THE AYES

Back to Methuselah times
Thank you so much for ripping open the hypocrisy of the apparently feel-good Bengali film that reflects the stereotypical role a woman is expected to play. One wonders why a storyline that had huge potential shrank to a hackneyed recounting of the dos and don’ts that society expects a woman to follow. Praktan advocates conformity and it will help boost the morale of women who have been taught to submit to the demands of a society that smells of the times of Methuselah. 
At a time when the filmmakers are guzzling a heady mix of accolades and applause, your indictment of the film may work as an eye-opener for them. Success is good, but an undeserved one generates complacency. The filmmakers have talked about content as one of the reasons of their success. How about upgrading themselves on the changing world? Is this what the likes of Gauri Deshpande, Nabaneeta Dev Sen or Sylvia Plath have been fighting for through their writings? (Is the message of Praktan regressive for women? June 15)

Siddhartha Sengupta 

Derogates successful women 
Praktan conveys the message that adjustment, compromise and adapting help cement a bond between couples and a marital relationship is worked out. Simultaneously, the film stereotypes that a self-sufficient, assertive woman with an independent mind — having human cravings for love, time and space from her partner — fails to work out a balanced conjugal relationship. Sudipa has to learn the dynamics of marital negotiations and bargaining from Malini/Molly, who from the very beginning is shown to strategise her relationships with her in-laws. Feminists have serious reservations about this perspective. 

As a social science researcher, it is interesting to probe whether crafting such strategies in intimate relationships helps cement couples in conjugal relationships as well as in a joint family.  Can a child solely cement a bond between a husband and a wife? What about childless couples or couples whose children have died? How does their marital life continue? 
Bengali movies made even 50-60 years ago have shown women having both traditional and modern attributes. Satyajit Ray made Mahanagar in 1963. The movie shows that in a prejudiced society with dire economic needs, a housewife is compelled to get out of the safe cocoons of domesticity and find a job. The job gives her social exposure and in the course of time, her personality evolves. She fights for the rights of an Anglo-Indian woman who was unfairly treated by the employer. The film shows women of middle-class families negotiating everyday in their personal and professional lives. Mahanagar ends on an optimist note, showing women having a voice, an agency.

Even in the case of Uttar Phalguni, Suchitra Sen as Suparna, the daughter of a courtesan, fights for the rights of her socially exploited mother. Bengali films have shown modern, assertive, working women having an agency. But middle-class Bengalis in their quotidian existence can relate to Malini’s character in Praktan, and so are appreciating the film, the proof of which is the box-office collection. The commercial success of Praktan shows that even in the 21st century we, the members of society, are unable to accept successful women having an agency.   

It is true that every film director yearns for commercial success, and the glitz and glamour associated with success and fame. But along with monetary success, a positive message should be conveyed to society. But Praktan is totally regressive and derogates successful women. Film directors should weave realistic stories having a humanist appeal. They should remember to make films which show women with an independent mind, having an agency over her mind and body are not failures in personal life. 

Tumpa Mukherjee, Assistant Professor in Sociology, Women’s Christian College

Makes us feel all the mistakes were made by Sudipa
For all the claps and tears and kudos and money that Praktan garnered, the movie is not without its flaws. First of all, none of the side characters, though played superbly, tie into the main story. Apart from that one gaaner lorai sequence, they have no larger part to play. So unlike Bela Sheshe, they feel like mere fillers. 

Furthermore, I felt the story was about Sudipa realising what went wrong between her and Ujaan, apparently accepting her flaws with buckets of tears, and getting transformed in some ways. But what we don’t see is Ujaan’s change. No, I am not convinced by that one line from him, ‘What can I say, she changed me!’ We could very well see from the flashbacks that both Ujaan and Sudipa had flaws. While Sudipa understands hers, where is Ujaan’s realisation? Ujaan was a hypocrite as Sudipa has said herself. He had a huge problem with Sudipa’s independence. He couldn’t handle it. If Malini were to book tickets all by herself just like Sudipa, I am not really sure that Ujaan’s pathetic male ego would not have resurfaced. I believe that he just got the kind of lady that suited his typical dominant nature — submissive, non-exerting, happy to oblige, happy to compromise. That’s why they clicked.That’s why he says that he has ‘changed’!

And there lies the problem. The movie makes us feel like all the mistakes have been made by Sudipa, and Ujaan, being the testosterone-bearing entity, doesn’t need to address his at all. Bela Sheshe moved me, Praktan didn’t. So there is nothing fruitful to take home for me, just the thought that we should find someone who is really comfortable with an independent woman, and not a hypocrite. The rest we can compromise.

