open windows.

I recalled that the first guy had actually walked on the foot path along my car briefly and then diagonally crossed the road keeping close to my car and then went ahead. Minutes later, this other man came from the same direction where the previous had gone. While the second guy kept me busy with the fake accident the first guy picked my bag. The second guy had opened the car’s central locking when he kept his hands on my window.

As I try to recall the incident today, I remember frantically standing in the middle of a crazy Monday evening Delhi traffic with every single person honking and swearing at me. For a minute there I wanted to run after the men but they had disappeared into thin air. Then I pulled over and dialed 100. Next, I approached the four traffic cops at the spot and told them what happened.

They all had mixed feelings. They looked blankly at me, UN-interested, confused, and annoyed with ‘not again, not my area of operation’ kind of expressions. It took 45 minutes for the cops to arrive at the spot. In between they called me thrice to understand my exact location. They just couldn’t understand such unknown places in Delhi like IIT gate, Hauz Khas, Adchini etc. “Kaha khare ho mam samajh mein nahi aa raha hai” was what I was told repeatedly. And they were coming from Mehrauli police station.

Finally they arrived. Meanwhile dad, one of dad’s colleague, my cousin, and his friends all arrived. Nothing and nobody helped. What was gone was gone. My only reward was an F.I.R – the must have document for issuance of duplicate license, RC etc. I must admit though that the cops cooperated in detailing the FIR, they reminded me to include everything gone missing, failing which they won’t issue duplicates.

“You know this happened to me once, my sister, my cousin, my friend once” – Stories of Delhi’s Thak Thak Gang and such other thugs using ‘attention diversion’ techniques to rob people started coming out at the Mehrauli police station as I went about the procedures. One cop said his own son was robbed on Noida toll bridge. Others spoke about how they knock on your car windows and ask, “Is that your money on the ground” to divert you.

Most of the Thak Thak Gang members are juveniles and are thoroughly trained in the technique. Indeed they perform their task with amazing perfection and swiftness.

All said and done, I must admit, I am not sure whether to lament my loss or to applaud their thief-ly talents.

Dear Madam,

These days on Star Jalsha, promos of the forthcoming Star Jalsha Parivaar Awards 2013 have started making rounds. In that we see you and actor Ronita Das (the actor playing the lead character Baha) talking to, smiling at and hugging each other. On the papers also we saw both of you taking photos together with sweet smiling faces. It was indeed very lovely to see you together in such joyous moments. However there was some distrust in the mind when I saw it, a nagging cynical thought kept knocking on my heart’s door, and this letter is about that.

Let me tell you what is the distrust about. Tell me, as a an actor, when you act in a particular show and a bunch of people use filthy language and abuse that show’s main plot and leading characters, should you be supporting them? Should you be patting them on the back and encouraging them personally?

I do not belong to the entertainment industry, but even as a person of ordinary prudence I think it is not the right thing to do as a fellow actor. But you have been doing that.

I am talking about the fan page opened for the character of Mun of Ishti Kutum (MIK Page) on Facebook. You have occasionally visited the page from your personal Facebook ID. It is evident that you have a direct connection with the admin of that page because he/she shares your personal message with the fans. More recently you had an online chat with the members of that page where you answered many of their questions. One particular question was, “Archi r choritro ti tomar kemon lage?” (How do you find the character of Archi)” “You had replied, “tomader jemon lage” (Same as you guys find it)

Madam, are you aware that the members of that page routinely address the character of Archi as ‘Rapist Archi.’ Perhaps that character is flawed but do you really support the use of such language for the character? As per your chat it seems you do.

Besides this, the page routinely abuses the character of Baha in the worst of the worst language and maligns the character with unspeakable abuses. I find it surprising that at one hand you are establishing personal connection with these members and at the other hand we see on the newspapers photos where you and Ronita Das are together smiling.

You would probably say I am mixing up FACT and FICTION, confusing real people with fictitious characters. After all the MIK page is NOT maligning real people, they are only abusing about fictitious characters of Archi and Baha.

TRUE. So the question madam is, who are you, Ankita or Kamalika? Fact or Fiction?

If you are Ankita, an actor by profession then why are you associating yourself with a page opened for a fictitious character? Can you explain?

That page has a tag line ‘Ankita Rockss.’ Who is this Ankita? No such character in Ishti Kutum. Is that you? Does that mean it is both a fan page for Mun as well as Ankita Chakraborty? If that is so, then should we assume it is running with your knowledge, consent and support?

I mean, that per se is not a big deal. Some fans opened a page for the character you playing, you might feel flattered and so you might want to encourage them. I wouldn’t have written this letter had that page been like any other fan page and not a place to run a hate campaign or if there language was not so filthy and obscene. It just seems a bit odd that you associated yourself with that page.

