Sahar Thekey Durey (1943)
Director: Sailajananda Mukherjee; Writer: Sailajananda Mukherjee; Producer: Surendra Ranjan Sarkar; Cinematographer: Ajoy Kar; Editor: Binoy Bannerjee; Cast: Kanu Bannerjee, Dhiraj Bhattacharya, Prafulla Das, Chitra Devi, Molina Devi, Rajlakshmi Devi, Reba Devi, Jahar Ganguly, Batu Ganguly, Nabadwip Halder, Kumar Mitra, Naresh Mitra, Haridhan Mukherjee, Prabhadevi, Phani Roy, Renuka Roy
Duration: 02:01:01; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 60.264; Saturation: 0.019; Lightness: 0.208; Volume: 0.164; Cuts per Minute: 3.181; Words per Minute: 125.602
Summary: 'Sahar Theke Durey', an example of the early social realism in Bengali cinema, written and directed by Sailajananda Mukherjee who was an exponent of literary realism, is the story of Ratan, a village simpleton, a drunkard with a heart of gold, and his daily travails, including his interactions with the people around him whom he constantly attempts to look after. At the same time, his home sphere is fraught with tension because of the almost daily tussles between his mother and his wife who has been unable to bear children so far. The arrival of a new doctor, who brings with him upheaval in the superstitious and stagnant life of the villagers, sets the stage for an exposition on the duality of the country and the city and their people - something that came to be established as one of the foremost thematic elements in Indian cinema, especially in the domain of the social melodramas.
Release date: 24 December, 1943 (Rupabani)
censor certificate
'Sahar Theke Durey' literally means 'Far From the City'. The country and city binary has been an enduring leitmotif in Indian cinema, especially in melodramas. The urban space, impersonal, detached, devoid emotions and feelings despite being a symbol of progress and development is offset by the village as this idyllic setting, a haven of simple folk, large-hearted and sensitive. In 'Sahar Theke Durey', the city space is not so much absent as it is erased. The film opens with the image of tram, a quintessential symbolic referrent of urban Calcutta, cuts to fleeting panoramic shots of the cityscape, its roads and buildings, and then cuts to a train leaving the station. The next shot has transitioned to the village where the rest of the narrative is set. It's telling that we don't see the protagonist even once in the urban space that he is supposedly leaving behind. The first shot where we meet him, he has already reached the village far from the city. Through out the rest of the film, the urban space of the city would only be mildly referrred to and almost always pejoratively. One must remember that the protagonist is doctor who has left the city to go and live in the village and practice there. The outsider from the city must necessarily go through a period of trials and tribulations for him to be accepted within the complex mesh that is the rural.
The sub-plot of the childless wife and her daily trials and tribulations, especially concerning her authoritarian mother-in-law, is one of the central narrative devices in the film, used variously to underline both the positive qualities of the rural and at the same time gesture towards some of the negatives which are persistant. The negatives especially - childlessness and its problems for the woman, superstitions, bigamy - would be some of the trials that the doctor from outside has to face, come to terms with and attempt to eradicate in his quest to become part of the rural.
The compounder of the local medical centre is a curious character in the film, serving variously as a comic relief, as a secondary antagonist, a senex figure, and like almost every other character in the film a symbol of the simple kindnesses of the rural everyday. His interactions with the doctor, where he is equal parts concerned about the young man and equal parts angry that the latter will put a stop to his thriving homeopathy trade, forms some of the major scenes of conflict in the film and also some of its lightest moments.
Ratan, played by Jahar Roy, for all practical purposes embodies with him the unreason, wildness, kindness and honesty that is associated with the rural. He is a drunkard who is too direct for his own good; he is footloose and fancy-free, a free-spirit in many ways than one. He is also extremely concerned about his wife and her rather strained relationship with his mother, their childlessness and the problems it creates for his wife. Throughout the course of the film he will come across as a kind, generous man, ever-helpful and extremely sensitive, but simple and quick-tempered, and who takes to the bottle on occasion because he cannot deal with the complications that his family life brings him. In more ways than one, Ratan is the epitome of the rural.
