Synopsis
A Bangladeshi television journalist,
Dipankar, comes to Orissa to cover the first anniversary
of the super cyclone that lashed the coastal areas
of Orissa in 1999, killing thousands of people.
He becomes interested in a young Bengali settler,
Kalpana who had lost her husband and in-laws in
the catastrophe and falls in love with her. They
elope to Calcutta from where they plan to go to
Dhaka but the girl has a change of heart and comes
back to the land where she was born.
Much before the Tsunami became a household name
all over the world, the coastal belts of Orissa
were hit by what has come to be known as the Super
Cyclone that killed more than 10,000 people and
rendered still more homeless. But public memory
is short lived and it is a commendable effort
on the part of the director Himansu S Khatua to
rake up the issue in his second feature film,
perhaps the only Indian film that recalls those
fateful days that changed the lives of so many
people within a span of just a few days and its
aftermath.
 When
the film starts, almost a year hasgone by since
the calamity and we are introduced to the journalist
Dipankar from Dhaka who moves around the village
with his cameraman covering the anniversary, interviewing
its denizens. Through his video camera we get
to know the issues involved: the sad stories of
the victims who have lost their near and dear
ones and everything else they possessed; the hard
work of the local NGO who seem to be doing a commendable
job in rehabilitating the affected people and
their efforts to reach the compensation money
to them. But slowly and subtly, through these
interviews, the director introduces a lot of other
issues that have since crept up: the wrath of
the locals as most of the compensation money is
reaching only the Bangladeshi settlers (who were
the most affected in that particular area actually);
the invasion of privacy because of media attention
which the locals think that the affected people,
mostly young widows are taking advantage of to
rake in money; the jealousy of the menfolk who
hate their women being interviewed because they
think the journalists have dishonorable intentions;
the destruction of the mangrove forests by Bangladeshi
settlers which is a major cause of the cyclone
and hence, cause of resentment amongst the villagers
against the Bengalis etc.
An environmental issue gradually assumes a deeply
political colour and finds its personification
in Kalpana, the heroine of the film who is the
daughter of Bangladeshi settlers. But for all
practical and cultural reasons, she is an Indian
now, an Oriya to the boot who cannot speak a single
line of her mother tongue because she was born
and raised on the soil and waters of Orissa. Through
a very evocative non-lip-synch song, set in the
pre-cyclone period in the beginning of the film
and wonderfully picturised, she is shown rowing
a boat and plunging into the river to take a bath.
It sets the tone of the character, her orientation,
her bonding with nature and her sexuality. But
the cyclone takes away all the colour from her
life and she is miraculously rescued by a young
man called Akshaya from the waters who develops
a soft corner for her, which she never quite reciprocates
despite being indebted to him. Akshaya is her
silent lover as opposed to Dipankar who is smart
and savvy. And then there are village loafers
who lust her and are jealous of the fact that
despite being a settler she is eligible for government
money while they are deprived of any compensation.
The personality of Kalpana gradually begins to
epitomize a complexity in terms of environmental,
political and gender issues. Her character and
the way people around her react to her, raise
pertinent questions like who is an Oriya? Who
is a Bengali? What defines an Indian? What are
the political and social implications of being
an immigrant? What and how long does it take for
an immigrant to be a part of the mainstream? What
is mainstream? What role does language play in
this state of affairs? What is the role of a single
woman in a conservative society where unemployed
lumpens treat her like a sex object and harass
her, but do not have the courage to enter into
a legitimate relationship with her? How long can
she suppress her sexuality?
Kalpana is contrasted with another female character
in the film, Rupa, which forms a major and effective
sub-plot in the film. They have been sisters-in-law
before the cyclone till it rendered both of them
widows and they accidentally meet at the rehabilitation
center. But Rupa has remarried. Rupa suggests
to Kalpana that she marry somebody, preferably
the Bangladeshi journalist because a woman needs
a man in her life. But she herself is not happy
in her marriage because her husband is a good
for nothing scoundrel who is only interested in
her compensation money so that he can drink and
listen to Hindi film songs on the transistor radio.