I have a feeling that owing to an immense pleasure of having a fan page opened for your character, you got carried away and didn’t check the credibility of that page before associating yourself with a them. Who are they, what is their identity, what kind of messages are being posted there etc. You must be a busy person, never got time to go through those hundreds of posts, so allow me to give you a few instances of their language and standards. On reading them you’d yourself realize who you are associating with and encouraging, and in what capacity, as Mun or Ankita?

Sonia Ray writes on MIK page, “Rapist Archi parasite er ki khabor?” (What’s up with Rapist Archi parasite) “Rapist Archi r moto ekta napungshak…;” (An eunuch like Rapist Archi…) Riya Ghosh writes, “Ei ____ er baccha Archi r bar baronto…ok jento puriye mara uchit;” (This son of a____Archi is crossing all limits, he should be burnt alive) Trish Bharti writes, “morte morteo sayatani” (notoriety even while dying)

As a member of the Ishti Kutum creative team, as an actor, as a colleague and as an educated cultured human being, associating yourself with such language and mentality, does it look good on you?

Think about it.

Thanks

Ps. I have the screen shots to support all my statements given above.

Note: This letter was posted on Magic Moments Motion Picture Pvt Limited FB page (

the creative team behind Ishti Kutum) but have been removed from there. While all the abuses are still intact. Rather strange.

Bengali Version, originally posted in Facebook

Ishti Kutum e Mun choritre abhinoy korchen abhinetri Ankita Chakraborty ke ekti khola chithi,

Idaning Star Jalsha Awards er promo ashche, tate dekha gelo apni Ronita Das er sathe heshe katha bolchen kolakuli korchen. IK success party r je chobi dekhlam paper e tateo apnara eksathe khub hashi mukhe chobi tulechen. Khub bhalo laglo ei gulo, kintu moner moddhe ekta sangsoy, ekta ki jeno khach khach korche, sei niye ei chithi likhchi.

Sangsoy ta keno seta boli. Ekjon actor hisabe apni jakhon kono show te abhinay karen, sei show ta niye, seta r mul galpo o choritro niye asobhyo abhadra bhashaye jakhon galagali deoa hoy, apnar pakkhe ki take samarthan kara uchit? Tader ke niyamito bahoba deoa, utsaho deoa uchit??

Ami entertainment industry r kichu jani na bujhi na, tabu e tuku mone hoy je fellow actors hisabe eta uchit noy. Kintu apni eta korchen.

Katha bolchi Ishti Kutum e Mun choritro niye je fan page ache (MIK page) setar. Apni page ta majhe majhe visit karen nijer personal ID diye. Sei page admin er sathe apnar je ekta direct personal connection ache, seta bojha jaye karon se majhe majhe apnar message page members der sathe share kare. Ebong apni recently page members der sathe chat e boshechilen, jekhane sabar nana prosner uttor diechen. Most noteworthy was je apnake keu jeggesh korechilo “Archi r choritro ti tomar kemon lage?” Apni likhechilen “tomader jemon lage”

Madam, apni ki janen je oi page niyamito bhabe Archi ke RAPIST bole daka hoy? Archi r nana bhul thakte pare, kintu apni ki Archi r choritro tir jonno ei dharaner sabdo bebohar support Karen? Apnar chat anujai kintu bolte hocche je, han apni eta support karen.

Ta chara Baha r name era akathyo galagali die thake, amar abak lage je ek dike apni Facebook e ei page members der sathe personal connection established korchen, odike khaborer kagoj er pataye dekha jaye apnar r Ronita Das er eksathe tola hashi mukhe chobi.

Apni hoyto bolben ami kalpana o bastab ke guliye felchi, sei page ta to ar Ronita ba Rrishii ke gali dicche na, dicche Archi Baha ke, tara to kalpana r manush matro.

THIK KATHA. TAHOLE PROSNO, APNI KE? MUN na ANKITA? KALPANA na BASTAB?

Apni jodi Ankita han, bastobe ek abhinetri tahole keno kalpanik choritra Mun Fan page er sathe personally joriye porchen? Bolte paren?

Na mane as such eta kono temon baro bepar noy, apnar choritro niye fan page hoyeche, apnar bhalo lagtei pare, tai apni hoyto fans der ektu utsaho dite chan… katha holo oi page ta jodi bhadro hoto tahole ami eto katha boltam na. Kintu ekta nongra page er sathe jarano ta kemon jeno lage.

