Labouring their life away... (Asha Jaoar Majhe, 2014)

Have you watched Singeetam Srinivasa Rao’s National Award winning 1987 film Pushpaka Vimana? In case you haven’t I suggest you do it pronto. It’s a sharp commentary on several social anomalies as well as human behaviour that is impeccably camouflaged as an uproarious comedy. Taking into account issues of unemployment, deceit, mistrust yet presenting the negatives with dark humour, the film is actually a reckoner of the real talent of actor Kamal Hassan. It’s hilarious yet thought-provoking.

A film sans any dialogue, the narrative uses facial expressions, body actions and a fabulous background score to tell the tale of a young graduate and his exploits. How he earns a freak chance to live a rich man’s life, tries to woo a young lady using the camouflage, evades a plot for heinous murder and eventually comes clean. Well, if not for anything, watch it for the thrills of a completely different genre of cinema. A category that captures a cine lover’s mind through deft story-telling using apt sound design and drama.

And, once you’d done so, add one more National Award-winning film to your watchlist. Aditya Vikram Sengupta’s 2014 creation, Asha Jaoar Majhe (Labour of Love), starring the immensely talented Ritwick Chakraborty and Basabdutta Chatterjee. It’s streaming on Amazon so you wouldn’t have to search high and low. It’s a short story so it won’t eat into your schedule as such. But watch it you must. Because, good cinema, something that’s few and far between in India must be taken into consideration and enjoyed. To ensure that the art showcased by the artist gets its due laurel…

The film though set in a very present Bengali milieu, could be a universal happening for any generation stuck under the clutches of depressing recession. The daily grind, the rigmarole could be placed perfectly in any set up. But what makes the story relatable to a Bengali is the Calcutta scape, the architecture, the conveyance and the canvas…

Forced to live a life they live because of the economic condition, the film chronicles a day of a nameless couple who work tirelessly to sustain themselves. Now, what could be so spectacularly different in this plot, you might think. Considering this is the life of most educated lower-middle class person who uses public transport to work after finishing the daily chores at home. There is nothing, absolutely nothing remarkable in his calendar to make things not drab. But then, that is exactly what the film strives to depict. The drab existence of a life that is listless, full of toil yet hardly devoid of turmoil. The seeming calm is superfluous. The rancour, loneliness and dejection are so ingrained in these lives that it almost is a vicious cycle…

What is the couple earning for? Money. Or the modes to live a decent, respectable life. But at what

cost? When they can’t enjoy each other’s company. The only time they meet amidst the woman’s day job in a bag factory and the husband’s night shift in a printing press, is when the husband gets back home in the morning. But then, minutes later, after the couple exchange an embrace and a smile, the wife is ready for her day of hustle. The man spends the rest of the day alone in the house, before he leaves for work. The wife returns to an empty home, spending the night on an empty bed. The communication is nil, barring the missed calls both give each other when it is time for them to wake each other up from slumber…

The constant question looming large is, “Is this a life?” Reality yes. A hard one. No wonder when they both meet for a fraction, the canvas shifts to a dreamy landscape where the couple finds few seconds of bliss. A world that probably they dream of but can never land in. Because they are stuck in this world where existence is a sheer struggle. Money is a necessity. Dreams and aspirations have already been sacrificed at its altar…

I won’t tell you more about the story because I want you to watch it… It could bore you because without the dialogues you’d really have to train your ears to catch the references of hope, of dejection, of burning out, of the rigmarole, of incompleteness, of struggle, of irony and of despair through the brilliant sound design. Even though there is squalor, this is a Calcutta we must familiarise with. Mahanagar Calcutta, where millions live a life of strife, struggle and crazy hard work. The decadence is depleting and hard reality hits you badly in the face… This is the vortex of recession that we are fast heading into…

While the two films are starkly dissimilar in execution, emotions, story line and method of approach, there is a telling similarity in the depression depicted. Unemployment and deceit rule in Pushpak

while the means to stay employed form the crux of Asha Jaoar Majhe… While the first approach is dark comedy and sarcasm, the second is subtle, real yet very straight… However, I’d give it to Anish John’s brilliant sound design in Sengupta’s film that elevates the experience notches above. This is the man who did magic in Trapped, starring Rajkumar Rao. And with every film I see that showcases his work, I become a bigger fan. I’ve known Anish ever since he was in school and I am so, so proud of him…

Several montages in the film are glaringly symptomatic of the rigmarole the couple is forced to go through. The pedalling of the cycle, the getting up and down the stairs and the loud groaning of the printing press that drowns every bit of the words spoken by the humans present in the frame. The water bubbles drying in the wok before the wife pours in the oil to start cooking is a telling sign of how the young couple’s life and dreams of spending time together is evaporating because of their daily struggle…

The film also however, shows mutual respect and love between the two. Both share household responsibilities. There is understanding and we see love, through the glances they exchange for a fleeting second. If only their love was able to conquer the abject strenuous circumstance they both find themselves in…