36 Chowringhee Lane - An Eve inspiring Movie

36  Chowringhee  Lane  -  An Eve inspiring Movie

Aparna  Sen

 In this International Woman’s Day  -  March 8, 2015   -   I thought of awarding rich tribute to two women particularly and another woman to some extent for their invaluable contribution to the film “36 Chowringhee Lane” a 1981 Indian film in English language.   Being a sensitive and sentimental person that I am, this movie has touched and stirred the bottom of my heart and pulled the strings of my sentimental chord.

 

The debutant Director  Aparna Sen has done a brilliant job with the film “36 Chowringhee Lane”.  The central pivotal character of the film Violet Stoneham, an old Anglo-Indian Christian teacher, the immortal role excellently essayed by Jennifer Kendal.   These two women deserve high accolade for their role play in making this film artistically an acclaimed one and a timeless wonder.  The third woman, is the female lead player,  tall and ravishing Bengali beauty Debashree Roy as Nandita, an ex-student of Violet Stoneham.  These three women collectively amassed kudos for making this film a memorable one.  My heart goes out to present high notations to these wonderful women in this International Woman’s Day, after almost 35 years since the release of the film.

While we celebrate the International Woman’s Day today, I wish equality, empowerment and emancipation of women in the world.

The film is produced by Bollywood actor, director, producer Shashi Kapoor the real life husband of Jennifer Kendal and an accomplished Bollywood Kapoor clan being the youngest scion of Bollywood actor Prithviraj Kapoor.

The art direction of the film is done by Bansi Chandragupta who died due to heart attack during the making of this film and the movie is dedicated to him.

Ashok Mehta with his brilliant  Cinematography and Vanraj Bhatia, the music composer who  gives a haunting background score  both deserves a mention in making this film a huge success.

36 Chowringhee Lane the name was originated from the address, a small apartment located on a small street in Kolkotta, in which Violet Stoneham lived close to the famous cricket ground Eden Gardens, Kolkotta.   The other important landmarks to the house being High Court and the Governor’s residence.

The film won Golden Lotus in  National film awards for Best Direction, and best feature film in English and best cinematography.  Jennifer Kendal was nominated for Best Actress award in BAFTA Awards and won best actress award in 1982 Evening Standard British Film Awards (UK).

Miss Stoneham’s brother Eddie portrayed by Geoffrey Kendal who is the real life father of Jennifer Kendal.

I was literally blown away by the performance of Jennifer Kendal as the school teacher Violet Stoneham.  She was kind, caring and unsuspectingly loving towards her former student Nandita and her author boyfriend Samaresh, Dhirtiman Chatterjee. The sequences in which the teacher comes to know that the couple exploited her goodness is deeply touching and unforgettable.  The lonely and recluse life of the teacher and her pet kitten and the antique nature of her house is artistically directed.

The pre-marital sex was a taboo in Indian society when this film was made.  Aparna Sen has portrayed the same with nonchalance, ease and finesse.  Calcutta now known as  Kolkotta has a cosmopolitan young culture, well versed with the west.

The central character of the movie being an Anglo-Indian teacher, Violet Stoneham, I would like to share few words about the Anglo-Indian Christian community.  Miss Stoneham loved the country she was born in and treats everyone with kindness.

Anglo-Indian Christian community

   

Anglo-Indian was  a class created by the ruling British.  They were Christian and well educated.  The colonial masters needed  this class as much as the Anglo-Indian class needed them. 

They were given jobs in Civil Service, Army, Customs, Railways and plum Government jobs.  When India became independent this privilege was withdrawn.  These jobs were thrown open to the wider populace.

Post India's independence, this community nurtured a dream to migrate to London, UK.  After the end of British Empire in India, most of the Anglo Indian's  left India and settled in UK, USA and Australia.

Now, I would like to present a SYNOPSIS of the movie here -

Violet Stoneham, an Anglo-Indian school teacher who teaches Shakespeare to  un-attentive students, lives a secluded lonely life in a small apartment on a small street located in Kolkotta.  Her niece who used to live with her got married and gone abroad leaving behind Violet Stoneham in recluse.  Her brother Eddie aged and ailing harbored in a shelter home for old age people.   She visits him quite often with biscuits and cake.  Stoneham lost her betrothed David in a war and remained a spinster. 

One day in her uneventful life, one of her former student Nandita stumbles upon her.  She introduce her author boyfriend Samaresh to Miss Stoneham and they became a company.  After spending few joyful days together, Nandita suggests that the couple does not have a haven to pursue the writing of a novel by Samaresh.  The kind, caring and unsuspectingly loving Miss Stoneham immediately offers them her house for the literary pursuits while she was away in School.  The couple pampers the teacher in their joyful company and at the same time exploits her goodness by using her apartment for their pre-marital sexual escapades when she was not around.  Miss Stoneham treats them as her own family members and loves them the most and enjoy their nearness.  Miss Stoneham was exploited by the young lovers and made her home a lovers nest. When she comes to know the camaraderie of Nandita and Samaresh in an embrace and kissing due to the partially opened door when she returned from the school, she feels cheated by them.  

 After sometime Nandita and Samaresh gets married and moves in to a posh residence presented to her by her father as a wedding gift.  Samaresh was well employed and enjoyed rich clientele as friends.

In the meantime Eddie dies in the old age home and leaves Miss Stoneham all alone.

One Christmas Day, Miss Stoneham wanted to visit the young couple with a cake specially baked for them by her and seeks their appointment.   The couple avoids the teacher with an excuse that they are out of town on that day.  However, Miss Stoneham decides to drop the cake at their residence and reaches there to find to her utter dismay  that the couple was celebrating a party with their friends and loved ones.  This shatters Miss Stoneham and quietly she departs from the scene and sits in a public park with a stray dog for her company.  The movie ends with the frame of Miss Stoneham walks away with the packed cake followed by a sniffer stray dog who smelt the sweetness of the cake.

The movie belongs to Aparna Sen who has written the screenplay and directed the film and Jennifer Kendal for her sensitive and brilliant performance as the teacher Miss Stoneham.  Jennifer Kendal is astonishing as Violet Stoneham, a woman who is lonely but in spite of that, is never embittered, being very lovely, kind, caring and positive.  With heartbreaking anguish, touching vulnerability and total warmth and authenticity Jennifer Kendal brings Violet Stoneham to life in a heartfelt performance that tugs at the heartstrings and resonates in memory long after the film is over.   This could be the greatest gift her real life husband Shashi Kapoor, the producer of the film, could have given to her.

The individual as a trace of a colonial past – living in a particular commonly known address of a nostalgic metropolis – succeeds to send us a universal appeal of anybody in the periphery of any society.  The intensity of loneliness has been unfolded by amazingly sensitive details of the daily existence of Violet Stoneham. 

The surrealist treatment of past and unconscious in representations of dream, love, pain and fear of death of lonely English individual introduces the Indian spectators to a different film language.  It helps them visualizing an exotic theme growing out of their own cultural space. 

Aparna Sen starts of like a seasoned campaigner in her debutant Director’s role.  She has carefully crafted the characters in this film and evoked a spirited performance from the cast. The Christmas Carol song "Silent night, Holy night" is well picturised.   Aparna Sen scores big time as she unfolds and illustrates with detailed delicacy Violet Stoneham’s lonely present and rich past, which is sensitive, absorbing and lifelike.  Aparna Sen makes this film really easy to relate to, building a serene narrative style that creates a thought provoking, quietly powerful picture. Technically the movie is stupendous.

 Aparna Sen’s direction is unparalleled and extraordinaire.