I would highly recommend this to all of you, not for it cinematographic qualities but for a very taboo topic handled in a great manner. The Bengalis amongst y'all might appreciate it even more as the culture portrayed is urban upper middle class Bengali. Reportedly, the movie caused a big uproar amongst the upper middle class in Calcutta but surprisingly, also found many sympathisers. The movie is about a traditional middle-aged Bengali housewife (played by Rakhi) who has an affair with a young NRI on vacation in India. One of the interesting points in the movie, I found, was the ease with which Rakhi's college going daughter ridicules her (Rakhi's) traditional, dependent lifestyle but at the same time, fails to understand and/or sympathize with the mother when she tries to seek her freedom. I thought that there was a parallel between this and "Joy Luck Club" in that respect. I am not sure if I could pin-point the parallelism but it seemed that in both movies, they show how easy it is to *sound* and believe oneself to be independent and liberated (as in the case of the daughters in both movies who grow up in less constricting surroundings) as opposed to *acting* on such beliefs, which more often than not, require a higher level of retrospection, strength and maturity.

-- Veena Gondhalekar

Film description: A respectable Bengali housewife loses her heart to a visiting photographer, and what's worse, refuses to repent as the family demands.