Suchana Ghosh,  St. Xavier’s College
 

Was it wrong to break free?
Praktan made me think that I should thank God that he gifted me a sweet girl before I joined a job, otherwise my marriage would have fallen apart! Molly signifies such archaic and plain domesticity that one cringes to wonder if we are going back in time. On the other hand, Sudipa speaks her mind but is engulfed by guilt at leaving Ujaan. Was it wrong for her to break free? Why can’t she be happy with her new husband? And Ujaan is a spineless, suspicious husband who forces his wife to submit to his will. Actually, no one in the audience wanted to see Ujaan and Sudipa reunite, so there was no emotional pull in the film. Where Ijazat scores, Praktan fails to tug at our soul.

Joeeta Basu, Senior Economics Teacher, St. Xavier’s Collegiate School

I don’t regret the absence of my regressive husband in my life
Kudos for stating all that I have been telling my friends, who all are going gaga over the film.

I am a working mother with a 13-year-old daughter. I married for love and was a submissive wife to my husband for eight years. After that I had to gather myself to build my confidence in the face of extreme parochial behaviour. If you can’t submit to disrespect and insensitive behaviour shown to you by your husband,  he will choose to forget you. That has been my fate as I am a married woman without a husband by my side. He has literally abandoned me and except for sending some money sometimes, he doesn’t play any role in my life or my daughter’s life.

But I don’t regret the absence of this regressive character in my life. Please convey my message to the makers of Praktan — that the content of this movie may be what society will lap up, but the story out there is a lot different for women with self-respect. 

Suchismita Sen

Promotes dangerous ideals for working women
I watched Praktan and came back with a peculiar unease about the message it conveys. Having read rave reviews about the film, I marched into a reasonably full multiplex on a Tuesday evening. Halfway down the film, I understood this was not a film I was going to believe in.

A bright architect who married a city tour guide and made all efforts to make her marriage work accidentally books the same first class coupe that her ex-husband’s current wife and daughter are travelling in. She realises that despite all her efforts to fit in, she has been a nonconformist, hence a failure by social standards. And she has been quickly replaced in her marriage by another woman, who only seeks meaning in a life full of compromise. And she becomes the ex. The praktan, the supplanted wife. A tinge of regret lines her bespectacled eyes as she takes us down memory lane.

I tried very hard to find a reason behind the dissolution of her marriage and am told by way of explicitly edifying dialogues that she wasn’t ready to compromise. Hence the break. There is nothing wrong in compromise. Life teaches women and men to adjust to the changing needs of time. What, instead, stirred my disquiet was a different nuance of compromise that the film was selling.

Compromise is endorsed in the film as the only way for a woman to win. For her, the first prerequisite to winning is gaining her sasural’s favour. And then in the final count, winning or losing is measured only by how long a marriage lasts the ravages of time and monotony. Compromise is glorified as the only way to a woman’s lasting marital happiness. The new wife actually mouths these words and the ex-wife nods her head in acquiescence and thanks her for teaching her a lesson or two in wifely timidity. 

All the ex-wife had asked was for a fraction of her husband’s time. She waits dutifully for the husband to come home, sheds the right amount of tears that is becoming of a good woman, even decides to quit her career just to comply with the needs of her new role of a wife. She just wants her man to prioritise her. And give her time.
In contrast, her foil is a woman who watches Bangla soaps, parrots same words in four back-to-back phone calls and is happy spending just one day in a month with her husband. She asks for nothing more. And that exactly is how wives should behave apparently. 

If you watch Praktan, make sure you leave all your ideas of equal opportunities for men and women at the door. The film is surely regressive and promotes dangerous ideals for working women who want to retain their individuality after marriage. At an age when women are conquering spaces from the boardroom to the Everest, this film looks to undo what years of feminists and humanists have done.

Surjya Kar
 

Adjustment + compromise is not equal to submission
I agree with each and every point mentioned in the t2 article. Those were my exact thoughts while watching the film.
‘Adjustment’ and ‘compromise’ are undoubtedly important in a relationship but Praktan insists that these two words are synonymous with ‘submission’. That is unacceptable. When the husband earns more than the wife and buys gifts for her it’s okay, but if it’s the other way round then hell breaks loose. Watching Praktan made me feel like buying the tickets was an unpardonable sin. 

Then, using words like ‘permission’ in the context of Sudipa leaving for Mumbai! If the audience can actually relate to this, then I must say our society has got some serious issues. What I found most incredulous was how a film could show such atrocities where one of the two directors is an independent, working, married woman? She, of all people, should know better than to promote submission of women. Just for a good night’s sleep, I hope that the success of Praktan is due to the rarity of original scripts these days and not because the audience feel ‘it’s their story’.