Jaya's character is an interesting one. She is young but as one notices through the film she's neither naive nor gullible. She has to daily negotiate the fine balance between her eccentric father who she has to equally monitor and care for and her own choices. Throughout the film she emerges as a playful, straightforward and sure-footed character.
Ratan is nothing if not direct. He surmises that the doctor is good man in one meeting, insists on being genuinely self-effacing and he makes no bones about his love for alcohol, asking the doctor on their very second meeting
for the 'red foreign drink' - brandy - as payment for his lost brass tumbler.
Ratan jokes constantly throughout the film whenever his wife and his mother quarrel perhaps to diffuse the tension. However, he is not unaware of the tension in the house, trying to maintain a fine balance between being supportive to his wife and being careful about not upsetting his mother anymore. However, it is also obvious that he cannot completely handle what is obviously a daily event in his house.
Information in a village is rather easily available with someone or the other always available with various information. Besides, the claim that Ratan can give his life for someone he cares about is a another facet that adds to the overall idea of this character of the self-less village bumpkin who drinks to deal with life's problems.
Jaya's marriage one of the enduring gags of the film what with there being a constant tussle between two suitors. In fact, not so much the suitors but their parents fight over her: the President for his mostly-deaf half-wit son and Ratan's mother who is looking for a younger bride for her son to give her the grandchildren she so desperately desires. What makes it more interesting is how this persistant tussle gets complicated by her growing attraction and fledgling relationship with the doctor from the city.
The compounder, irrespective of how foul-tempered and touchy he can be, is a kind-hearted man, as easily pacified as he is provoked as evident here. This constant to and fro between extremes of temperament is a dominant feature of his character in the film and provides much of its comic element. Especially, the tussle between homeopathy and allopathy, articulated mostly through the compounder, in a way stands for the whole country and city duality itself.
At least through the first half of the film, Ratan is mostly unaware of the limits to which his mother's quest for a grand-son has gone, hence his surprise and confusion regarding the sudden praise of Jaya from his mother and the sudden questions from his wife. It can also be suggested that he deliberately does not respond to the machinations of his mother to get him married again to Jaya, a fact that becomes more clear later. In fact, the only time he does respond to these insinuations is when he playfully agrees with his mother to irk and tease his wife, unaware of how deep the issue runs.
A romantic song between the doctor and Jaya, it establishes their mutual attraction.
At the same time, the song also demonstrates the omniscient nature of gossip in small, close-knit communities like villages. Of all people, the President sees the two singing immediately reporting it to her father as Jaya correctly surmises. On his part, Jaya's father is far less concerned with his daughter interacting with a man than her interacting with the doctor whom he has fought with. In fact, in a rather hilarious turn of events, he misinterprets the President's insinuations and begins to contemplate getting Jaya married to the doctor. It is also quite evident that he is rather gullible, caught between the dual claims of both the President and Ratan's mother and his own confusion.
The President, the local administrative head, is a figure who occupies a curious liminal space in the village community. He is clearly an important man, involved in every major decison and act. Yet, his wealth and social position ensures that he can assume a class-identity that is distinctly different and superior to most of the other villagers. In fact, his comment that he will make the compunder an outcaste should he renege on his promise to marry Jaya to his deaf son, displays the fine networks of power that work in multiple ways in the daily lives of rural communities. What is also interesting to note is his interaction with his sister. She is clearly the one who manages the household and has a certain stake in its power dynamics. At the same time, since their relationship is not conjugal but filial, she can get away with saying a lot of things to him. Within a particular familial set-up, in a specific social and historical context, the character of the sister exemplifies interesting instances of certain everyday subversions of authority.
