Released in 1957 the first Indian movie to receive an Oscar nomination and win an academy award is indeed a ride with respect to the inherent questions on the Indian society still finding relevance in the contemporary paradigm. The article contains brief character sketches followed by the story line and inferences for the modern world in the author’s section.
Character sketch
Radha: Protagonist, a beautiful obedient young lady who dearly loves her husband and family
Shamu: Young uneducated man excited about his married life, has his own land and oxen for farming, loves his family but in an accident loses his hands and abandons them.
Sundar-chachi: Shamu’s mother is an old lady who wishes to maintain a standing in the society
Birju: Radha’s younger son is extroverted, outspoken, and notorious being teasing women
Ramu: Radha’s elder son who is wise and respectable toward women
Kamala: a family friend who has always sided with Radha
Sukhilala: Moneylender fooling and tormenting villagers
Roopa: Sukhilala's daughter
Champa: Ramu's wife
Chandra Shekhar: daughter of a schoolmaster, an educated poised lady
Storyline The movie starts with the wedding proceedings of Radha and Shamu, pallbearers take them to Shamu’s house—a humble dwelling with a bedroom, kitchen, courtyard(aangan), and a well. Radha enters wearing beautiful gold jewelry. Shamu is elated to see her and Radha is seen being submissive on her husband's feet. Shamu works on the farm while Radha does the tiring house chores, bringing food to her husband, it is later revealed to her by Sundar-Chachi that she took a loan of Rs.500 from Sukhilala putting a thumb on papers offering 3/4th of the produce as interest until the principal is paid. A love-filled married life is soon filled with 2 children, pregnant with one.
But increasing stomachs to feed the 1/4th makes sustenance impossible, to the extent of putting the fertile land and utensils as collateral with Lala to feed the family. The conditions keep worsening as Lala continues to torment and torture due to their inability to pay back the principal amount given everything going into the interest payments. one day Radha decides to make their infertile piece of land that Lala has no right to fertile, they end up losing an ox and shamus's hands in removing the heavy stones from the field. The inability to support his family and the burden his wife keeps on eating shamus’ conscience, saddened and embarrassed by taunts from the villagers and Lala makes him abandon his house. In hopes of her husband coming back to her Radha suffers preposterous miseries, he mother-in-law the only other adult in the family dies she simultaneously gives birth to a baby whom she to starvation after the village was flooded during heavy rains.
Saving herself from Lal a widower with a daughter, who had always had an evil eye on her and was willing to remarry claiming to take responsibility for her children, wishing her husband would return. A single woman rises two boys Birju and Ramu working with them on the farms to fend for the family and repay her debt to become adults soon marrying the elder Ramu her childhood sweetheart. At the same time, Birju’s marriage proposal to the village head-masters literate daughter is denied due to his image of disrespecting women and fighting and stealing from Lala to teach him a lesson and get his mother's jewelry kept as collateral back.
During Holi celebrations, while the villagers celebrated forgetting all pain, Radha sat in the corner like she had been doing since her husband left, remembering how they celebrated the festival. While everyone expresses their love, dancing and coloring each, Roopa, Lala’s daughter who had had a crush on Birju forces him to play with her while he resists. Being loyal to his lover Chandra he pushes her away so hard that the villagers start to notice thinking he was teasing a girl they start beating him. Blamed after being innocent almost being thrown out of the village, his mother insulted by Lala publicly gets on his nerves and he ends up stealing a gun to kill him.
The villagers end up putting their crops on fire in a bit to find and kill and it is then that he runs away only to become a dacoit who comes back on the day of Lala’s daughter Roopa’s marriage promising of not to let the wedding procession through, kills Lala burning all his papers with records of rural debtors tricked into stamping on unjust loan agreements and takes his mothers mortgaged bangles. He wanted to flee away with Roopa on his horse to teach her a lesson when his mother comes in the way to stop him from robbing a woman of her integrity, Radha shoots Birju and he dies with the bangles in his hand hugging his mother.
Authors section: Influx of inference
The movie is based on the circumstances of post-independence India where the majority of the population stayed in villages as farmers stuck in a vicious cycle of unsecured debt taken from village moneylenders, usurers taking away land and produce as interest leaving the poor with none to ever pay back the principle.
It showcases how the Indian society justifies unusual spending for social status and Brahmanical rituals starting from weddings to funerals even if it means generational suffering and starving to death.
A woman is seen as a symbol of respect for the family while her position is kept inferior to the man, defining the ideal to be one bowing before her husband sacrificing for her house.
While these instances and social constructs might seem like a far cry in today's time the truth is the impact still prevails in principle. The idea of creating an image in society through consumerism, a world where spending becomes the bar of a happy successful life and wedding in India in the pretext of a festival makes a father spend a fortune sometimes to maintain his status in society while others do it with the fear of their daughter being tormented by the in-laws and society for their inability to fulfil the expectations of the society.
A women's dignity is still representative of the reputation of a family wherein barring some privileged families girls are taught to ignore or be unresponsive to injustices if it seems like an impending conversation in society. While young ladies are taught to stand against individuals who wrong them the mere thought of them wanting to bring about a revolution still seems a far cry for the majority. Times might have changed but the principles haven't, history is being repeated in newer forms.
Debt traps continue to prevail with micro-credit for the Indian small-scale farmer being a luxury and wealth accumulation a reality.
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