The real Devdas tragedy: the journey to Bollywood

From the sociologist’s point of view, institutions are systems of social norms which in turn are a society’s rules of conduct for its members. With different cultures existing in different parts of India, one had to be cautious while dealing with such norms in a particular cultural context.

During Parvati’s marriage, the director used two typical rituals of a Bengali wedding—lajanjali (an offering of khoi in the sacred fire as a symbol of the bride’s virginity ) and sindoor (token of a married woman)—to establish a Bengali society.

Again, the film opened on a huge haveli with a lady announcing the news of her son’s return from London. Dressed as an aristocratic Bengali lady, she came across a group of girls making arrangements for Durga Puja. Bengali words were strewn in their dialogues. A Bengali ‘milieu’ was subtly established at the very beginning. But Bhansali’s knowledge of the then Bengali society proved to be peripheral.

In the film we saw Sumitra (Parvati’s mother) proclaiming victory by blowing a conch shell at the hour of Kaushalya’s (Devdas’s mother and the zamindar’s wife) misery. It was an ignorant distortion of that particular social reality. No subject would dare such hostility towards the zamindar.

And the question wouldn’t arise as a zamindar-subject bond in Bengal was more of a father-son than the typical Thakur Singh-villager relationship shown in Hindi movies. Satyajit Ray’s Jalsaghar showcased one such zamindar and his unique relationship with his subjects.

Chandramukhi’s visit to Talshona (the estate of Parvati’s in-laws) should also have raised many eyebrows in Parvati’s household, because it was unconventional for a respectable lady to travel without either a male or an elderly woman as chaperone. That Parvati’s in-laws were least suspicious, merely underlined the social unreality of the film. Screened at Cannes, didn’t it represent a distorted social history of Bengal to the rest of the world?

Bhansali distorted history and violated social codes in the name of poetic liberty. For example, veshyadwar mrittika, commonly called punni-maati (sacred clay) in Bengal, is indeed a vital element for making any Durga idol. Veshyadwar mrittika literally means the clay found at a prostitute’s doorstep. Durga Puja is the community festival of Bengal, hence the ‘‘feet dust’’ of people from every strata of society is required to sanctify the deity. And where else to get punni-maati but at a prostitute’s doorstep!

But would a conservative family like Parvati’s in-laws send their bahu to a prostitute’s house for collecting veshyadwar mrittika? All alone? And was a woman entitled to bring punni-maati? I doubt it.

This also emphasised the absurdity of the situation created, to make Parvati and Chandramukhi meet. That Bhansali had not done his homework was also apparent in the sets of the kothas.

Every city had its unique characteristics, so did its red light areas. A kotha of Lucknow would be very different from the cages of Kamatipura in Mumbai. The narrow lanes of Sonagachhi, Garanhata and Harkata in Kolkata had their unique characteristics which was evident even in the architecture of the houses where the prostitutes lived. But the architectural milieu depicted in Bhansali’s Devdas bore no resemblance to its Kolkata counterpart.

Bhansali had given us a glimpse of the Kali temple of Dakshineshwar while a heartbroken Devdas was drifting across the Ganges in a boat. Was it to place us in the right social context? Then why did the area where Chandramukhi lived looked more like Meena Bazar and less like Chitpur?

Bhansali’s masterstroke was the dance sequence at the Puja venue at Parvati’s house. It not only distorted history but misrepresented an existent social code.

No Bengali Hindu family, let alone a aristocratic one, would have their bahu without a ghoonghat celebrating Durga Puja by dancing lithely around with a strange woman, with all her seniors watching. It was as atrocious as showing a conservative Jain family cooking chicken at home!

Bhansali concentrated more on sets, costumes and other ornamentations instead of the characters. That is why the characters seemed unreal in the film. For instance, Kaushalya was the wife of the zamindar of Talshona village.

Under no circumstance would she take a marathon race across the stretch of her haveli announcing the news of her son’s homecoming! Sumitra, too, was abnormally loud at every instance—be it her daughter’s love for Devdas, the possibility of their marriage and the failure of the marriage proposal. Sarat Chandra’s Sumitra was a decent, loving rural mother. Bhansali’s Sumitra was crass, vindictive and uncultured.

Parvati, the female protagonist of Sarat Chandra’s Devdas was much younger to Devdas, which made her worship him as a superior. That was the clue to her patient submission to her Devda’s endless ‘‘tyranny’’. Gradually, her young love blossomed into a bold and confident adulation that matured her as a woman of great strength of character. In Bhansali’s film, Parvati’s childhood never featured except for a couple of shots showing her sitting or running. With Chandramukhi, the director seemed confused whether to show her as a prostitute or as a respectable woman. Madhuri had attempted to capture the subtle nuances of a prostitute in love, but the moment she slapped Kalibabu, the reality of the character fell apart, leaving her as just Madhuri, the glamorous queen of Bollywood.

At the end of his novel, Sarat Chandra beseeched his readers to shed a tear for his hapless protagonist. At the end of Bhansali’s film, one was inclined to shed a tear for Sarat Chandra instead! Bhansali’s right. His film is in no way Sarat Chandra’s Devdas. It was entirely Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas.

The writer is a Mumbai-based freelance advertising copywriter