Monday, August 16, 2010

Aphonic gushes of Matla and Tsurumi….




Hello! Helloooo! Hello, Miyage! Miyage, can you hear my voice?” Rahul Bose tries to scream at the top of his voice inside a public telephone booth. Thunderstorm shadows it down.
Music plays…Hiroshima-Nagasaki, Sumo, Robots, Ninja, electronic Gadgets keep rolling inside. My mind is a merry-go-round. Thoughts out of no where keep whirling and whooping every now and then.
Most of my kind friends do not agree but yes, I proudly keep spinning on my wheels.


………….Based on the Story of Kunal Basu………

Who is this Kunal Basu?
Later!!!!!

A gift (Miyage is a gift in Japanese… at least her voice really is) from Japan gets a letter from an Aifecsanate (pronounce as it reads) Bengali and accept to be his pen friend. In Bangla (unlike learned people, I’d love to step down from Bengali to Bangla) Snehamoy means affectionate. Now read that bangle way…Aifecsanate.
 “I’ve been rolling my tongue like you say to pronounce your name, but it’s not easy.” Beautiful, winsome, absolutely like white orchids was her childish voice.
Snehamoy or Senamoy (as called by Miyage) is a young Bengali student staying in a village with her Mashi (mother’s sister), after his parents were killed by the flood in river Matla.
Both of them, Miyage and Snehamoy are forlorn and are aifecsanate towards each other.

A big colorful box is being undocked and get to see all colors of life from the elephantine Kolkata port to the small village of Snehamoy. Everyone is festive in the village about the box. Not for knowing what it contains but only because they got something to discuss. Aren’t we blithe in our life for no reason? Heaven save this festive and divine mood for ever and ever.
This is an innocent art of living no classes can teach. It can only be inculcated when you grow bare legged in the paddy fields, when you eat 1/3 pickle, from that too, giving the spicy mix to your younger sister.
Ganges and love, while can be easily contaminated, can never be impure.

I go back to my childhood when the delivery person cheerfully sings on the village lane:
Sa re ga ma pa dha ni,
Bom fele saa japani.
Bomer bheetere keute saap,
Birtis boile baap re baap.

(Japanese dropped bomb which has snakes in it. Englishmen were terrified by its sight.)
I am suddenly on cloud nine, the simplicity kills. Who said “KILLS” is a copyright for Lashkar or PC.
PC, you don’t know? Priyanka Chopra… it is not very important though, at least here.
     
These small prose aren’t intended to offend anyone, they are just to chuckle and giggle for some time. And Bengal has poetry in its air. Bangla is itself poetry, a sweet one.
Not only DOI (Curd) is MISHTI (sweet), Bengal’s aurora is sweet as well.

They write letters using dictionary as they cannot THINK in English. Thinking in Bangla and Giggling in Japanese is to be felt on papers in English.
Thank you English for bringing cultures together!
It is interesting to see how ‘Your’s sincerely’ turns in to Dear M and Dear S over a period of time describing about haiku, malaria and stomach diseases from the monsoon Matla.
Both being shy and less spoken have only one PEN friend.
Sometimes, not being in sight is a boon. I repeat, only SOMETIMES.

Seems a little unrealistic in this age of FaceBook hunks and All-in-One 3 SIM mobile Divas but I can feel it, it is still true for the old, backward, Sharat Chandra’s India.
Cute girl could not find a Bengali manual in any Japanese store to send along with the Polaroid camera. How sweet!!
May be foolish, but it does not takes many of your bucks to be foolish for a couple of minutes.

Mashi calls it a jontro (Bengali version of Yantra). Are not we still that pure, that ignorant, that calm and that plain? I hope I was one of them. I am missing home and granny’s village like anything.
One day, I may be able to pay anything just to see completely wrapped ladies making cow dung cakes but someone very wise once said, “Money can buy ALMOST everything, but NOT everything.”

Now tell me people what is correct…philim or flim??
Huh, I won’t take your learned FILM.
 Let it be philim…it sounds ambrosial.

Mashir songe tomar jotor teri beri na, bahir log ke shaamne to kenchui”  (How fast your tongue moves when you talk to your aunt, and you are a meek lamb in front of others.)
So motherly! Every mom sweetly scolds her child for being shy to others and talkative inside home.
 Sandhya (Raima Sen) is Mashi’s friend’s only daughter. And hence Mashi wants Snehamoy to marry Sandhya.
Unable to see her face, Snehamoy writes about this “Funny” thing to Miyage to which she propose herself to be Snehamoy’s wife.

