In the 1980s, thanks to hushed whispers, the then-prurient ‘Adults Only’ tag and suggestive publicity stills, Aparna Sen’s Paroma was regarded as, by impressionable youngsters at least, a lurid production about an unrepentant adulteress. One imagined a cinematic outing in which the carryings-on assumed Last Tango in Paris proportions, the Brando vehicle being another film we weren’t yet allowed to watch.
When I chanced upon a copy of Paroma much later in life, I braced myself for a meditation on the tormented sexuality of a cloistered woman. In the film, Rakhee played Paroma, a middle-aged housewife who serves as subject for an expat photographer (a rakish Mukul Sharma) looking for an India-themed pictorial for Life magazine.
I was surprised to find the central transgression—an impassioned encounter between the two—fleeting at best; a flicker in the dark that awakened a woman’s sensual pulse, setting into motion the chain of events that would lead to her self-actualisation.
A homage
The film, made in both Bengali and Hindi, was a homage to a certain kind of woman. From the moment we enter the sprawling household of a Bengali joint family in the midst of fervent puja festivities, Paroma is placed at the centre of the universe, surrounded by children, cousins, aunts. Sen doesn’t seem judgemental of these trappings, and the casting of Rakhee seemed like a masterstroke.
There is a regal, if naïve, power she commands, and her beauty has a gravitas to it that is never reductive. The photo-essay featured in the magazine is a sight for sore eyes, full of exotic stills of Rakhee wearing saris with red borders draped Bengali-style, deep red bindi on her forehead. One particular frame is especially intimate, laying bare Paroma’s clandestine tryst to her family, dislodging her irrevocably from the unbidden pedestal erected for her (and her kind).
While Paroma is regretful about momentarily breaking free from the moral shackles that bind her, she possesses none of the self-loathing that other ‘fallen’ women of cinema exhibit. The infractions of unwed mothers and mistresses become taints on their character but Paroma’s guilelessness lingers on.
Breaking the mould
The kind of work Rakhee was associated with had cast her in a certain mould. She played upright women in Kala Pathar , Trishul and Tapasya with aplomb. In Humkadam , a remake of Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar , she is the homemaker-turned-career woman. Her entire output as an actress appeared to be building towards her turn in Paroma , and Sen is able to extract a performance of breathtaking dignity.
Lost in the noise
Of course, we have seen over the years how Sen delineates her women so affectionately. She loves her actors, and the women they portray: Raima Sen in The Japanese Wife , Jennifer Kapoor in 36, Chowringhee Lane, or Rituparna Sengupta in Paromitar Ek Din .
Her films were never technical marvels, but owned a certain purity of emotion. In most cases, Sen gently suggested an escape into more progressive realms but not all her heroines took the bait. Yet, they were tender and real. It’s a pity that collective memory has been swamped with a rewritten history of cinema in which the oeuvre of thinking filmmakers like Sen is lost in the noise.
