Parineeta - for a Change

A few days ago my father brought a pamphlet and asked me to go through it. This was an announcement from Visaalandhra Publications (one of the most popular publishers for Telugu literature) regarding 12 volumes of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyaya's novels translated in Telugu, starting with "Devadas" (purposely written so - for in Bengali it must be "Divodass", for there is ample evidence of making it a good translation to Telugu), which they were coming up with. The pamphlet says that here's an inaugural offer all the volumes can be booked at 1000/- which actually cost 1300 bucks.

Now, this is all the routine stuff in such pamphlets - but what caught my eye was the introduction given by the Publishers and the role that they feel Sarat's novels can play to today's young audiences (as we are aware - more than 60% of Indian population is below 30 years) - and here's what I remember is the gist of the same:

In these days when the notions of sensitivity are being lost and the relationships between a male and a female are getting more and more materialistic and complex, these days when the respect for women is being lost and equally appalling the lack of emotional responses from women and the increasing instances of rapes and incest cases in our country - we feel that it is time for the young audiences to get to know the richness of emotions and the sensitivity of human feelings which are essential to a better understanding of relations between the sexes for a better society - and Sarat's novels each of which deals with intimate human relationships and how the interplay between different male and female characters can play a great role in doing so. Each of Sarat's novels has strong female characters which powerfully express their thoughts which have over the years surely raised the stature of women.

I fail to remember the quotes and extracts from his novels which were quoted in that pamphlet. Now why am I writing all this?

I watched this movie "Parineeta" a while ago - and I now realise that what was said made a lot of sense. It confirms what the pamphlet informs.


The film is very well made and the interplay between the characters was excellent.
A special mentions needs to be made of the lead pair - Saif Ali Khan and Vidya Balan - who excel in their roles, especially Vidya Balan - the portrayal of Lolita - I shall await to read the book to understand the character. I think that the adaptation of the novel has given me enough evidence of what to expect from a Sarat story.

Unfortunately, I could not watch the classic "Devadas" by ANR and Savitri till now, and the Devadas by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, despite the fact that he is a good director, the movie does not show any of the human relationships - and their interplay which is the serious drawback with his adaptation. Of course, it is another matter that Bhansali likes to portray the movie through his eyes - and he surely has given us a movie which has "rich"ness written everywhere on its face. So, in comparison with Bhansali's Devadas, this Pradeep Sarkar's movie I think has tried to do as much justice to Sarat as one could think of.

I recommend all the movie goers of impressionable ages to sure go and see this movie just to understand the depth of relations, and the sensitivity involved with them and more importantly - the portrayal of a woman - Parineeta - the married woman.