Sob Choritro Kalponik: Rekindling imagination

Sob Choritro Kalponik is the sharpest journey across a woman’s psyche that Rituporno Ghosh has ever taken since Unishe April. Ghosh, in his earlier films, displayed his enviable skills in screenplay and dialogue writing. His latest retains the old touch, but also offers a chance to taste his cinematic brilliance, which was rarely seen before.

Sob Choritro Kalponik takes the viewers through the post-marital life of Radhika, grown up in Jamshedpur and brought to Kolkata by her marriage with Indranil, a poet of considerable repute. Indranil is also an engineer— in a life not born of imagination, where his poetries are of little influence and use. And he neglects the engineer, who in turn earns attributes that can be nightmarish to any self-respecting professional—irresponsible, negligent, absent-minded and irregular.

Soon, this reality bites into their marital life and becomes so prominent as to render the wife almost numb to the poet in his husband. Indranil’s neglect helps her concerns take over her love and admiration for the poet, makes her increasingly dependent on her friend and co-worker Shekhar, who’s also an admirer of Indranil’s poetry. She makes situations of even small slip-ups by Indranil, his forgetfulness, his inability to speak good English.

Her annoyances, so far at a simmer, explode when she learns Indra has conveniently forgotten to inform her about her mother’s mild heart attack. She leaves for Jamshedpur with Shekhar on the following daybreak. At Jamshedpur, she comes closer to Shekhar, almost inevitably, and decides to stop her journey with the poet—only to coincide with the news of Indranil’s sudden death of a heart attack at Kolkata.

Sob Choritro Kalponik becomes a rich visual journey from this point on. In Kolkata, the memories of Indranil wrap her in. She strangely begins reconciling with the poet in his late husband, and it’s as if her discoveries mark the beginning of a true connubial life. Well, what happens to Shekhar, then?

That’s rather kept a secret. But the ending, or for that matter other turns had much less to do with the director’s objective than the carefully crafted sequences showing Radhika’s rediscovery of Indra— they can be a filmmaker’s envy. Ghosh tuned his elements up to these sequences; they come as dreams, waking up in and from them. Or, as Radhika’s conversations with Priyobala, the domestic help, who migrated to this Bengal in her teens and has little emotions left for her difficult past. Indra’s memories set in on the small Kolkata apartment, into the drawing room, into Radhika’s bedroom— his large black and white profile photo seems poised to say something. Radhika hears his voice while having visions of Kajari, who featured in many of Indra’s poems; Kajari beckons at her, towards a truth that Radhika probably knew but dared not believe— that she loved poet Indranil Mitra.

Soumik Haldar’s camerawork is engaging; it shows why celluloid still holds ground in the digital cacophony. Some shots, edited by Arghyakamal Mitra, with guided preference to monotones, are poetry. Indranil Ghosh’s sets create the right mood. Background score is impressive, particularly in the dream sequences.

Sob Choritro Kalponik is also the rediscovery of Bipasha Basu; Bollywood uncovered the treasures in Bips’s body, Rituporno found the actor in her. The director said in an interview that Bipasha used to come to sets in shorts. From shorts to Radhika, a woman who thinks, feels, rages, gnaws, loves and worries intensely, the metamorphosis is unbelievable. Radhika’s voice is Sohini Sengupta’s, but Bipasha’s appearance and physical acting lends life to the character. Despite this feat, she looks considerably stiff in a sequence near the end where Radhika informs Shekhar about her decision on remarriage-- a little too motionless considering the gravity of the situation. It might not as well be entirely her fault; the entire sequence seems to have been shot in haste and looks oddly flat.

Prosenjit as Indranil is good but more was expected of him. He is known to have a good rapport with Rituporno, but clearly that didn’t work-- he missed out on Indranil’s innocence quotient. Sohag Sen exalts as Priyobala, she makes the character’s hopelessly parasitic existence look real. The way she speaks and mutters in an indifferent, melancholic tone offers a lot to learn. However, Jisshu Sengupta’s Shekhar could have worn a bolder presence.

Apparently, Sob Choritro Kalponik is all about Radhika and her realisations. But it's also as much about the poet. His character is short in screen-time, but wide in its spread. Or, maybe, it’s just about the life of a creative soul— Indranil his creative faculty, Radhika his frictions with the world, Kajari his imaginative genius invisible to others and Priyobala an ingredient of creation.

This indeed sounds farfetched. But Rituporno deserves thanks anyway, for giving us the scope to rekindle our imaginations.


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