Amar ki mone hoy abeger bashe apni oder sathe jarabar aage, oder credibility check karenni. Tara ke ba kara, tader real identity ki? Tara ki dharaner lekha lekhe ityadi. Apni besto manush, somoy panni oder oto shato post parar. Tai apnake kaekta instances di, apni nijei bujhun kader ke bahoba dicchen, ar ki capacity tei ba dicchen? Ankita hoye naki Mun hoye?

Mun er fan page e Sonia Ray likhche ‘Rapist Archi parasite er ki khabor?” “Rapist Archi r moto ekta napungshak…;” Riya Ghosh likhche, “Ei ____ er baccha Archi r bar baronto…ok jento puriye mara uchit;” Trish Bharti likhche “morte morteo sayatani”

Ishti Kutum creative team er ek member hisabe, abhinetri hisabe, saho-kormi hisabe ebong shikkhito ruchisheel MANUSH hisabe, ei dharaner bhasha ebong manosikata r sathe joriye para ta apnar pakkhe shobhoniyo hocche to?

Bhebe dekhben.

Dhanyabad

Sanjukta Basu

(Writer, Traveler, Photographer, TED Fellow, TEDIndia Member)

Follow Link to all of my articles on Ishti Kutum

Attached below the several screenshots as evidence of the statements made by me in the letter.

Baha gets award from Education Minister for her brilliant results at the Higher Secondary Exams.

Star Jalsha’s mega serial Ishti Kutum recently bagged several awards at the Star Jalsha Parivaar Awards 2013, including Best Show. A total of 9 out of 17 awards have been won in the mainstream award categories by the show. The leading pair Archi-Baha both got two awards each, which is a record of sorts, Archi is Best Son and Best Husband, Baha Best Daughter and Best Wife, Mun got Best Sister, Dibyojyoti Majumdar Best Father, Dhriti Best Brother and more.

This was a well-deserved success. The show is phenomenal and has created a dent in the universe, or at least in the Bengali small screen entertainment world.

I am an ardent follower of Ishti Kutum and have been writing analytical articles about the story and its characters on this blog for quite some time now. I also run a fan page for the show’s leading male protagonist Archisman Mukherjee on Facebook.

So what exactly is so special about this show that got a hard core feminist like me to not only love a plot involving one man two women theme but also worship the man who is guilty of no less than Bigamy? To understand this, I revisited some of the past episodes of the show and realized that it was the character of Archi that primarily got my attention, and convinced me that the show was leagues apart from the small screen popular culture.

For those uninitiated, you can read the Ishti Kutum Story So Far . Essentially, Ishti Kutum is the story of Baha, an eighteen year old poor tribal village girl born to a single mother, without a father’s identity. By some chance of fate and force she is married to Archi a city based honest and daring journalist, eleven years elder to her, belonging to a middle class joint Brahmin family with moderate values, and already in a seven year long relationship with Mun, a professor and daughter of city based rich and influential artist Dibyojyoti Majumdar who also happens to be Baha’s biological father.

First, a father who never acknowledged her or her mother’s identity and now a husband who rejected the marriage and moved on to marry his long term girlfriend in Baha’s presence – Baha’s fate was supposed to be sealed with pain and misery. But destiny had different plans. Soon, two major things happened, Baha turned out to be a brilliant student having received 89% marks in the Higher Secondary exams and Archi fell in love with her for her amazing qualities and decided to accept her as his wife giving her social recognition and due legal rights. In addition, he also decided to enable Baha with education so that she can rise so high up on the social ladder that one day the rich city people would bow down before her, and she’d be able to avenge the injustices done to her mother by the city man.

Ishti Kutum started in October 2011 and June 2012 was the time around which I got hooked to the show and was stamped as a passionate follower by friends and family. Before that I was following the story only in bits and pieces. The episode that completely floored me and won me forever was the ‘Jamai Shoshti‘ episode, where Archi and Baha were coming back from the Majumdar home and stopped over at a park to have a talk. The precise moment was in the taxi when Baha said sobbingly, “mur to ar sabar samne sindur to parar adhikar to lai, keu jodi kichu jiggesh to karek, kono diner ligge to kichu bolte parbok lai” (It’s not like I have the right to wear the sindur in front of everybody, if anybody ask anything, I won’t be able to say anything you know) and immediately a restless and worried Archi passionately pulled her close and said, “parbe baha parbe, ekdin thik parbe” (You will have Baha, one day you will) followed by internal monologue “ei bhabe dui naukaye pa diye amar moto chele beshi din cholte parbe na, seta ami besh bujhte parchi” (A man like me cannot carry on too far riding two boats, I can understand this well)

The episode got over and I was still staring at the TV screen lost in Ishti Kutum world. What I just saw was phenomenal in popular culture. Until this point I found Baha mind-blowingly cute and lovable, the Palashboni village beautiful, Archisman handsome and admirable as a journalist, Mukherjees extremely fun and realistic and Majumdars a deep contrast to Mukherjees, but I had dismissed the story as yet another victim-glorified, misery mongering sad story of an abala naari. Star Plus’s saas bahu serials had infested my minds and I couldn’t expect any better.

