Parineeta (1953)

 Parineeta 1953

Chali Radhe Rani , ankhiyon main paani .........

*ring  - Ashok Kumar, Meena Kumari, Asit Baran , Nasir Hussain, Badri Prasad , Pratima Devi

Story – Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay , Music – Arun Kumar Mukherjee , Lyrics- Bharat Vyas , Direction- Bimal Roy

Narir Mulya ... The worth of a woman

Shekhar  is  to the manor born  - living in luxury provided by his parsimonious father, he also has neighbour Lalita at his beck and call. She is an orphan staying with her uncle who is deeply in debt and has five young  children to support. She flits between the two households  helping in household chores, while taking care of Shekhar’s room , food and clothes.  His  silk kurtas and Kashmir shawls are neatly lined up by her in the  cupboard. Her little cousin Annu remarks ,  “Rich people have such large wardrobes !“  and is gently hushed up by Lalita. Never  a mean thought  or a harsh word – that’s Lalita , whom Shekhar addresses as ‘ Sakshaat Annapurna ‘ in a bitter sweet interaction.

Lalita lives to please Shekhar - she doesn’t drink tea because he doesn’t like it , she tries hard to study in her spare time to keep him happy. But infringing on her personal choices , he voices his displeasure at  her  playing cards with  Manorama’s family  , her frequent visits to that household and her acquaintance with  Girin. He rebukes her for accepting Girin’s invitation to watch theatre,  prompting her to stay back home feigning sickness. Hurt at being admonished for what she hasn’t done and even more by his words laden with sarcasm , she walks away in a huff.

The Baul singer enters the narrow street of Calcutta singing this song . Lalita never lets him go without alms even if she has to fetch money from Shekhar . Her quiet resilience, faith in herself  and conviction about her actions are  juxtaposed against Shekhar’s sense of entitlement and  jealousy. In a weak moment when he is flustered at losing Lalita , he admits  “ I have unlimited fancies but no aptitude  to fulfil them. “

Lalita  remains  strong in her conviction about her marriage with Shekhar  into which she  enters albeit unknowingly and her single liner to jibes about her ‘husband’ and his act of ignoring her – ‘ I do not think about what he does.’  

 

Endnote – Bimal Roy chose Meena Kumari for Lalita’s role as she had the gentle sadness about her , which Ashok Kumar’s choice Nalini Jaywant did not . The film was an Ashok Kumar production.

The actor singing the song is Radheshyam who also acted as a Baul singer in Devdas.