Satyajit Ray’s 1964 film ‘Charulata’ has been defined by him as the film with the ‘least flaws’. It is an adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore’s novella titled Nastanirh (The Broken Nest), published in 1901. Set in 1879, the movie revolves around the character of Charulata, the young wife of newspaper editor Bhupati. In an upper-middle-class family in colonial Calcutta, Charulata is bored and listless throughout the day, while her much older husband spends his days working for his newspaper. He invites Charu’s brother Umpada and her sister-in-law Mandakini (Manda) to keep her company, but Charu is still dissatisfied. The story shows the slow companionship that develops between Charu and Bhupati’s younger brother Amal, who is closer to her age and interested in the same things as her. Bhupati realizes Charu’s romantic feelings for Amal after he leaves, and their relationship no longer remains the same. Charulata has been praised by Bengali and global film scholars alike for its feminist portrayal of a 19th-century Bengali woman and her desire outside of marriage.

While Tagore’s Nastanirh focuses more on the aspects of Bhupati and Charu’s relationship, Ray’s adaptation of the story focuses, as the name suggests, on Charulata. It is her desires, her interests, and her relationship with the world that are explored in the film. For this reason, Charulata is hailed as “reversing the male operative gaze”, epitomized in the frame from the film where Madhabi Mukherjee’s character is holding a pair of opera glasses and looking out the window. Despite the cinematic liberties taken by Ray, critics agree that both Ray and Tagore’s versions of the story were largely progressive and reflective of the Bengal Renaissance and its views on female empowerment.

 However, I argue that neither Ray nor Tagore truly did justice to female empowerment or the portrayal of progressive women in 19th-century Bengal because of their ignorance of a crucial character, Manda. Charu’s sister-in-law was written by Tagore as a dull woman who couldn’t keep up with Charu’s intellectual pursuits. Ray also carried forward this characterization of Manda, by writing her in his notes as ‘Umapada’s wife’ and only referring to her through Amal or Charu’s banter and fights. By analyzing Tagore’s Nastanirh and Ray’s kheror khata (red notebook) notes on Charulata, I show how they disregard Manda’s character as being illiterate and only interested in housework. This characterization of Manda, however^, also serves to highlight Charu’s worldly progressive values in contrast.

So, while neither portrayals do justice to Manda’s character or her background, they also only show Charu’s character traits as good in comparison to Manda’s. The progressive and empowering portrayal of Charu that the film is lauded for would not exist were it not for the existence of Manda’s conservative values.

 

What I am essentially looking at in this paper through my primary source is the vantage point from which both Tagore and Ray approached their version of Charulata/Nastanirh. The theme through which I am analysing their texts is progressive female characters. I chose to look at my paper through the lens of ‘vantage point’ because it is the point of view of Rabindranath Tagore and Satyajit Ray to which I attribute the dismissal of Manda’s story – the characters and their actions are not independent of the author’s own point of view regarding the world and regarding the story. Tagore wrote the original story, but Ray’s screenplay too reflects the point of view he brought to the story half a decade after it was published. I look at Tagore’s characterisation of Manda as intellectually inferior and Ray’s contribution to her invisibilisation against the backdrop of 19th century Bengali Renaissance with respect to womens’ rights and female empowerment. 

Tagore’s Nastanirh - Competition Between Charu and Manda

 Tagore’s story describes the sexual “blossoming” of Charu as going unnoticed by Bhupati, her husband who was too busy running a revolutionary newspaper in the heyday of pre-Independence politics in Bengal. While Bhupati worked on the newspaper with Umapada, Charu’s brother, he called for his wife Mandakini to keep Charu company. This did not work however, since Charu was portrayed to have a ‘natural propensity for reading’, while Manda, it was said did not possess the ‘quality of imagination’. Casting off Manda as too dull, Charu turned to Bhupati’s cousin Amal for companionship. Amal was also someone who noticed and actively demanded Charu’s attention. She got used to him and cherished the exclusive bond they shared.

