Lots of people have written about this movie - some of them liked it for its emotional appeal, some others disliked it for the same. i’m writing this review not to add more on the movie but to point out some uncanny similarities it has with a bengali novel. i’d seen the movie only on tv and do not know whether the storyline is claimed to be an original one or not. but the scenes, some dialogues and the overall storyline except for the ending is so similar to that novel that as far as I am concerned this is totally lifted from the book.
the book i’m talking about is ’na hanayte’ by matrayee devi. the phrase ’na hanayte’ is taken from the famous shloka of geeta describing human soul which no one can destroy.
the story is about a girl called amrita, she is the daughter of a professor of sanskrit and indian philosophy. one day one greek student comes to him to study and he allows him to stay with his family so that he can have a first hand experience of indian culture. slowly the greek student (i think the name is euclid or eliad, i’m not sure)falls in love with amrita. when that is discovered amrita’s father asks him to leave the place and extracts a promise that he will never be in touch with his daughter. the greek leaves but instead of returning home he started travelling all over india like an indian sadhu with no money and resorted to even begging. after some time he regains his stability and returned back to his country and later on become a professor of indology in paris.
in the meantime, amrita’s father got her married with a scientist in charge of quinine production in mangpoo (a small place near darjilling). so she was almost exiled out of the urban atmosphere. she had already become a known poet but there in mangpoo she could not find any oputlet for her creativeness. she concentrated on her family and social service. after long years, on the fag end of her life she went to paris and knowing that her first love leaves there she goes to meet him with lots of anticipation. but alas, he is no more the passionate lover she knew - he has become a professor now and she found him more like her own father - soul less and full of knowledge and ego with no consideration for the human beings around him.
however this is not the end of the story. the greek student himself had written a novel in french on his experience.the name of the novel, if loosely translated means ’night of bengal’. in that novel ha had written about the love and physical relationship with amrita. the strange thing is that in the novel he has changed the name of the student but used the original name of the girl. similarly in the novel by maitrayee devi, the author has changed her name but kept the original name of the greek student. in fact she had written the novel after knowing about the other novel and to some extent to refute the story of physical relationship.
now come the most strange thing. in real life the famous professor, father of amrita, fell in love with one of his student after amrita’s marriage. this being pre-independence day with no restriction on marriage, he married his student. due to this his first wife and other members of the family refused to have any connection with him. in his last years, his second wife was his only companion. but there is one more twist to this story. after the professors death, all family members united and treated the second wife very harshly accusing her for the family break up. this lady herself was a very bright student and learned scholar with a couple of books to her credit. but after that she left home and spent her remaining life in a monestary like a sannaysi.
isn’t life stranger than a story or even a bollywood hit movie?