Chokher Bali ( Bengali: চোখের বালি Cast: Prasenjit Aishwarya Rai Raima Sen Lily Chakravarty Tota Roy Chowdhury Tina Dutta Chokher Bali ( Bengali: চোখের বালি; literally translated to "sand in the eye", figuratively to "constant irritant") is a Bengali drama film based on the novel Chokher Bali by Rabindranath Tagore. It was directed by Rituparno Ghosh in 2003 and stars Prasenjit as Mahendra, Aishwarya Rai as Binodini and Raima Sen as Ashalata. Ashalata and Binodini refer to each other as Chokher Bali. The other major characters are played by Lily Chakravarty (as Rajlakshmi, Mahendra's mother) and Tota Roy Chowdhury (as Behari, Rajlakshmi's adopted son). The film was later dubbed into Hindi and was released internationally in that language. Upon release, Chokher Bali met with positive critical and box office reception. Chokher Bali won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Bengali and was nominated for the Golden Leopard (Best Film) award at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2003. The film screened at the 34th International Film Festival of India on October 19. It was the Official Selection at the Chicago International Film Festival in 2003 and was showcased in over 25 international festivals including the Toronto International Film Festival, London Film Festival, Palm Springs, Karlovy Vary and Washington DC International Film Festival besides winning the Apsara Film Producers' Award for the Best Regional Film 2004. Aishwarya Rai had won the Best Actress award at the Anandalok Awards 2003. Plot:Binodini is a young girl who is left to her own devices when her sickly husband dies soon after their marriage. She returns to her village and lives there for a couple of months until she sees one of her relatives passing by. Binodini hails the woman and the two sons agree that it would be best if Binodini came to live with the woman and her son, Mahendra. (Mahendra was one of the first to see Binodini's photo when she was unwed yet refused her on account of his being "unready for marriage.") When the two arrive, Mahendra and his new bride are constantly sneaking off to be alone together. This infatuation does not last long, and Mahendra soon begins to see that Binodini is more his type. An affair starts between Mahendra and Binodini, and this is soon revealed to Ashalata. Asha, unaware of her pregnancy, leaves for Kashi. Binodini, after realizing the self-obsessed personality of Mahendra, leaves Mahedra's house. She pleads with Behari to marry her, but Behari, true to his values, rejects her offer. Binodini leaves the town for her village. She writes a letter to Behari that she'll be waiting for him in Kashi. As she is leaving for Kashi, Mahendra comes to mend their relations, which she refuses. Instead she makes him promise to take her to Behari. At Kashi, Binodini meets Behari who, after some incidents, agrees to marry her. On the day of marriage Binodini vanishes, leaving a letter for Asha. The story details the lives of these three and Mahendra's best friend as they deal with issues such as distrust, adultery, lies, and falling-out. Music: The film's background score is by Debojyoti Mishra and, notably, it contains no playback singing. Sreela Majumdar dubbed for Aishwarya Rai and Sudipta Chakraborty dubbed for Raima Sen. Culture In olden days in Bengal, women and girls who were best friends would often set a common nickname for themselves and address each other by that name. In this story, two friends Binodini and Ashalata call each other 'Chokher Bali.' Subtitled a ‘A Passion Play’, Rituparno Ghosh’s Chokher Bāli based on the Tagore novel of the same title, seeks to portray the natural yet socially forbidden desires of a widow, ironically called Binodini, a name that often recurs in Vaishnav Kirtan, connoting ‘sensuous’ and ‘pleasure-loving’. Binodini refuses to die a virgin and hence she moves from Mahendra to Bihari seeking consummation of her sexual desires. In the process, Binodini comes across as promiscuous, impudent, and manipulative. In this way, Tagore defamiliarizes the image of a widow who is traditionally supposed to submit herself unquestioningly to the dictates of a patriarchal society, one which has also feared female sexuality and felt the need to control it by every possible means. Western Feminism as academics understands it today was yet to take shape when Tagore was writing, so his ideas on the subject are unique to him. But Ghosh’s film, located within modern feminist discourses, is much more iconoclastic. (Collected From Wikipedia)

• published: 18 Aug 2015
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