Specially, After Archi fell in love with Baha in Palashboni (during April-May) I was even more convinced that we were going to witness more boring tearjerkers of episodes in the forthcoming days. A miserable man in love unable to do anything about it owing to over bearing traditions and moral values – I thought this was the perfect plot to open the flood gates of tragedy and misery for Baha and the TRPs would rise with the tides of her tears. The hope that Baha would struggle alone, survive and make it big someday was also not exciting. A lone woman’s struggle we have seen.

Archi teaches Economics to Baha, the night before her 12th boards exams.

It was the unexpected from Archisman which made all the difference to the story.

Not even in my rarest of rare imagination did I expect Archi to ever realize that ‘riding two boats’ is NOT done, that he made a terrible mistake by marrying Mun and should now find some way to rectify it causing minimum damage to everybody involved.

In the soap opera world women are supposed to be in misery, men are supposed to sympathize with them or oppress them but NEVER move a finger to bring any change. I thought the character of Archi won’t be any different and Baha would simply spend her life being a maid to her own half-sister dealing with insults and oppressions inducing audience’s tears.

But wow Archisman was something else. And that made all the difference, one massive dent in the story and another on the soap opera culture in Bengali Television. The story then moved on to show the first intimate moments between Archi and Baha, Baha’s brilliant results, Palashboni love of Archi-Baha with its people, ‘pagla haati’ incident, Baha’s college admission, and finally the ‘sindur’ incident. All through these incidents the story portrayed Archi as an upright honest man who was not ready to let another woman live in absence of her rights, who was not afraid to face the consequences of his mistake.

Archi’s role in Baha’s empowerment:

Ishti Kutum is Baha’s story, and Archi’s is anchor that holds it together. He is the pole star that determines the direction of the story. The first major change in the story happened because Archi fell in love with Baha. From then till date Baha has taken several exits from Archi’s life and thereby from the plot which was being built for her higher education, career and social development of entire Palashboni village.

Baha has been forever guilt ridden unable to accept herself as the woman for whom Archi broke up with Mun. Due to immaturity Baha didn’t realize ‘riding two boats’ was not possible, sharing the man with another woman was not possible, loving two women is not possible. So she made Archi promise that he won’t stop loving Mun.

If Archi forever kept this silly promise Baha’s story would not have progressed. But it was Archi’s determination to recognize Baha as his wife, “je jatobar muchiye debe (sindur) ami tato bar poriye debo” (Whoever would wipe off that sindur whatever number of times, I would put that again on you) that led Mun to make an issue out of it and eventually things went out of control and led to complete break down of Archi Mun’s relationship.

Thus, another big change in the story due to Archi’s actions.

Again and again Baha tries to put an end to her progress and Archi brings her back on track. In the most recent episode dated 18-Mar-2013 it was noticed that Baha has finally realized her rights and have been able to free herself from the guilt slightly. But, her realization would have yielded no result if Archi didn’t back her up by making a few things clear to Mun. If he kept silent at the moment when Baha spoke up, Baha’s attempt to assert her right would have been futile.

Archi blesses Baha and wishes her all the success in life on her first day to college.

Archi have thus become the core of Baha’s story and her life, he is the ultimate embodiment of friend, mentor, father, mother and a lover. He is the one who is behind her to watch her back.

What Archi and Ishti Kutum did for Bengali small screen entertainment:

Mid 2012, Star Jalsha rolled its Chalo Paltai (Let’s Change) theme and made changes to bring in stronger women characters and their male supporters in many of its shows one after the other. Suddenly, Tapur and Tupur turned tables and the rival sisters sat on the same side leaving aside their rivalry taking up issues with their respective men. Tapur’s husband stood by her side against his mother during the birth of their child, reminding us of Archi. The success formula of ‘Palashboni’s struggle and development’ was replicated by the Ratul and Payel’s story. While Archi was the first city man who showered much love on the villagers Payel was the first city girl to do the same. Ratul being her husband who is an award winning scientist who lives in the village and works for its development. In another show ‘Anchal’ the insignificant hero suddenly stood up for the leading female protagonist. Another male protagonist was seen taking care of a woman reduced to a vegetable state after a failed suicide attempt.

