Necklace

Sekhar Dass Necklace points out the stark schisms between the worlds of the haves and have-nots.

Sekhar Dass Necklace is based on a short story by Prachet Gupta. The original story was called Chorer Bou (The Thiefs Wife). Das changed it to Necklace broadening the canvas of the story. It is a witty story about how Kesta,a thief (Rudranil Ghosh) jumps off the balcony of the third-floor apartment in a posh Kolkata neighbourhood and gets badly injured. Soon after,the happily married couple Biswanath Roy (Rittwik Chakraborty) and Shikha (Rituparna Sengupta) whose apartment he was trying to break into,discover that an expensive necklace is missing. They cannot zero in on the thief because he did not even enter the flat. Under the veil of the comic and sometimes hilarious incidents,repartees and characters,there is another story that points out the stark schisms between the two worlds of Biswanath and Kesta and between Shikha and the thiefs wife Kanakchampa. Biswanath neither knows nor is interested in why Kesta steals for a living or whether he is really a thief. He is only interested in pleasing his foodie and fun-loving boss (Dipankar De) or in avoiding the hassles of a police complaint.

Kanakchampa (Locket Chatterjee) rushes in wailing loudly when her husband falls off the parapet. Roy takes Kesta to a nursing home. To avoid police complications and a hefty compensation,he persuades his wife to take Kanakchampa home while he attends to the hospitalised thief. Kanakchampa is timid,uncomfortable and shy. But as she realises her position,she begins to throw her weight around,orders specific health-centric menus for snacks,lunch and dinner,moves from the drawing room sofa into the bathroom freely using Shikhas clothes,right into her bedroom to sleep in air-conditioned comfort! When she finds the necklace in the bathroom,she wears it,appreciating her reflection in the mirror.

The sharp lines between Shikha and Kanakchampa blur during a shared drinking session when both get tipsy. Kanak-champa entertains her new friend with a song-dance number. She even shocks her when she tells her that her husband and mother-in-law regularly bash her up. She urges Shikha to batter her for devouring the goodies in her house. When Shikha expresses her desire to take up a job,it is Kanakchampas turn to be shocked because in her confined world,the only work women do is stand in the line to fetch clients or work as a domestic maid as she has done both!

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The characterisations,music,costumes,cinematography and art direction are sharply drawn to highlight the differences between the haves and the have-nots. The haves characters are made to appear like cartoons of themselves heightened by the marvelous performances of Rittwik Chakraborty,Rituparna Sengupta with her exaggerated coy act and empty words against an oppressive male world,Dipankar Roy obsessed with food,very unlike a corporate bigwig,and the poetry-spouting colonel (Biswanath Chakra-borty) who bores everyone with his quotes. Is this a hint at the fake world they belong to? The have-nots are presented brutally both through the characters as well as through the cameos of the streetwalker Tagar (Chandreyi Ghosh) who dies suddenly in a car crash and another character (Biplab Chatterjee) who plays sad Hindi film songs on the flute. This is a needless interruption that tends to melodramatise this otherwise serious film. Locket runs away with top honours as the thiefs wife while Rudranil has too little footage but does justice to it.

Gaurab Chatterjees music is a high point. He uses the refrain of a popular Tagore number as a caller tune in Biswanaths cell-phone that irritates rather than soothes. He uses a lot of Western classical composers to portray the shallow lives of the affluent individuals such as Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi,Mozart,and Richard Strauss or Nancy Sinatras famous Summer Wine at a pub.

Verdict: ****

The four stars are for direction,acting,music and cinematography.

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