Remembering the sensitive artiste

The passing away of Soumitra Chatterjee attracted the print as well as electronic media in Andhra Pradesh. All of them recalled his role in "Apur Sansar" "Charulata" and other movies praising him as sensitive artiste.

Many articles mentioned Soumitra's role in the films of Satyajit Ray but ignored his supreme role as a loving husband and as an estranged spouse in the later scenes of "Saath Pake Bande", which left a profound impression on me. His early meeting with Suchitra in a bus ripened into love but their marriage was unacceptable for her mother.

The conflict arose due to the ego clash between son-in-law and mother-in-law. Their hostile and acrimonious relations caused a rift and discord in the harmonious lives of ideal couple. Later a crescendo of events culminated in his separation and estrangement forever.

Her mother's insistence for her divorce and Suchitra's reluctance compels her to have a brief stint in a private school. Her sister's marriage obliquely motivates her to return to her husband for seeking reconciliation and comprise.

She runs to her husband's house with bated breath only to receive the shocking, grisly news of her husband leaving the country forever. During the unfolding of the plot, every event entwined with their lives exposes their initial ecstasy and later agony in the wedded life. Both of them articulated their bruised feelings and had married life in an intensely moving manner.

The last scene depicts the silent suffering of an estranged wife and her moist eyes betray the profound loss of conjugal bliss. The title music echoed behind solemn scenes the pangs of separation and wistful longing. Our Telugu producers have successfully borrowed Bengali themes and 1950-60 may be hailed as an era of cross-fertilization of ideas and themes from Bengal.

"Saath Pake Bande" was produced in Telugu with caption "Vivaha Bandham" with N.T.R as hero Bhanumathi as heroine. Somehow, it did not attract Telugu audience for the movie concluded with a pale, unexciting and more expected union of the couple contained no poignancy or sweetness of adversity. The Bengali note of isolation and desolation of estranged wife is conspicuously absent in Telugu.

However, the tragic, heart-pounding estrangement of the couple would have been enacted powerfully by ANR and Savitri, apt Bengali couple in Telugu movies and would have brought accolades to it like Devadas. Indeed, they would have proved to be a matchless tragic pair in Telugu movie.

ANR owes his envious success to Bengali stories but unfortunately, he missed "Saath Pake Bande" its version of "Vivaha Bandham". The present day Telugu audiences are missing Bengali stories in Telugu and hence our films lack vitality and grandeur of yesterday's Telugu films.