The recurrent allopathy-homeopathy argument also serves to underline the adverse economic conditions prevalent among the rural community. The compounder might be attempting to dissuade the doctor and save his own business, but their arguments also reveal a set of undeniable truths about the village economy and the ramshackle nature of rural health-care policies.
Jaya, used to her father's quick bouts of temper and their even quicker resolution, hardly takes his dictums at their face value. And rightly so as the old man changes his mind the very next moment, forgetting all about their recent fight. At the same time, it becomes quite evident that the doctor and Jaya have grown quite close too, as foregrounded by the song in the very next scene.
Despite his objections to homeopathy, the doctor has realised that the only way to continue to be allowed to be near Jaya would be to make amends to her irate father. His attempts to feign a headache and consequently ask the old man for medicine is obviously a step in that direction. By now it is evident that for the compunder the two things that run his life are his daughter and homepathy. The doctor's overtures are thus met with instant response.
For the President, however, who has been dreaming of marrying Jaya off to his half-wit son, this growing equation between the doctor and the compounder's family posits unexpected hurdles. Ratan, who can clearly see through the President's faux humility, deliberately picks on him. As mentioned earlier, the tussle between the three parties for Jaya's hand has become one of the major narrative devices in the film, gradually eschewing itself of its intial comic undertones to assume far more complicated subtexts.
The song, traditionally attributed to Radha, literally translates to an impasse in love when one cannot make any sort of choice between two equally demanding alternatives. Most of the characters in this film, are in some way or the other going through such an impasse - Jaya and her father between her suitors, Ratan between his mother and wife, Ratan's wife between what is good for her and what her mother-in-law thinks is good for the family, and finally, the doctor, as we see very soon, with this move to the village which has been anything but smooth for him.
The President, obviously unable to do anything about the growing influence of the doctor on Jaya, has made arrangements to send him packing from the village under the guise of dissatisfaction of the villagers.
The two, attempting to fire up a traditional oven, present an undeniably domestic picture, a validation of their growing relationship.
Village rumours and their movement have a complicated network of dissemination. The crowd, influenced by the President, mention the episode when the doctor and Jaya were singing while picking flowers early in the morning in a previous scene. The most powerful excuse that can be used against the doctor is his youth and the fact that in such a social context the domestic sphere, the sphere of the women of the house, would always be out of bounds for outsiders, especially men. This is precisely the rhetoric that is being used by the agitated crowd. Ratan, till now seen as a symbol of the rural way of life, is also here one of its critics, sharply rebuking the villagers, the President and the latter's obvious agenda. His tirade about the villagers being mindless animals who basically good at heart is also necessarily self-reflexive, which explains his almost instantaneous defense of these people as basically gullible and innocent.
At the same time Ratan displays an astuteness and awareness about his surroundings that comes across as rather unexpected at first. He chastises the doctor about Jaya, reminding the latter about the specificity of the social context there. Besides, he is also aware that the President has ulterior motives in wanting to get rid of the doctor. Ratan, as a character, constantly oscillates between the village bumpkin and the wise man, alternately claiming to be inconsequential or the voice of the countless voiceless people who live there. Also worth noting is the fact that when the neighboring town is mentioned, it is mentioned as 'almost a city', an unmistakably pejorative connotation displaying an absense of faith and a sense of mistrust for the urban.
The call for love among all is an umistakably humanist notion. Ratan displays an acute awareness of the moral economy of the people around him, especially of the couples he sees. At the same time, it is underlined that he is constantly running to avoid the tension in his own home. Jaya's quip, albeit said in jest, strikes rather close to the truth.
Ratan's childless wife has constantly tried to compensate for an absent child by showering all her affection of her best friend's infant son, a fact which is intolerable for her mother-in-law. It would be an easy exercise to label the latter as an antagonist in this domestic narrative but it would also be altogether too simplistic. The desire for conservation, of the family name and the family seat, especially through a male child is an intrinsic facet of the everyday lives of ordinary people in such a social context. Notwithstanding the amount of careless and possibly harmful things Ratan's mother does or says, there is a certain desperation in her acts which makes the everyday interactions of these three all the more tragic.