There are probably more instances of history created by Archisman Mukherjee that are beyond the television. Perhaps in our lives. (I’ll update this space with the changes that has come post Ishti Kutum on other channels like Etv Bangla, Zee Bangla)

Funnily enough, the precise actions that led the audience to love and respect Archisman so much, and created such historic changes, reduced him to the world’s greatest sinner in some people’s eyes. If the public reaction on Facebook is to be taken with any seriousness, there are people who would go to the extent of demanding death for Archi for the wrong he did to Mun. For many viewers, Mun’s personal loss, a broken relationship, a grand social marriage that was rendered illegal for being second – these have become far bigger issues than everything else in the Ishti Kutum story.

Actually it’s not funny, it’s sad and scary.

Ishti Kutum family at SJPA 2013 winning the Best Show (Sera Parivaar) Award.

I dedicated the last 7-8 months of my television viewing to just one show, Ishti Kutum, a Bengali mega serial on Star Jalsha.My passion and indulgence is not unknown among friends and family, when I fall for something there is no looking back, or front or above or below, its just one deep dive I take and submerge myself completely for an indefinite period of time. And when I come out, I am all dry.

For Ishti Kutum, the same passion was and is at work, it ain’t just following the show every weekdays at 6.30, there is the Facebook fan page adda, the commenting upon story update frame by frame, analyzing that day’s each dialogue, each scene, each and every body movement of the actor Rrishii Kaushik who plays Archisman Mukherjee. In addition to the IK Fan page Adda, there is the responsibility of updating the Archisman Fan Page with analysis of Archi’s actions and roles of the given episode, ‘Archi’s Dialogue of the Day’ and other features.

I have been laughed at and ridiculed by friends and family for obsessing about Archisman, and for wasting my valuable time on watching a soap opera, a Bengali one at that. Some friends fell out of relationship when I wrote this as my FB status “To my intellectual cultured English speaking American TV watching, English and World Film watching friends who look at me dismissively and say, “What’s with you and Ishti Kutum, some faltu tv soap opera” – Please don’t talk about things you don’t know. Please show me some respect, if I am passionate about something there must be a good reason.”

At one point I started calling myself the modern day Meera Bai for Archi and some religious people with fragile sentiments took offence, at another time I compared Archi with Lord Shiva and some more religious people with weaker sentiments took more offence.

To top it all, I even cancelled a potential date because the man in question couldn’t see the reasons why Archi is the ultimate man in my eyes, and also he refused to give it a try to be even 10% of what Archi is in order to woo me. On the many dates that were not cancelled, I couldn’t stop thinking about Archi and how he’d do what he’d do at a given situation, how he’d have held, how he’d have kissed, I realized if you know what exactly you want, you can’t settle at anything else. Even though what you want is fictitious. It was at this precise moment that I resonated what Meera Bai must have felt for Krishna. I can see more religious fainting right now.

So you see, I’ve paid quite a cost for the love of this show. BUT all my toils paid off at The Star Jalsha Parivaar Awards 2013 (SJPA 2013), where Ishti Kutum was a runaway success with the awards. 9 out of the 17 mainstream awards were won by Ishti Kutum including the Best Show (Sera Parivaar). Rrishii Kaushik and Ronita Das posing as Archi and Baha were the co-host of the show along with regular host Kanchan Mallik. Archi Baha had several acts together on the stage, Baha gave a solo performance on the title track of Ishti Kutum the famous santhali song, Rrishii gave two unique dance performances and they both won two awards each for Best Son, Best Daughter, Best Husband, Best Wife.

Rrishii Kaushik receiving the Best Husband award at the Star Jalsha Parivaar Awards 2013, he took along his on screen wife Baha (Ronita Das) to receive the award, the only person this evening to show this golden gesture

We Ishti Kutum fans were ecstatic, the audience had given its verdict, and we are vindicated for so many months we didn’t waste our love and passion on a show less ordinary, we are with the best of the Bengali entertainment, we are with Archi Baha and Ishti Kutum. Some jealous losers rejoiced their sole hope of survival, the fact that Archi Baha didn’t win the Best Couple (Sera Juti) award. Who got the said award…er who cares? Archi Baha encompassed the whole of The Star Jalsha Parivaar Awards 2013 (SJPA 2013), their presence was felt YATRA TATRA SARVATRA.

People would forget who won the Best Couple in no time, every year someone or the other wins this award, if there’s an award there will be a winner, no big deal, but as the co-anchors of this year’s show, as the leading characters of the years biggest show which had sweeping success at the awards and as characters that both won two awards in prime categories, Archi-Baha’s name would remain forever etched in Star Jalsha Parivaar Awards history.