In “fact of the matter” Snehamoy considered the “idea in principle” and calculated his salary on present rate of exchange which was quite less to go to arrange a ticket to/from Japan.
Indian men! They have a chart prepared for everything. Actually this was the only thing I liked in the bollywood flick ‘Kaminey’.
Excuse me!! I have every right to not like ‘sa’ & ‘fa’ thing.
And having only one Indian style lavatory was a big additional problem.
But girls are girl…are not they?
She sends a silver ring and gets Shankha (conch shell) bangles along with vermillion powder in return as they marry after 3 good years of letter writing.
On the same lines of Spiderman’s video game, I would say “You grammer teacher and I are very proud of you, Snehamoy.”

Snehamoy hides from Snadhya and the way he reveals to her Mashi about getting married calls for a Mexican wave.
And the narration between him and his Mashi, about “Who the bride is?” is simply lovable…Sweetness of Bengali only adds to it.


It’s been 15 years of their marriage, but none of them could manage to travel and see each other. Miyage has sent this big box with lots of kites her father was expert making in.
She keeps sending gifts time to time for her family in India.
And believe me…you get to be on to your nerves when Snehamoy walks on the swampy and glazed road wearing Miyage’s made woolen half-socks.
Of course you may argue that you were not on your nerves. Do you then really have them?

The music there has to be felt by the soul, feeling you are knee dip in Matla on a full moon mid night. No wind chime has that magic.
I really pray, I could move to my college for one more rainy day. I am missing that place like hell. The grass, the soil, the kids playing, jhalmudhi (A Bengal special snack) and people wearing square glasses and dhotis.

How cute it is to wear Saree and vermillion powder, to try smelling the fragrance of champak flowers that are 20 days old and still calling your husband’s name as cinema/Senomoy over the phone.
Awesomely awesome!!!

Wishing on Marriage University (anniversary) is a good thing to do. You might not agree as of now but would certainly do after watching this philim.

But not everything happens as good as you wish. Not in life. Not in films. Not even in poems.
Sandhya, who is a widow now, has come to love with Mashi along with Poltu, his 7 years old kid. Living in his husbands’ house is still not easy in our villages once they are no more.
She’s however not shaved his hair. Is it really mandatory to shave hairs to show the coefficient of love towards your no more husband?
I am not able to buy this idea. Differing opinions are however welcomes.

Miyage is not well and she wants to come to Snehamoy but not everything is possible.
I understand Miyage, I did feel the same loneliness…Come to me when you are well, I will be waiting for you’re here…or may be one day in the end, I’ll come to you..floating down this river, like that sailing boat…” When said by Snehamoy in a bangla accent, sitting on the bank of Matla…I call this poetry. Sheer poetry. Painful poetry..hopeful poetry… poem which don’t let you sleep, but keep you in peace.

POETRY AT ITS ACME.

Kite festival is a delight to watch. Though it has nothing to do with the movie but it takes you to the core delight of Bengal, as I have seen, may be quite very less, I confess.

Making of manjha (the kite thread) is sufficient to take you in your childhood. And using the obvious color, vermillion is again a feel good thing.

The struggle has to be there in every common story. Miyage gets ill and both of them suffer. Suffering from finance, distance, language, contact, ignorance of technology but the feeling keeps them bonded.
Van der Walls’ force is not always that weak.

I usually tend to rate people numerically but here I would choose not to. I still have not developed the quality to choose one ace out a pack of cards. Ignorant fellow, you can fondly call. I have no objections.

It would be very harsh on my part to leave any person behind as they were perfectly placed.
If not, it is not their fault, may be my vision is not good any more.
Chutney and Rasam have there own importance in an Andhra Thali.

This is not a perfect movie, I agree.
This is not a real movie, I agree.
There may be quite some loopholes, taken.
Still it qualifies to be tremendously beautiful, sweet, divine and lovable work.
Is poetry not imagination?
Don’t we see with eyes closed?
At least I feel so, and so I feel this.

The Japanese Wife” is:

A very good story by Kunal Basu.
A gem of a direction by Aparna Sen.
An enthralling performance by all the frontiers and rare side people of the team.

To add on the personal front, I would like to thank 3 people:
First two are my dear friends, as I again can not categorize friends as dear, dearer, dearest.

One, for motivating me to see this movie. I agree with you, the movie is “Simply Poetry”.
Second, for providing with this movie. I agree with you as well, “It is smooth and very fine.”

The third person has to be SRK, who make us (OK Me) believe that our movies get positive, if not happy, ends.

And the end of the movie is …… I’d leave to you to decide.


This is not a review which I have done for the movie. This is simply the explanation of a very nice poem I happened to see, to feel and to live last week. I may not have done justice with that but then, I am just another student who did his bit to see thing.
Life is not about absolute things, I see things from my pedestal which may appear gloomy or even divine from others.

Differences welcomed and respected.

 To fasten things up:

No fearful sun, no windy gushes.
Not a single starlit agony.
They do not chat like do we.
With so civilized nasty acrimony.
Listen Tsurumi and Matla talk.
Their’s is a different symphony.
Not every word is to be spoken.
Love may well be aphony.