The bonding between Rupa and Kalpana serves as
a poignant pointer to the fact that despite the
difference in their marital status, they are basically
in the same boat and marriage is no security for
a destitute woman.
 The
relationship of the Bangladeshi journalist Dipankar
and Kalpana forms the spine of the film, which
is episodic in its structure. Kalpana refuses
to come in front of the camera because she does
not like the media prying into her private life;
she finds it distasteful. Dipankar goes back to
Dhaka without being able to do a story on her.
But he has fallen for her. So he writes a letter
in Bengali to her from Calcutta where he has come
with his mother to look for a bride. The letter
is read out by Rupa to Kalpana on a vast barren
landscape and they wonder what is the meaning
of it all? Very soon, Dipankar comes back to the
village with the sole intention of meeting Kalpana.
He courts Kalpana despite her halfhearted resistance
but she ultimately relents. They elope to Calcutta
and put up at an executive hotel from where they
intend to leave for Dhaka and marry. But her mind
is set in Orissa. She finds the city suffocating;
she longs for nature.
This is where the film falters. The graph of
Dipankar and Kalpana moves in fits and starts
and we are left wondering at the gaping holes.
What is the inciting incident that makes up Kalpana’s
mind to elope with the journalist? We never get
to know. In fact, we come to know about it through
a gossip session of the village loafers and it
comes as a complete surprise to us. At the city
hotel, she refuses the sexual overtures of Dipankar
despite sleeping on the same bed with him; that
is strange. If she were so moralistic, she should
have refused to stay inside the same room with
a stranger on the first hand. But surely she must
be having her moments of sexual urges? Surely
she would be tempted to give into unguarded and
seemingly inexplicable moments like so many great
heroines in international cinema and world literature
have done before her? We have seen her making
love in a long shot on a boat at night with her
husband at the beginning of the film. Surely she
is not frigid. So what stops her from making love
to Dipankar especially since she has willingly
eloped with him? Or is it the moralistic stand
of the director that he tries to impose upon his
heroine?
In fact, the entire hotel segment looks confused.
What exactly is Dipankar’s intention of
bringing her here and staying put? What is the
role of his journalist friend who comes to visit
him at the hotel and who takes their photograph?
What is the hush-hush alliance between Dipakar
and his journalist friend? Is he using her to
score some brownie points to further his career?
Why can’t Dipankar take her to Dhaka immediately
and marry her? Why does he instead hang around
at the hotel endlessly? Is it really the problem
of getting her a passport as he mentions to her?
Why does he talk about the dangers of crossing
the border illegally? Is there any ulterior motive
on his part? Is he not the good man that we presumed
him to be? All these questions are never answered
clearly and the audience is left perplexed. This
is the weakest link in the film which otherwise
manages to be coherent despite its loaded and
verbose sections in many parts.
Dipankar discovers through a tape recording of
her voice that she has left him for Orissa, the
land she pined for; she asks for his forgiveness.
The taped voice is a wonderful device that substitutes
the ubiquitous letter of old time films that delivered
unsavory messages. Dipankar is sad but nevertheless
is felicitated by fellow journalists in Calcutta
for having garnered the noble courage to marry
a cyclone widow even if it ultimately did not
happen. This strange event is reported in a newspaper,
which is read out aloud by a passenger in the
train who happens to be sitting just beside Kalpana
who is on her way back to her village. There was
no need for this episode because it serves no
function apart from the purpose of showing Dipankar
in a selfish light who wanted to put up an act
of marrying a destitute woman to further his ambition.
If that is the intention then it comes across
as forced and trite because we were never equipped
for this trait in the journalist’s character
at all.
