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Chaturanga is the story of a love
that is caught between conflicting worlds of ideas.
The
lead protagonist Sachish fleets from radical positivism
to religious mysticism in his quest for life's meaning.
However, his search ultimately yields nothing but
crushing disillusionment. This is because he cannot
square his abstract ideals with the powerful presences
of two women in his life. One of them is Damini, a young
Hindu widow, and the other is Nanibala, the abandoned
mistress of Sachish's own brother.
 Sachish tries to
convince himself that Nanibala is simply a helpless
woman who needs to be 'rescued' by him. Similarly,
during his later religious phase, he pretends that the
widow Damini is merely an enticement of Nature that must
be avoided at all costs for spiritual salvation.
Chaturanga thus becomes, after a point, a psychodrama of
unbelievable cruelty. Nanibala becomes a victim of it
because as a 'fallen woman' she can only be 'saved', but
her humanity cannot be recognized.
Damini is first given
away by her dying husband, along with all her property,
to a religious guru. She then falls in love with Sachish
who can accept her only without her sexuality. Set in
Colonial Bengal at the turn of the twentieth century,
the film weaves a rich tapestry of crisscrossing desires
and moralities.
Based on the novel by the Nobel Prize
winning author Rabindranath Tagore, Chaturanga is
directed by Suman Mukhopadhyay, one of the most exciting
and promising young filmmakers working in India at
present. |