Ramyajit Mitra     

Even now working women are shown as home-breakers
Though I loved watching Praktan for a number of reasons, I could easily relate to your take on the way working, married women have been misrepresented in the film. Researching gender diversity and women’s upward career mobility in firms, it came as a shock to me that even now Indian working women are represented in films as home-breakers/marriage-wreckers: one with a stubborn, snooty and narcissistic personality who can go to any extent to live an independent, self-complacent life (too much to ask for in a still struggling paternalistic society?). Such stories are further fine-tuned to please the masses by glorifying the docile, submissive, career-sacrificing housewife as the happier of the two. The independent, working woman is represented as the one being regretful and dissatisfied with her life. Why is it still expected that a working woman has to take the onus to pamper her husband’s male ego all the time and take his permission to exercise the same rights as him? Sadly, it seems a truly egalitarian society is still a wishful desire for us and will take an era to achieve!

Arjun Mitra, Chicago, USA  

‘Understanding’, ‘sacrifice’ applicable only to women?
In Praktan, some remarkable words like ‘understanding’, ‘sacrifice’ and ‘selfless love’ are the catchlines. But are these words applicable only to women? Molly (Ujaan’s second wife) shows that for her, family, child and husband are the most important. She is meek and accustomed to accept it. Ujaan’s ‘praktan’ wife Sudipa is a self-made, independent woman but deeply in love with her husband. What sort of treatment does she get in return! Ujaan was not there for her when she wanted him only because he was ‘the man’ and an egotist as usual, touchy about his useless earnings, his incapability. 
Praktan ends with the note —  “compromise is not failure but progress”. Is compromise meant only for women?! Then where is the progress? The movie indeed has a regressive message. 

Swati Bairagi, Sonarpur
 

Story of two sautans
I agree that the message of Praktan is regressive. The plot is very real and many can relate to the story. However, a film should give a message that is progressive for society. No matter how real the story is, at the end we all want the bad guy defeated. In Praktan, Ujaan was definitely shown as the negative one but unfortunately he justified himself with a mere “sorry”. On the contrary, Sudipa (to me she was the lead character) was shown regretting her actions later in the film. Moreover, she “learnt” so many things about compromise (read sacrifices made by “good” wives) from Malini, who apparently kept Ujaan “happy”. 

Praktan is like a good-film-went-wrong to me. I don’t know if the directors really wanted to show this or not, but the truth is Malini was flaunted in the film and Sudipa defeated. This did not feel nice. At one point, the story was all about who kept Ujaan happier. It did not seem like a story of exes or even a couple; it seemed like a competition between two sautans. 

For me, the story of the film should have been the other way round — aren’t the bad guys supposed to go through redemption?! Sudipa’s second husband should have been flaunted, not Malini; Ujaan should have been shown regretting his behaviour in more than just two scenes. The film was really good otherwise — the subplots,the music,the humour, even the Ujaan-Sudipa story was going well until Malini rose as the ‘ideal woman’ teaching Sudipa the ‘should do and shouldn’t do’ for a wife, with Sudipa accepting it wholeheartedly and Ujaan taunting Sudipa with how his new wife has kept him happier, along with a “doesn’t matter” and “sorry”. 

Sukanya Goswami      

Calcutta movie-goers, think sensibly 
Chandreyee Chatterjee has got it so right! I don’t know what’s wrong with the Bengali audience — they seem to be giving a thumbs-up to very substandard films. The two fine directors who made Ichhe and Ramdhanu have been going downhill, but what is alarming is that they are being cheered heartily during this slide.

Ujaan has been portrayed as a male chauvinist. There should be many more women pointing that out. I do agree with the article that it is worrying that such a film is a colossal commercial success. The content of the film is very regressive for women. Sudipa has been portrayed all wrong, making her decisions and reactions totally illogical. Ujaan ends up getting the sympathy of the audience, which is most unwarranted. And Molly’s attitude and pearls of wisdom are so regressive.

Wake up Calcutta movie-goers, and think sensibly as we once used to.

Soma Jha
 

THE NAYS

Marriage is essentially a financial decision
The problem with our home-grown feminists is that they play the roles of feminist and damsel in distress alternately, even at a few moments’ gap. I love feminists for their self-reliant and assertive traits. They do things which conventional women usually avoid, or at least used to avoid in the past. But adults need to take responsibility and face consequences for their actions. In Praktan, it was a love marriage and the initiative came from Rituparna’s character, Sudipa (“amader shob walk-e apni guide thakben”). 