But it wasn’t just the awards that made me happy, the awards ceremony itself was class apart. For so many years I have watched so many Bollywood Awards shows, this was the first time I saw a Bengali award show, and I can’t even begin to tell what abundance of talent and creativity it was. A zillion times better than any of the mundane Bollywood awards where the stars dance to the tunes of their own songs forgetting all their steps and a constipated look on their face. They charge a bomb and give a lackadaisical performance. But in the SJPA, each performance was perfect. Song dance is not a routine for TV stars yet their performances was so beautiful. I guess its the Bengali blood, forgive me for my arrogance, but nowhere else in the world would you find such artists with abundance of multiple talent. Bongs simply rock you know. Proud to be a bong.

Ronita Das and Rrishii Kaushik waiting anxiously for the announcement of Best Husband at SJPA 2013

Some of the best moment of the show was when Kanchan Malik pointed at Ronita Das and said, “If you want to see a star, look at her, Baha. (Pause) Baha Saree, Baha Sandal, Baha Bangal…in no time you’d have Baha nails and hammers too in the market.” Truly the success of Brand Baha is beyond words, matched only to ‘Shaktimaan’ in terms of merchandising and an unmatched unparalleled influence on Bengali Fashion. The other awesome moment was when Rrishii Kaushik got the award of Best Husband for his character Archi, he hugged his co-star Ronita (his onscreen wife, Baha) and asked her to join him on the stage. He also shared his award with her. He being the only person in the entire evening to share the stage and award with someone voluntarily. I thought that was a golden gesture.

Below is a list of all the winners at the SJPA 2013 (In order of announcement)

• Agami diner star (Best Debutant Female) – Jhilik – Maa
• Agami diner star (Best Debutant male) – Sourabh – Bodhu Kon Alo Laglo Chokhe
• Agami Diner star (Best Debutant) Special Jury award – Pakhi – Care Kori Naa
• Sera Gurujan (Best Elderly member) – Hari Shankar Mukherjee – Maa
• Sera Maa (Best Mother) – Protima Mukherjee and Protima Roychowdhury – Maa
• Sera Baba (Best Father) – Dibyojyoti Majumdar – Ishti Kutum
• Sera Bon (Best Sister) – Kamalika Majumdar – Ishti Kutum
• Sera Bhai (best brother) – Sougata Moitra – Bodhu Kon Alo Laglo Chokhe
• Sera Devar (Best younger brother in law at husband’s home) – Dipu – Maa
• Sera Meya (Best daughter) – Baha – Ishti Kutum
• Sera Khalnayak (Best Villain Male) – Debraj – Tapur Tupur
• Sera Khalnayika (Best villain Female) – Gayatri Devi and Rudrani – Tapur Tupur and Bidhir Bidhan
• Sera Nanod (Best sister in law at husband’s family) – Payel Sen – Tapur Tupur
• Sera Jaa (Best co-matriarch of the joint household) – Rani (Archi’s jethimoni) – Ishti Kutum
• Sera Sasur (Best Father In Law) – Surendra Moitra – Bodhu Kon Alo Laglo Chokhe
• Sera Sasuri (Best Mother in law) – Reshmi Lahiri – Bhasha
• Sera Majar Sadasya (Best comedy member) – Makhan – Sangsar Sukher hoy ramonir gune
• Sera Bhasur (Best elder brother in law at husband’s home) – Dhritiman Mukherjee – Ishti Kutum
• Sera Mishti Samparka (Best Sweet Relationship) – Bhasha and Mohit – Bhasha
• Sera Bouma (Best daughter in law) – Alo – Bodhu Kon Alo Laglo Chokhe
• Sera chele (Best Son) – Archi – Ishti Kutum
• Sera choto sadasya (Best young member) – Icche - Bodhu Kon Alo Laglo Chokhe
• Sera Bar (Best Husband) – Archi – Ishti Kutum
• Sera Bou (Best Wife) – Baha – Ishti Kutum
• Sera Parivar (Best Family also known as the Best Show Award) – Ishti Kutum Parivar
• Sera Juti (Best Couple) – Juni Krisnendu – Care Kori na

Post the Star Jalsha Parivaar Awards show the Ishti Kutum storyline is going a downward spiral. The story doesn’t progress, important characters are losing their basic characteristics, the story is shifting from its central plot and seems to be lost in the now irrelevant non-existent Archi-Mun-Baha Bermuda triangle. At times the episodes are just so boring that I have actually turned off the TV and left the room.

