Why Bimal Roy's 'Bandini' celebrated the incarcerated woman

I had watched Bandini as a younger person and remember being really angry at being manipulated by ‘Main man maar, Hoon is paar, O mere maanhji ab ki baar, Le chal paar ’... Why do we celebrate sacrificial lambs?

As a grown up, when one watched it several times, yes, several times, I must confess, I found strange beauty in the film. And it’s not just Nutan’s flawless camera presence that captivates you. This film has so many layers, just like an onion, and peeling every layer will make you cry.

So bring your box of tissues to the show. Because a prisoner, singing 'please daddy, take me home’ while doing the chore assigned to her can make even the hardest hearts melt. Especially, if you are nowhere near home. The plaintive call, ‘Abke baras bhej bhaiyya ko baabul’ seems to be that of a bride wanting to go back from her sasuraal to her maihar (mother’s home), but is sung by a prisoner, who knows she is not going home any time soon.

Nutan is in a prison, both literally and figuratively. Although living in the prison does not bother her much, the prison of her mind is another story altogether. And this is where I begin to wish they had done something different. The gorgeous Dharmendra tries to tell her in that many words, ‘If you live in the past, you are missing the present.’

The present (Dharmendra is persuading her to marry him) has fallen in love with this quiet prisoner who is wracked by the guilt of her past and is attempting to atone for sins by tending to a TB patient. Now in those days, Tuberculosis was not a curable disease and those who tended to the patients were most likely to contract it.

Nutan carries the burden of her past so beautifully, she simply does not understand why the lecherous Iftekhar (really!) is blocking her path. The vacant, burdened eyes are so effective, it takes a prison riot to make Iftekhar vanish from the scene, and her rejection sends Dharmendra away.

This should have added to her guilt but she’s got plenty of it from her past. She has given her heart away to a dreaded bomb maker in house arrest in her village, she has surrendered herself to love (‘Mora gora ang lei le’ is a plea because she wants to be one with a dark one!) and then feels betrayed because he is take away by the police and never comes back. The betrayal should have been enough to put her off men who have ‘anokhi hansi’, but she’s the quintessential Indian girl - if she gives her heart once to someone, it keeps being taken, no matter what.

Hold on to that thought. The villagers make it tough for her to live with ‘honour’ and she leaves her home and the river and the woods she loves so deeply. Mukesh adds a poignant touch to her ‘leaving’ with ‘O jaanewale ho sake toh laut ke aana’, we know deep inside that she is never going to come back.

Back to the guilt, when she decides to atone for her sins, she works at the hospital and lives in a ‘kothri’ (again, translates into ‘prison’) and from behind the bars of the terrace across, you see the blacksmiths weld and beat metal into shape.

Her tasks are to wash the dirty linen (and just like Lady Macbeth washed her hands, she is shown washing clothes all through the film, as though she needs to see her sins cleaned up too), and clean the floors. Soon, she is seen cleaning up after a ‘hysteria’ patient. But her guilt does not go away even after she takes on the task of serving the wilful patient quietly. Then her father shows up in town in search for her and is killed in a road accident.

At this point you wish she were given a break but no, she is so stunned by the death of her father (of course she blames herself!) that she does not realise the crazy patient has been calling her, ‘Kalyaaneeee! Kalyani!’

She has been true to her name so far, ‘Kalyani’ means ‘someone who does good’. But the hammering in the welder’s workshop, the sparks flying everywhere, the push piston stove which she uses to make tea for her patient… everything seems to add to the volcano building inside her. She has seen the man she loved so much betray her once again. You know you would have poisoned both the lover and the mad patient and Kalyani snaps too.

That’s where her guilt climbs to another level. In prison, she is still washing clothes, but when the jailor coaxes her to tell her life story, she pours her heart out.

I have often wondered secretly, does Kalyani like suffering? The choices she makes and her stoic acceptance of her lot in life makes you want to scream, ‘Stop carrying the crucifix and making people feel horrible because they want to get you out of the dark, bottomless well you have chosen to live in!’

Does she not listen but want to suffer? The policewoman-attendant in the last scene screams after her, ‘Come back! Your manzil is this way!’

Maybe the words of the jailor are prophetic... He says, ‘You are leaving this jail only to be tied up to a ‘grahasth’ life!’

Had there been any obvious feminist intent, then she would step out and not need any man. Alas, the social commentary of the time present her with a dilemma. Should she go back to her old love who is so awful he coughs on cue and would manipulate her once again ( SD Burman sings: ‘Man ki kitaab se tum, Mera naam hee mita dena, Gun tha na koi bhi, Avgun mita dena'.)

Once again, she chooses to step into darkness, a willing slave to taking care of the man who betrayed her knowingly even though unwillingly. This is where I would have wanted her to choose to stay on the train but guilt is not an easy companion. She chooses to be Bandini -- the incarcerated one.

Jail, like bars, are mute witness to everything that happens to Kalyani. Even when sings the happy, ‘Jogi jabse tu aaya mere dware’ and ‘Mora gora ang lei le’ the barbed wire does not let you forget that she is hemmed by the boundaries she wishes to cross. Perhaps it was a signal to the women of the time, to stay within the rules and not fall for ‘jogis’.

I could never like Ashok Kumar, not even in Parineeta, where he is really rude to the heroine. In this movie, he stalks her and asks her about the freedom fighter right when she’s looking her most beautiful best - after the bath in the river. And if you think he’s difficult to like (remember Laszlo in Casablanca?), then you would hate how Ashok Kumar eats halwa in her home, sneakily wanting to meet her, and would not be able to eat halwa at least for a week.

The movie’s relevance has not diminished. You only have to take a look around you and see the urban disconnect around you. How many people are currently imprisoned by their past and their present? How many unhappy souls wandering about the urban jungle?  
 

Zee Classic's Bimal Roy Festival will be presented by Boman Irani. During the series, viewers will get a chance to catch exclusive snippets from a documentary on Bimal Roy, courtesy of his son Joy Roy. This will include rare and interesting interviews of Dharmendra, Vyjayanthimala, Gulzar and Ashutosh Gowariker amongst others reminiscing their days with Bimal Roy. Bandini, the last film of the series, airs this Saturday on Zee Classic at 8 pm.

Manisha Lakhe writes on films, teaches about cinema, writes poetry and short stories and screenplays and helps bring brands into the digital space.