The Lonely Wife

'Charulata' (1964), the film by Satyajit Ray, based on a short story by Rabindranath Tagore, was called in 'The Lonely Wife' in English. I noted this when I was too young to understand the complex and mature facets of the tale, the ten year old boy that I was, and possibly the loneliness of Charu, the 19th Century Bengali middle-class housewife in the film (played by Madhabi Mukherjee) was something I could understand. I even told an adult family member, sometime after watching the film on television, that it was my favorite film and got rebuked, maybe the person dismissed it as something entirely precocious. How could a young boy understand a woman's experiencing of an emotional and psychological void? And what about the simmering sexual tension? I didn't, of course. But I did find the projection of my own loneliness, my longing, that I could not put a finger upon, that I could never articulate. I even tried reading the original short story by Tagore, stealthily, soon after, and this time it seemed hard to fathom, the literary expressions. Now, after so many years, looking back, it's crystal clear why. Ray's sublime visual storytelling had worked its magic upon the impressionable kid. 'Charulata' is thus hailed by many as Ray's best film, as the moving images - along with the brilliant musical score composed by Ray - conveys the entire gamut of emotions. Cinema is, after all, the art of visual storytelling, and it reaches even the most innocent and immature viewer in ways that are not much explored. It resonates deep, and makes strange inroads to our psyche. Today marks the 100th anniversary of the maestro; the cinema of Satyajit Ray shall be celebrated for as long as cinema survives.