One should hardly spend valuable time in talking about such boring episodes, but still today’s episode was important from one perspective. It came a full circle for the Mun and Majumdars. We were sick and tired of Mun’s frantic wailing about she  being robbed of every happiness in the world by Baha and today all her happiness vis a vis her father, bunglow and car has been restored to her. In addition, she has a new man in her kitty to feel complete. The Majumdars are happy their daughter is back home from her sentimental escape zone, the working women hostel. Dhrubo Sen, the man Majumdars are indebted to did the works, he convinced Mun to return home and today’s episode was about this joy.

But is it really the end of all, are we supposed to take it for-granted that everything suddenly is restored to the the Majumdars, they are now all happy and contended and are off Archi and Baha’s back? I don’t think so, and even if that is so, I demand for some kind if justice, retribution for all the mental and physical torture done by the Majumdars on Baha. How can it be so easy for the rich and influential city people to do several atrocities on a young poor tribal girl and get away with it?

(I am writing this in Bengali using roman letters for the time being, later I’d translate and put up the English version.)

Ajker amader desher ekti sundor hashi khushi paribar er chitrankan kara holo. ek adorer mishti meye, shikkhita, swadhin cheta, college er adhyapika, tar sanam dhonno baba, shikkhita adhunika mishto bhashi alpo hasi maa, darun snehomoy thakuma, o pishi. Tader barite aj prothom meye r bhalo bandhu (future boyfriend) berato aslo ek jhuri anondo niye, abhimani meye ke se bujhiye sujhiye bari firiye eneche. Sabai khushi, anondo asrute sabar chokh chal chal. Cheletike thakuma ek bakkye nati patalo, pishi gal bhara hasi diye apon kore nilo baba anonde chutlo icecream ante.

Parer drishyo at the dinner table ta amader ar dekha holo na, tabu anuman korte pari – baro dining table e anek khabar dabar er ayojon, sabaia khaoa daoa korche, cheleti ranna r prosongsha korche, take aro ektu sadha sadhi kara holo, khete khete se nana rakam galpo jurlo, galpo cholche, rasik manush ebong meye ti r pechone lagte bhalo bashen, tai mishti meyeti majhe majhe matha nichu kore lajjaboti lata hoye jaache, ar bakira sajore heshe uthche.

[Camera zooms out and moves upward, a top view of the room and its people is taken present voices of the room fades out. The camera then turns into a special kind of X-ray machine. This x-ray machine can read people's mind, projects their past and exposes a different face, the REAL face.]

Dekha gelo lajjaboti oti madhur ei meyeti gato kaek dine nijer half sister er sathe 3 bar clear & present mental torture and indicative physical torture koreche. Tar kichudin age se pashe boshe thaka tar baba ke thappor er jabab thappor diye dite pare claim koreche, thamma o pishi r sathe mukh benkiye bango bidrup koreche. Taro kichu din age se archi name ekti chele, je bahu kal tar boyfriend chilo kintu idaning tar half sister er swami seta jana satteo, archi r kache preme r lobhe bhikhiri r moto chute geche ar tar kache sei somoy uposthit tar stree ke ghar theke dur hoye jabar hukum diyeche. Sei hukum baccha meyeti namro bhashaye nichu galaye nichu chokhe amanyo karaye take akathyo apoman koreche, ar archi badha deoaye archi keo apoman koreche. Aro dekha gelo je nijer swartho siddhi r jonno ei meyeti nijer maa ke dabar guti baniye kheleche, jeta nije korte parbe na face loss er bhoy, seta chal chaturi kore nijer maa ke diye koriye abar nije bhalo seje boshe ache.

Dekha gelo sanam dhonno ei baba ti bahu kal age ek naari r chobi ankbe bole take prem jaale fasiye tar nirjatan kare, ebong tarpar take o tar santan ke asweekar kore sahore eshe sei naari r chobi bikri kore barolok hoyeche. Dekha gelo je nijer ei oti medhabi bhadrotar mapkathi meyetike khushi karar jonno ei lokta aj 20 bachor pare natun kore gramer sei kishori meyetike asweekar koreche.

Dekha gelo je ei paribar er sabai ei barir arekti meye, sei gramer kishori ti je choto bela thekei nipirito, jar du bela bhar pet bhat tuku o joteni, tar besh khanikta rakto sushe, bohiye (literally) tar astitto ke asweekar koreche. ‘baha bole keu nei’ ei prokar ‘ostrich effect’ e sabai Baha namak ek charom sotto theke mukh lukiye paliye beracche. ‘Literally’ bollam, karon sei kishori ti ei barolok er meyeti ke ek din 2 bottles blood diye prane banchiyeche, ar tar kadin parei ei barir adhunika shikkhika maa ti ekta heavy object chure baccha meye ti r matha fatiye take raktakto kore bari theke ber kore diyeche.