The song that immediately follows has interesting connotations. It is a song sung by Behula for her husband Lakhindar, taken from the tales of the Goddess Manasa, the patron goddess of snakes worshipped widely through rural Bengal. The song, of a wife desperately trying to hold on to her beloved who is under threat of death from the angry deity,follows immediately after Jaya gets to know that the doctor will ultimately move to Gopalpur, the semi-urban township nearby. The metaphor for this migration to the urban space is unmistakably sinister for these people, something that is made clear often through the film.
For the already strained relationship between the villagers and the doctor, a deliberate disruption of their religious customs, irrespective of the reasons behind it, would be a fatal blow.
It is the fact that his wife herself agrees to convince him to remarry is what strikes at the core of Ratan's composure. Used to running away whenever the problems at home would get too heavy, convinced that everything will be back to normal in some time, it is the realisation that even his wife has given in to his mother's insistant demands is what convinces him that things will not rearrange themselves back to normalcy.
Ratan coming in search of a magical amulet that will help his wife get pregnant, something we have seen his mother do thus far, underlines his recent realisations regarding the state of his family.
Coupled with these realisations, the fact that Jaya's marriage has been fixed with the President's son is another blow for Ratan. It is obvious that he had been hoping for Jaya and the doctor to acknowledge their feelings for each other. His decision to leave the village for good is a sign, thus, of his having finally given up on its people too.
For Ratan's wife everything that has been piling up all this while has finally reached its brink. While the altercation with her mother-in-law was entirely accidental, she still cannot help but feel guilty for it. This, coupled with Ratan's apprent rejection becomes too much for her to handle.
The scene of Ratan's wife's attempted suicide comprises of a series of small shots that transition from her walking out of the village to evetually running in frenzy out of the village. As she grows more agitated, the shots themselves becomes more frenzied along with the soaring background score till, almost in a simulation of the act itself, it abruptly goes still and silent as she jumps into the river.
The song immediately after, again about Radha and her misunderstanding of Krishna, addresses the misunderstanding between Ratan and his wife that led to her suicide.
Despite his anger at Jaya's father and his decision to marry her off to Shibu and his vehement admission that he does not care because she herself has been unable to protest, it is evident that Ratan will not let the marriage happen. The play he chooses to stage with the village group is 'Subhadra Haran' (The Abduction of Subhadra) where Arjun abducts Krishna's sister Subhadra and marries her. This fact itself is significant and that is proved in the very next scene where he manages to fool the President and his son and rescues Jaya.
In one fell swoop all the threads of the narrative come together for the denouement when it is revealed that Ratan's wife is not only alive but she is also pregnant and she is being treated by the doctor whom Ratan is out searching for to marry off with Jaya.
Such a resolution then demands that everything that has come to pass is revealed to everybody and with the arrival of everyone at the wedding that is exactly what happens as all the major plots are resolved.
The final act of violence is necessary as a plot device for a final act of assertion for the village community. Referring to the quintessential city/village binary directly for the first time in the film, Ratan's earlier declaration of love as a solution to all the problems is foregrounded here through the marriage of Jaya and the doctor and his forgiving of the President. In a way, the wedding itself is a sybolic referrent of the union, or rather the effacing of the country/city divide. This is evident when Ratan claims that their child would be symbol of that union and would proclaim loudly for all to notice that his mother is from the country far from the bustle of the city. The doctor leaves the village to go back to the city in the end but yet again the city is merely referred to but not seen. The rural with its humanist ideals is so overwhelming that despite the migration at the end, the doctor admits that it is indeed in the village that he has seen the true beauty of human nature through Ratan, echoing the classical view of the idyllic pastoral as the place of moral purity and a superior humanity.
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