Love in a Colonial Climate: Marriage, Sex and Romance in Nineteenth-Century Bengal

Cultural Studies/ Asian Studies

A study of the 19th century Bengali society and the changing notions of marriage, conjugality and companionship ushered in through an acquaintance to Western worldviews through colonial rule.

Tapan Raychaudhuri

Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 34, No. 2, (May, 2000), pp. 349-378.

Cambridge University Press.

2000

The Media Lab

JSTOR
http://www.jstor.org/stable/313067

PDF

English

Review: Bratacharini

Film review

Review of the film Bratacharini published in the Kartik, 1362 (Nov-Dec, 1955) issue of the Chitrabani magazine.

Anon.

The Nandan Library, West Bengal Film Centre

Chitrabani (Kartik, 1362)

1955

The Media Lab

PDF

Bengali

The Subject of Law and Subject of Narratives.

Subaltern Studies/ History

The essay confronts a problem of political thought approached through the question of cruelty inflicted on Hindu widows of Bengali middle-class families.

Dipesh Chakrabarty

Habitations of Modernity: Essays in the Wake of Subaltern Studies, Pp. 101-114.

Permanent Black, India.

2002

The Media Lab

PDF

English

Uttar Falguni 01

Bengali film

Uttar Falguni (1963)
Director: Asit Sen
Producer: Uttam Kumar Films Pvt. Ltd.
Story: Niharranjan Gupta
Script: Nripendrakrishna Chattopadhyay
Cinematography: Anil Gupta, Jyoti Laha
Art: Ramchandra Sindhe, Sujit Das
Editing: Tarun Dutta
Music: Rabin Chattopadhyay
Cast: Suchitra Sen, Bikash Ray, Dilip Mukhopadhyay, Pahari Sanyal, Chhaya Debi, Jahar Gangopadhyay, Ajit Bandyopadhyay, Sita Mukhopadhyay, Kalipada Chakraborty, Shyam Laha, Renuka Ray, Rajlakshmi Debi, etc.
Distributors: Chhayabani Pvt. Ltd.
Released on 11/10/1963 at Rupabani, Aruna, Bharati
Awards: President's Award, India, Silver Medal for Best Bengali Film, 1963.

synopsis: Suchitra plays the role of a Bengali Hindu girl given up in marriage to a lecherous drunkard, whose tortures force her to think of suicide. Yet she is miraculously saved and takes up the job of a Bai in a Lucknow household. She sends her daughter away to be brought up in respectable surroundings, but the husband finds her out and returns continually to claim initially money, and then the daughter, threatening her with the restitution of conjugal rights clause. When the man ultimately learns of the daughter's whereabouts, Suchitra kills him to prevent the disclosure of her daughter's identity.
Meanwhile, the daughter has been brought up by the woman's ex-boyfriend, a lawyer. Suchitra returns in a double role as the young daughter who has herself grown into a lawyer and takes up the case of, unknowingly, her own mother and the final disclosure awaits in the courts of law.

Asit Sen

DVD

The Media Lab

AVI

Bengali

Mr and Mrs 55 – 05

Feature film clip

Dir: Guru Dutt
Producer: Guru Dutt Films Pvt. Ltd.
Screenplay: Abrar Alvi
Editing: Y.G. Chawhan
Cinematography: V.K. Murthy
Music: O.P. Nayyar
Art: D.R. Yadhav
Cast: Madhubala; Guru Dutt; Lalita Pawar; Johnny Walker; Yasmin; Kumkum; Tuntun; Cuckoo; Moni Chatterjee; Al Nasir; etc.
Distributors: Ultra Distributors Pvt. Ltd.

synopsis: Anita (Madhubala) is a normal urban young girl, with visions of love and romance, yet restrained by her aunt Sita Devi, an avowed man-hater and a crusader for Women's Rights and the impending legalisation of the Divorce provision. However Anita's deceased father stipulates in his will that Anita will inherit his fortune only if she marries within a month of turning 21. Sita Devi decides to contrive a marriage "contract" with a willing and preferably poor man, who would agree to divorce for a payment, so that Anita gets both her wealth and her independence. She hires Preetam (Guru Dutt), a struggling cartoonist, to marry Anita, unaware that the two had met and Preetam was already in love with her. When Anita finds out he is her hired husband, who has agreed to marry for financial gains, he falls in her eyes. Preetam, frustrated at not being able to see Anita after the marriage, carries her off to his brother's house in a nearby village. Anita is deeply influenced by Preetam's sister-in-law, a perfect traditional Indian housewife, yet is extricated by her aunt and brought back to the city. Feeling that Anita doesn't reciprocate his feelings, Preetam fabricates evidence against himself so that his divorce with Anita will come about easily and decides to leave Bombay. Preetam is much maligned in court but by now Anita realizes how much she loves him. She defies her aunt and rushes to the airport to stop Preetam from leaving. Anita and Preetam are reunited.

Guru Dutt

DVD

1955

The Media Lab

AVI

Hindi