Spring Issue: On Films and Pop-Culture

In Tarun Majumdar classic ‘Ekhane Pinjar’, cages of duality offer both entrapment and freedom

Piali Bose

Among the most underrated films of Bengali master director Tarun Majumdar, who died on July 4 in Kolkata after ailing from a prolonged illness, is the 1971 release Ekhane Pinjar, starring Uttam Kumar and Aparna Sen. The 91-year-old filmmaker had helmed classics, including Chawa Pawa, Palatak, Nimantran, Ganadebota, Sriman Prithviraj and Dadar Kirti in a career spanning six decades.

Ekhane Pinjar, credited to Majumdar’s directorial collective Jatrik, which included Sachin and Dilip Mukherjee, stands out for its fascinating depiction of duality; dualities within characters, between characters, and finally, in its denouement about the duality of choices one faces every day. Ekhane Pinjar is not just underrated in the oeuvres of Jatrik and Majumdar, or its stars Uttam Kumar and Aparna Sen, but also utterly unforgettable in its exploration of the fuzziness of the human condition itself, of how we exist in opposites.

Adapted from a short story by Prafulla Roy, Ekhane Pinjar chronicles the trials and tribulations of the characters as they try to negotiate and navigate a world of impossible moral and social choices.

The theme of duality becomes apparent in the poster itself which shows the two protagonists played by Uttam Kumar and Aparna Sen next to each other, separated by a thin film of white. The monochrome adds to this division, but the film is shy of explaining which colour belongs to whom. Who is white, and, who, indeed, is black? The film sets up this tense, terse binary between opposites — but, as it progresses, teases out this binary as not being a binary at all. Roles are reversed, colours mix, and turn grey.

The film follows novelist Amal (played with poise and nuance by Uttam Kumar), a man of integrity, who believes, quite unequivocally, in the innate goodness of people. Understanding the vagaries of life, his is a world view coloured by shades of empathy. He also possesses, it must be said, a rather wry sense of humour. He watches but is also watched. He is a voice in the crowd that mixes but also stands out. 

Pitted against Amal is Neela (Aparna Sen), who shatters and confounds the neat beliefs of this ‘bhadralok’.

Neela is young and strong, possessing grit, determination and vigour. They are forced to meet when Amal, in a chance meeting with Neela’s incarcerated brother Nabendu (Dilip Mukhejee; one-third of Jatrik), gets entangled in the ebbs and flow of their family. Nabendu opens up to Amal about how he was pushed into a life of crime after failing to secure a job. Amal promises to help him find a better life, but fails, as Nabendu returns to being a criminal and gets killed in the process.

Amal, on getting in touch with Nabendu’s family, is caught between their love and care and breaking the news about their son’s death. Meanwhile, Amal gets attracted to Neela: who is this girl who can equal him in so many ways?

Neela, it turns out, has become a smuggler for the same financial reasons as Nabendu had for resorting to a criminal life. Caught in a system which refuses to help, Neela is forced to lead a life of secrecy in order to take care of her ailing father, mother and younger siblings. But she is not, as she vehemently makes clear, a victim, a fallen figure meant to be saved. This, she believes is a necessary and pragmatic choice. In a role deviant from coy heroines who are submissive and ‘pure’, hers is a voice of self-assurance, a strength that carries itself with quiet grace. Her pragmatism now pushes against Amal’s idealism.

In what is perhaps one of the film’s most telling scenes, Amal asks Neela why she has been ignoring him lately. “I haven’t,” Neela replies, but Amal isn’t satisfied. He prods further, until Neela replies, quick and sharp as a whip, “Your imagination is a little too much. Probably because you’re a writer.”

But Amal is quick to retort: “And so is my vision.”

This strange level of confidence in a woman obviously on the wrong side of the law confuses Amal. The film sets up a game of chess, of opposites, between a man and a woman, both trying to make sense of the world around them. If Amal observes and tries to understand Neela, he is, also, in turn observed and sized up by her.

Neela’s family members also lead double lives. Traditional markers of social order — the police officer, Neela’s boss, or the elderly, rich and influential family benefactor are upheld, in public, as figures of authority, even saviors. But they are also exposed to be predators, with a degree of subversion and subtlety which is nothing short of masterful — as the lines between savior and predator are blurred, one is made to wonder how thin the line was to begin with.

The dualities do not end here. There are intra-character dualities which further complicate them, rendering the ground beneath their feet unstable, made possible through their constant negotiations with one another. Amal, for all his convictions, has his beliefs tested through his interactions with Neela.

The film’s conclusion encapsulates this perfectly. Amal turns in Neela for her crimes, but he doesn’t do so believing that Neela is a criminal. His aim, instead, is the responsibility of reporting of a crime, not the joy of punishing a criminal. This is justice at its purest: detached and yet not dispassionate.

Neela, on the other hand, also rethinks her position. While recognising the cause for her action, she does not justify it. One’s past can be painful, but it is not, the film seems to suggest, a justification for one’s crimes.

The ending of the film, then, is a quiet doorway — it signals towards a shift from being haunted by the past to trying to taking responsibility for the present. It is filled with witty repartees between the two protagonists, but these interactions are not merely ornamental; rather, they show a constant give-and-take between characters, one learning from the other and rethinking one’s own convictions.

This, perhaps, more than anything, makes the film truly unique. Instead of the union of two protagonists, there is the negotiation of opposites. Amal’s decision is both radical — in that he turns in the woman he loves — and rooted — in that he sticks to his principles. There is no ‘happy ending’; the two protagonists move apart, painfully, but there is a silent victory of a principle. No one saves the other, but they do influence one another. Ekhane Pinjar, in the assertion that, this, here, is a cage, is a complicated invitation. The film seems to say that ‘cages’ hold both the inevitability of entrapment and the possibility of freedom.

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