When she comes back to the village Kalpana realizes,
quite conveniently, that Akshaya, the simple village
guy who had saved her is the actual love of her
life and implores him to ‘save’ her
by marrying her. This is a major letdown in her
characterization and is quite a regressive moment;
as a result it fails to alleviate her in the eyes
of the viewers at the end. The scene could have
been handled in a different manner and the deletion
of the word ‘save’ could have camouflaged
her inner compulsions and saved the situation.
But the director conforms to the belief that a
woman’s ultimate salvation lies only in
the sanctity of marriage. Meanwhile, while she
was in Calcutta, the Bengali settlers had been
served notice by the government to quit India
within 30 days. Kalpana’s ultimate irony
is that, when she returns to her village, she
is forced to sign on a piece of paper that declares
her as an illegal immigrant too, to be deported
just at the point when she had made up her mind
to continue living in the land of her birth after
giving up a golden opportunity to go to Bangladesh
with a supposedly better marriage proposition.
The film ends on the threshold of this uncertainty
as the agitated Bengali settlers carry out processions
claiming their right to be Indians. Kalpana and
her would be husband look at the procession as
they wonder about their uncertain future. One
is suddenly reminded of a similar procession in
the beginning of the film when the villagers advocated
planting of trees to avoid eco-disasters. The
story completes a full circle and throws up issues
that transcend the immediate and wait to be addressed,
which of course falls outside the scope of the
film. It is sufficient that it had raised those
issues.
Kathantara seemingly looks like a very
simple film but it does pack in a lot of issues
and is multi-layered and rich in subtexts. One
just wished that its treatment also reflected
the same richness, but unfortunately it does not.
The camera work of Sameer Mahajan does manage
to capture the landscape of Orissa in all its
expansive beauty. One is particularly impressed
by a sequence where in one long take the character
of Rupa enters her house from outside at dusk;
the camera which is placed at the door, pans left
along with her as she enters her room, interacts
with her husband who is lying on a bed in long
shot, and he gets up and walks out of the house
while the camera holds on to her in the foreground.
The outdoor and indoor matching of lights in the
sequence is quite an impressive stroke and the
mise-en-scene is quite noteworthy. But otherwise,
overall, the mise-en-scenes are too simplistic
and the scenes too informative. Specially the
scenes inside the Kolkata hotel room; they are
too rudimentary and bland, shot mostly in top
angle mid-long shots. In fact the entire film
has a propensity for long takes and long and mid-long
shots and is peculiarly averse to close-ups. The
ride from Howrah station to the hotel in a taxi
(which does not have a meter!) fails to capture
the essence of the big city; it is left to the
lead characters to speak about its enormity and
monotony instead. At places the film is too loaded
with dialogues, which are solely meant to convey
information, quite often superfluous; and what
makes matters worse is that they are stilted,
specially the Bengali lines spoken by Dipankar.
Also, the actor playing Dipankar tries hard to
deliver but falls far short of expectation. With
his full-sleeved dull coloured shirts tucked inside
dark pleated pants, he looks like a stuffed bureaucrat
and lacks the flamboyance or mannerisms of a television
journalist. In fact, he affects the entire look
of the film. The only saving grace are the two
actresses even if Anu Choudhury in the role of
Kalpana looks too urbane and her starched cotton
printed sarees do not help matters in lending
her character the required rural look that was
so necessary for the film. But her face has an
elegance and sublime quality and her fine performance
compensates for these shortcomings and one wishes
there were at least some close-ups of her beautiful
face.
All in all, for all its drawbacks the film has
enough moments of merits as well. Kathantara
has gone on to win 8 state awards in Orissa
for Best Film, Best Director, Best Story, Best
Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor in a
Comic Role, Best Cinematography, Best Sound and
Best Music besides the National Award for Best
Feature Film in Oriya.
Ranjan Das is an alumnus of the Film
and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune
with specialization in Film Editing 1992. Having
edited various documentaries and directed different
programmes for Bengali Television, he has also
written for the popular TV serials Sidhhant,
Crime Patrol and Rihayee.
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