This is an archive article published on April 6, 2012
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Elar Char Adhyay Focussing on the freedom struggle

Elar Char Adhyay,Bappaditya Bandopadhyays latest film,is a celluloid transcription of Rabindranath Tagores last novel Char Adhyay 1934.

Written by: Shoma A Chatterji
2 min readApr 6, 2012 05:59 PM IST First published on: Apr 6, 2012 at 05:59 PM IST

The novel was earlier made as a film in Hindi in 1997 directed by Kumar Shahani. Elar Char Adhyay is a tribute to the poet on his 150th birth anniversary. The central character of Ela has been essayed by Paoli Dam,one of the most sensuous actresses in contemporary Bengali cinema. The two men in her life,namely Indranath,the political activist,is portrayed by Indraneil Sengupta and newcomer Bikram has essayed Elas lover Atin.

Char Adhyay probably has the most contemporary relevance among Tagores novels. Many political issues can find solutions from Tagores vision expressed in the novel. Not once during the shooting did we take any liberties with the original work. It was a challenge for us to convey Tagores thoughts on nation-building through non-violence, explains Bappaditya. He added Ela as a prefix to his title because,The four chapters in the novel are actually four phases in the life of Ela,a rebel in every sense of the term. She not only questions her mothers blind religious faith and age-old values but also questions her leaders use of violence to achieve his goal. Indranath imagines himself to be Krishna in the Kurukshetra war and wants to use his followers as instruments to further the national cause.

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