Tagore wrote of how Manda initially dismissed Amal due to the added housework he brought on, and was unable to say anything because Charu liked him, and she was the woman of the house. We see in Tagore’s story itself the establishment of Manda as the inferior woman — not merely in intellect and taste, but also in her position in the household. Women in upper-caste Bengali households were bound by the status of their husbands, and as Bhupati was the editor and Umapada his assistant, Charu too enjoyed a superior status in the house as compared to Manda.

 Tagore was writing at a moment when the Bengal Renaissance was in full swing, and issues of widow remarriage, girl education, and equal rights for women at home were being discussed by progressive men such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Tagore,and Satyendra Nath Bose. Tagore’s story, then can be cast in the light of the liberal, secular traits of the Bengal Renaissance that valued well-educated, cultural women – like Tagore’s protagonist.

Yet Tagore never failed to pit the two women against each other, especially in competing for Amal’s affection and attention. Initially, Manda was shown as uninterested in Amal’s writing, which was something Charu and he bonded over. But gradually,she too began to be an avid listener, leading Charu to express jealousy and occasionally chide Manda for not being literate enough. “What interest could you possibly have in Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay?” Charu once asks Manda as Amal sits down to recite to them.

Ray’s Charulata 

Satyajit Ray was famous for the extensive notes and storyboards he made for all his films. They were an insight into his mind and his directing style, as he often wrote down not just the screenplay but the cast, the locations and set designs, even scribbled some potential ideas for posters of his films.

In his notebook for Charulata, he spends the first 5 pages outlining his visual scenes for the movie. It is an attempt to write down the storyline and important characters, their relationships to one another, and the scenes where they interact. I analyse this initial rough screenplay of Ray’s for my paper. There are two reasons why I am choosing to look at this screenplay as evidence of Ray’s point of view - firstly, since it appears in the first few pages of his notebook, it indicates his germinating ideas for the film as a whole. Secondly, as we know it is an adaptation of Tagore’s story, I see the first outline of the screenplay to be the fullest version of Ray’s interpretation. It is the first available evidence we have of Tagore’s story written from Ray’s point of view, and therefore captures his vantage point vis-a-vis Tagore.

As someone who adapted three of Tagore’s texts into films, Satyajit Ray has had considerable experience translating the author’s work into the cinematic space. In terms of changes and dissimilarities in his work and Tagore’s, he has himself admitted that “cinema and literature are two separate art forms and some changes are inevitable”. We can infer from this that Ray put active effort into truly adapting the story, instead of just lifting it from Tagore’s text and using it intact. We also see examples of other stories of Tagore that Ray adapts into films, and changes certain aspects like the endings, the characters’ arcs and traits.

I therefore analyse Satyajit Ray’s initial screenplay of Charulata as his perspective of Tagore’s story and the characters, scenes, and relationships he considers important. On page 5 of his notes, he starts by noting the ‘uneasy equilibrium’ between Bhupati and Charu. Page 5 also establishes Charu and Amal’s relationship as ‘the bond of companionship and reading-writing’. Manda is mentioned once as Bhupati’s solution to Charu’s boredom – “Invite Manda over”.

Ray only mentions Manda in this initial screenplay in relation to either Amal or Charu. There’s a line on her dismissal of Amal, and another of her listening to his poetry and Charu looking on. Much like Tagore, Ray too constructs Manda’s character only as antithetical to all that Charu stood for. While in Tagore’s story Charu’s inner monologue shows her jealousy of Manda and Amal’s growing relationship, in Ray’s screenplay he mentions a scene between Bhupati and Charu where she asks him to “send Manda away, she is misbehaving with Amal” (Ray and Sinha 1964).

Prachina O Nobina – The 19th Century Bengali Woman

 The crux of Ray’s interpretation of Manda and Charu’s characters though ,is in one line in his screenplay on page 7, where Ray writes that Amal compares Manda and Charu as “Nabina and Prachina” or new and traditional.

This distinction or this dialogue does not exist in the original text by Tagore. It is Ray’s own addition, and can be read as his own layer of analysis of the relationship between them.

