Film: Sob Charitro Kalponik
Director: Rituparno Ghosh
Cast: Prosenjit Chatterjee, Bipasha Basu, Jisshu Sengupta
Rating: ***
Running at: Inox (Forum, City Centre, Swabhumi), Priya
Despite its self-conscious, metaphysical veneer, Sob Charitro Kalponik primarily functions as a work of realism. Poetry is a recurring motif in this Rituparno Ghosh film, just as Rabindrasangeet was in his Asukh, but verses end up being a spectral presence in the film. They are words of stirring beauty, but to Radhika, a young probasi Bengali woman, they ring hollow. Eventually, they hound, tease and lead Radhika to a sacred space between dream and reality that inspires creativity.

As urban English-speaking Kolkatans who are encouraged to think and even dream in English at the cost of our mother tongue, it’s easy to relate to Radhika. After all, having married a Bengali poet, Radhika (Bipasha Basu) is confronted with her own culture with such visceral force that she turns almost hostile to it. It’s not as if she is uncomfortable with Bengali, but the language of her husband’s soul is not that of her own. Indranil (Prosenjit), on the other hand is a man who is lost in his private world of words and arcane musings. His devotion to Radhika is like that of a particularly moody child’s whim. At times he is all attention and soulful eyes, but he also capable of abandoning her in a taxi in the middle of the night. Alas, you exclaim, he is a person who has cultivated his craft at the expense of his heart.

... contd.