Dekha gelo jei hate ei mamatamoyee adhunika naari tar habu jamai ke aro ektu beshi kore palau kalia korma egiye dilen, sei hate ajo jeno sei gramer niriho kishori ti r rakto lege ache, mone holo jeno sei rakto ek drop ek drop kore porlo sabar pate, sabai paan korlo tar rakto. Dekha gelo jei hate tinni ekhoni cheleti r plate e rasogolla ta dilen, sei hate diner par din ei mohila sei kishori ti r opor physical torture koreche (latest being till just 2 days ago) Mone holo ei manush chance pele besh dibbi sakal e khun kore, dupure bhaat kheye ghum debe, ebong ei samajer keu kichu janbe na, janleo kichu bolbe na.

Dekha gelo ei buri thakuma, matro ek bachor age aro ek jon ke natni patiye chilo, take mulyoban sona diye tar proti sneho prakash korechilo, ei bhadro samajer lokera ei prokar sona dana moni manikya diyei abeg anurag prakash kare, materialistic eder life e materials chara ar kichu khub ekta deoar nei. ar matro 2 din age, kono ghatona na jene na bujhe asol manush er sathe kono katha na bole, sei natni ti r kaach theke sona r upohaar ta ferot pabar jed korlo. Material diyechilo, material ferot cheye nilo, eder jiban er sar marmo holo dhan sampatti sona goyana. Amader mone holo ei soddo patano naati ti ke jodi abar kaal ke pachondo na hoy, tar peter bhetor theke ranna kara khabar gulo abar ferot na cheye bashe. Buro boyeshe anek rog to dhare.

Dekha gelo ei pishi ek murkho apodartho parogacha, se widow, se compensatory ground e kono chakri bujhi payeni, tahole dhore ni se uneducated unqualified to get a job, tai sara jiban nijer dada boudi r sangsar e jhi giri koreche, boudi r lathi jhanta kheyeche, ebong ekti sundor thala r begun hoyeche. Jedike thala benke begun sedike garaye, ei begun er nijoshyo kono voice nei, opinion nei, personality nei, self respet nei. Sabai ja bale se tai bole, sabar tale tal miliye nijer swartho siddhi kore jiban katiye choleche. sotti bolte begun eka pishi noy thakuma o, jaro padartho r thekeo adhom ei thakuma o pishi.

Bandhu, aro anek kichu i dekhar ache ei hashi khushi paribar er hasi r pechone. Tabe abaak hoyo na, amader tatha kathito bhadro samaj er 90% family r mukh gulo r opor ei special x-ray machine lagale ei ek dharaner ghatana dekhte pabe. Kintu tabu erai bhadro. Eder bhalo haoa chai, era sukhi haoa chai. Ar eder jonno good amount of chun chai, karon eder paan theke chun khoslei to abar era sunyo, rikto, nishyo hoye jaye, ar pathe boshe. Tai eder sangsar jeno bhara thake, chele pile jeno dudhe bhate thake ar paan jeno sarboda i chun thake.

Ar ekta ache chele. Tar barirer rup, jeta ei spl x-ray machine charai dekha jaye, seta khub kharap, se gomra mukho, rude, abhadro, asamajik. Kathaye kathya matha garom kare, jar opor khushi ja noy tai bole, abar ektu pare raag kome gelei chute jaye sorry bolte. Se emon i nirlajja ar paaji je ek din kina nijer 7 bachorer bhalobasha ke bollo “tomar sathe amar je biye ta hoyechilo ota na mithya, karon tar age amar baha r sathe biye hoyechilo. Takhon bhebechilam durr, ei faltu gramer biye ke manbo na, bhadro samajer chele ami bhadro bou niye ghar korbo, kintu na galti se mistake hoye geche, oi gareeb jonglee meye take pagoler moto bhalobeshe felechi, ekhon oi amar asol bou hoye amar mon praan sab jure boshe ache, tomake to ar amar jiban e bou r jayega dite parchi na, tumi ebar esho.”

bhaba jaye, ki paaji chele, 7 bachorer bhalobasha ke emni ek futkare bollo kina “tumi esho.” Ekhon kina din rat tar ek chinta, kemon kore ei 7 bachorer bhodro debi ke ghar theke namai ar nijer o jonglee bou ta ki niye ghar kori.

Ei to jar samner chehara, tar opor spl x-ray machine diye scan korle aro na kato ki kharap chehara beriye porbe…. kintu ki mushkil, jato scan karo bhetore baire to ei cheleta eki rakom dekhache. Tabu er kintu sasti chai, er sukh chai na, sarbonash chai.

Accha… sotti ki bhagoban / marangburu bole kichu ache? Dharmo adharma paap punyo r hisab ki ei life e habe?