Kashmakash (Hindi)/Naukadubi (Bengali)

Writers: Rabindranath Tagore,Rituparna Ghosh

Cast: Prosenjit. Jisshu Sengupta,Raima Sen,Dhritiman Chatterjee,Riya Sen,Sumanta Mukherjee,Laboni Sarkar

The boat-wreck born on a night of thunder and storm of Tagore’s Noukadubi is a metaphor symbolising the tricks destiny plays on the lives of four characters unwittingly trapped in situations they can neither explain nor come out of without inflicting some hurt somewhere to someone. Rituparno Ghosh takes the basic skeleton of Tagore’s original story and fleshes this out with his directorial and screenplay-centred embellishments. The film thus is a combination of a Tagore-based and a Rituparno Ghosh film. The credits clearly spell out that the film is ‘inspired’ by Tagore’s Noukadubi. And so it is.

Ghosh imaginatively underplays the dramatic elements. The boat-wreck is depicted solely by sound effects on a completely blacked- out screen. Ramesh (Jisshu Sengupta),who was sailing with his bride Susheela awakens on the shores of a river with a beautiful,very young bride lying unconscious. He assumes it is Susheela,the daughter of a poor widow his father had forced him to marry,knowing that he had already promised marriage to Hemnalini (Raima Sen),his Kolkata neighbour,a beautiful young girl from an educated family drowned in a world of Tagore’s music.

He brings the bride home only to learn that she is Kamala (Riya Sen),someone else’s bride. He is afraid to tell her the truth. Refraining from consummating the marriage,he sends her off to a missionary school. He cannot open his heart out to Hemnalini either,except desperately appealing to her to keep her faith in him. He then sets off in search of Kamala’s real husband,Nalinaksha Chatterjee (Prosenjit),a practising doctor in Kashi. Kamala chances upon an advertisement that informs her that Ramesh is not her husband. She walks back to the river,as if in a trance,to commit suicide but is rescued and entrusted to the care of Nalinaksha’s mother. Kamala is surprised to discover that her husband is the master of this house. But she also learns that Nalinaksha is to marry Hemnalini who he met in Kashi where she has come with her father to recuperate from the shock of learning about Ramesh’s ‘marriage’ to Kamala. Ramesh,resigned to his destiny,gives up his legal practice and comes to Kashi,waiting on the banks of the Ganges for the next unknown twist in his life to happen. He chances on Hemnalini and things seem to fall in place.

“But which family is the true one?” Kamala asks him when they meet in Nalinaksha’s home,the separated pair Nalinaksha and Kamala finally reunited. “Is the ‘family’ that was a ‘lie’ actually the truth? Or,is this ‘true’ family the truth?” This question,pregnant with meaning and more questions,carries the irrepressible signature of Rituparno Ghosh. The film ends on this note of intrigue,suggesting Ramesh will also marry Hemnalini.

The omnipresence of Tagore and his music is strong in the film. The film is practically soaked in his music and songs and opens with Hemnalini singing a Tagore number. Each song and the melodies of some others have been chosen with care to fit into the given mood in the film and more specifically,to express the emotional twists within the mindsets of the major characters. Hemnalini’s conversations with her adoring father are peppered with Tagorean anecdotes. Tagore’s photograph as a young man takes prominent place in the homes of both Hemnalini and Nalinaksha,who is also a skilled singer of Tagore’s songs.

The biggest discovery is Riya Sen as an actress par excellence. As Kamala,despite the dubbed voice,she depicts both the innocence and the intelligence of an orphaned teenager who is quick to catch up that Ramesh is not interested in her physically. Jisshu Sengupta as Ramesh comes a close second. Raima as Hemnalini and Prosenjit as Nalinaksha do more than justice to their layered characterisations. The actor who plays Jogin made up to look like the young Tagore is expressionless,not helped by his voice dubbed by Koushik Sen. Dhritiman Chatterjee as Hem’s father could have fared better had he cut out the sing-song manner of dialogue delivery. Ghosh has dubbed for the actress who plays Nalinaksha’s mother kept out of focus in some scenes.

Soumik Haldar’s cinematography is magnificent. The background score is sometimes so loud that the dialogues become inaudible at many places. Arghya Kamal Mitra’s editing masterfully deals with the inter-cutting between the different segments of the narrative,a typical Ghosh touch.

There are a few logical lapses – when Ramesh picks himself up on the banks of the river,his clothes ought to have been covered in more slush than is shown; from where did Kamala find a pair of scissors in her physical and mental state to neatly cut the ad out of the newspaper? How does a photograph of Hemnalini find place in Nalinaksha’s room? We hear Jogen has gone away for higher studies. How does he surface suddenly back home?

Rating:

Yet,Noukadubi is one of the best adaptations of a Tagore literary piece. It deserves a four-star rating – for direction,music,cinematography and acting.