Exactly a decade ago, Rituparno Ghosh took us to the world of Banalata in his underrated gem, Bariwali. A middle-aged woman leading a solitary life in a sprawling mansion at the outskirts of Kolkata, Banalata is destined to court tragedy. Her reflexes are that of a wounded animal, her demeanor matronly. She is constantly at loggerheads with her youthful and sexually active domestic help (played by Sudipta Chakraborty). She chastises her with a passivity which is almost girlish. When an attractive young, filmmaker invades her world (in order to shoot a film in her house) Banalata’s suppressed desires compel her to be all that she couldn’t be — the fretting mother, the nagging wife. Ghosh directed his lead actor, Kiron Kher, with such consummate understanding that each thought and each impulse shines through her weathered skin.

Bariwali fetched Kher a National Award and Ghosh a nod of acknowledgement by the supposed be-all-and-end-all of Indian film industry, Bollywood. His earlier efforts, Dahan (1997) and Unishe April (1994), too had won awards galore. The Bengali middle-class whooped in delight. ‘Here is a worthy successor to Ray’s legacy of marrying sensible cinema with entertainment,’ they said. Films like Asukh (1999) and Utsab (2000) cemented his position as the alternative face of Bengali Cinema. But then, Ghosh decided to pursue a longstanding dream—adapt Tagore’s Chokher Bali. In Bariwali too he had touched the complex novel through a film-within-a-film format (the film crew uses Banalata’s mansion to shoot Chokher Bali) because he thought that he will never get to make the period drama. But his rising fortunes and his growing reputation ensured a willing producer and an eclectic cast. Aishwarya Rai flew in to be Ghosh’s Binodini, and diehard Ghosh fans tsked-tsked. In 2003, when the film released, Bengal rushed to newly-refurbished halls (the north Kolkata hall, Mitra, was renovated for the occasion) to watch a lavishly-mounted, lush and moody adaptation of Tagore’s novel. It didn’t have the searing sharpness of Dahan, nor was it a chiaroscuro of emotions like Bariwali, but what Ghosh delivered was a beautifully filigreed love letter to period dramas, complete with gilded frames and carved inscriptions.

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