‘New and traditional’ were the two categories used by some Bengali authors during the 19th century to distinguish between the modern and the conservative woman. ‘Prachina O Nabina’ (the Old and the New Woman) was the title of a famous essay by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, which spoke of women's empowerment and the need to evolve from the regressive age to the new one. The essay spoke of the new educated Bengali woman – intellectual, cultured, the pitome of Bengali renaissance.

At the same time, it spoke of the good values of the old (‘Prachina’) Bengali woman that are now disappearing. Bankim and his contemporaries mourned the dutiful Bengali wife who obeyed her husband and considered marriage pious. In the new age of education and increased opportunities for women, she has now become lazy and uninterested, not caring for her duties towards her home. The ‘dangers’ of the new woman are also warned against in the essay by Bankim, who nevertheless reiterates his support for female empowerment.

Ray’s utilisation of Bankim’s essay in the screenplay of Charulata is telling of his visualisation of the two female characters in the story. He, and through him Amal, sees Charu and Manda as the manifestations of the Prachina O Nobina essay by Bankim. Whereas Charu, the young beautiful, and educated titular character who is interested in intellectual pursuits and literature, represents the best of the new Bengali woman, Manda is the dull, uninterested wife who does not understand cultural affairs and represents the dangers of the new-age woman. 

Charu and Manda as Reflections of Each Other 

Satyajit Ray, on occasion, has been commended for refusing to ‘stereotype his women’ in films and providing them with a sense of purpose. In his adaptations, he also recognises the role played by time and modifies his stories and characters accordingly. His film Charulata has thus been praised for taking Tagore’s decades-old story and transforming it to reflect the sensibilities of the 1960s. 

Ray was still seen as a forward-thinking director in his period, and he did bring Charulata’s character out of the dome of shame and guilt that Tagore had placed her in.

By changing the title itself, Ray changes his interpretation from Tagore’s and shows that his focus is not on the broken nest of Bhupati and Charu’s marriage but on Charulata’s personal journey and battles.  

It can be inferred that Ray wanted to go beyond merely directing a story on a broken marriage, and actually reflect on the characters’ motivations and allow them the space to be self-aware.

His attempts at setting Charulata apart from other female protagonists are visible in his introduction of Charu as someone interested in ‘reading-writing’. He allows her character the space to feel hurt and justifies it by mentioning that Charu sees Amal reading to Manda.

He also humanises the character of Amal that Tagore has shown as childish and demanding; Ray’s Amal is much more likable since he’s seen sharing his interest of literature with Manda, and displaying confusion when Manda and Umapada suddenly leave (Ray and Sinha 1964). 

Yet Ray fails to accord the same level of empathy and self-awareness to the role of Manda. There is no mention of her background that might explain her lack of awareness of literary matters, nor is there an attempt to humanise her actions with regards to Amal.

Rather than exploring the other woman in Tagore’s story, he too shuts her off as a side character that either serves to enhance Charu’s appeal or bear Charu’s jealousy.

 In Tagore’s Nastanirh, the main reason Charu starts writing is in an attempt to show herself as different from Manda to Amal. Same in the film. Ray’s notes on Page 5 end with a scene where Charu sees Manda offering Amal paan. Page 7 starts with Charu starting to write for the first time.

In their attempts at adding depth to the character of Charu, the author and the director often just show her competition with Manda and her value as contrasted to Manda's.

Neither woman is independently well-rounded with motivations of her own. Manda’s interest in household work and making paan is regular for women of a certain class in 19th-century Bengal, yet it is highlighted as inferior when compared to Charu’s more interesting pursuits.

Their relationship with each other and with Amal only offers us half of a view: Manda exists as a foil to Charu, and Charu exists as a counter to Manda.

  

Scholars would tend to disagree with my interpretation, and I acknowledge that there are other sources like interviews with Satyajit Ray that could probably give me a deeper understanding of his thought process. Even a longer analysis of his notes on Charulata might provide a different perspective, however, these notes are currently in the process of being transcribed, and there are currently no transcribed and translated versions of Satyajit Ray’s notes available online. The translation used in this essay has been done by Professor Arunava Sinha of Ashoka University.