Prosenjit’s character (Ujaan) did not earn much. He lived in a joint family, else with his income he perhaps couldn’t afford an accommodation in Calcutta. Rituparna married him knowing that, and also knowing of his conservative family values, and his reluctance to live separately. At the end, the inevitable happened. We confuse the issues but marriage is essentially a financial decision. Sudipa forgot that, and paid the price. Simple! 

The character played by Aparajita Adhya (Molly) is not really as naive as your article wants us to believe. She, as has been highlighted at the beginning, is suave, strategical and calculating. She identifies Sudipa as her husband’s ex but she expresses it at the end, that too with gratitude. Why? Because she knows how to make relationships work.

Sudipa was more of love and passion, and less tact; Molly was more of tact with lots and lots of feeling of ‘ownership’ of her husband. So at the end, the second wins over the first... does it imply love, passion makes people weak? Definitely Ma’am! Emotion blurs your rationalism, prevents you from assessing the situation objectively. 

Tapan Pal, Batanagar


An achievement on filmmakers’ part
I don’t think Shiboprosad Mukhopadhyay and Nandita Roy have portrayed women in a regressive way. Rather, I would say they focused on a practical and worrisome issue that has become rife in most households where both spouses are professionally engaged and highly career-oriented. If it seems to bother somebody, then it should be appreciated because in that case the film has actually been able to churn that very aspect that’s dwelling deep within that person, and probably that’s what the filmmakers had wanted. It should be considered an achievement on the filmmakers’ part. 

Also, they never upheld any one notion, be it Ujaan’s or Sudipa’s, in a biased way. They simply showed how a family as well as the relationship between two persons can collapse if they sternly stay put with their own egos, instead of looking for adjustment and commitment. While Sudipa left her parental home for her in-laws and changed job location for Ujaan, she expects some sort of reciprocity from him. But instead of being friendly, Ujaan behaves obstinately when Sudipa returns home late from office or books travel vouchers with her own money. If women are bothered by such scenes, it means they can relate to it. That’s exactly the point of the movie. It wants the audience to find a reference to their day-to-day lives through it. Merely depicting them doesn’t mean promoting them with a tacit regressive message.

On the other hand, Malini/Molly had to initially make sacrifices on her part, but then, couldn’t she change her grumpy husband intrinsically? Is it not an achievement for a woman when her husband clearly asserts: ‘She changed me’ or ‘I am a changed man’? I’ll be more than happy if my wife divests me of my vices and acknowledges her contribution and success proudly, which Ujaan actually did. I’ll take it as a symbol of paying tribute to a woman. There needs to be a few adjustments from a woman’s side too. 

To me, the film nicely depicted the ups and downs of a relationship, both on a man’s part as well as a woman’s, while looking into the small but significant alterations that they need to make to tide over the crises. That makes the film poignant instead of regressive. Otherwise, how could most of the women audience applaud enthusiastically at the end?!

Priyam Ganguly, Barrackpore


Not all modern women are like Sudipa
Why should any modern woman just consider herself to be Sudipa!?! Merely smoking a cigarette or wearing sleeveless tees does not make a “modern independent woman”. Definitely the melodramatic Molly gave Sudipa some of the most essential answers of her life but that does not mean every successful wife is an image of Malini. Many even failed to realise that though Sudipa was deeply in love with Ujaan, she was just not ready to compromise with her life or career though Ujaan’s family was very caring in nature. Nor was she ready to accept the typically traditional Bengali mentality of Ujaan’s family.
There was a lacuna in their relationship from the very beginning. At the age of 25, one should be mature enough to realise that just liking a person does not amount to a love so profound that they can spend their entire lives together. Praktan is not just the story of every household or every independent, modern woman but also of Sudipa and Ujaan who could not manage to be together and so moved on. 

Sayani Bhattacharya, Howrah     

Story of three people who’ve made their choices
The article is extremely acerbic. If today’s “modern, independent, working, married women with a demanding job” really think like this, then that is what is scary! No wonder these days marriages are dwindling and relationships break even before the foundation stones are laid. The film doesn’t always show Ujaan as the person who is being wronged and Sudipa as the harridan, neither does it depict Molly as a submissive doormat. It simply and beautifully tells the story of three people who have made their choices. If there is always one-upmanship in a relationship, then it becomes a competition, not a journey of two people who love each other and are willing to make compromises. I consider myself fortunate to have known such women who are balancing a demanding career and family with alacrity and who are definitely NOT harbouring such vitriolic views towards life. I know I might face flak from quite a few quarters for voicing my views, but as we all know, in any discussion we must first agree to disagree! 

Moniratna Roy, Salt Lake