Thursday, October 09, 2008

Shubho Bijoya!


Last evening, after much deliberation over the titles from my library, I picked up Ray’s classic, ‘Devi’, unaware of the coincidence of it all.

The movie, based on a short story by Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhya, is set in 19th century Bengal and deals with highly prevalent superstition system in India. It begins with Shubho Bijoya and throughout the movie Maa Durga is main protagonist along with a very young and virginal Sharmila Tagore in her first major role; and Ray’s regular Soumitra Sen. Durga, in Hindu mythology is the demon-fighting form of Lord Shiva’s wife. Despite all my temptations, I’m not going to give away the plot as it will spoil the fun of those who haven’t seen this classic yet.

Today morning, I woke up to hear and see the celebrations of Vijay Dashmi across India, on NDTV. I began smiling to myself. Away from the country, I had completely forgotten about today’s significance.

Because I have a bit of Bengali blood in me I’d like to wish all of you in the typical Bengali manner. Shubho Bijoya Dashumi!

ps: thats the poster of the movie

10 comments:

Brown Weed said...

i'd seen the movie during the Ray-fest on Zee (wonder what's filled the Sunday 3pm slot these days). but yes, deadly movie - uptil the very last shot.

so your library is stocked with all these classics? quite different from mumbai, no?

meraj said...

last Sunday, it was this Ivory-Merchant movie called 'Shakespearewaala'. couldnt watch.

Bhaskar Khaund said...

to you too , shoms ...hope pooja didnt have to switch from biryani to bhetki without a pause for breath :-)
havent watched Devi , must do so - picked up quite a few Rays (among others)this desh trip...btw , watched Amir yesterday - superbly done !

meraj said...

naah...she couldnt as she was in Trivandrum :) just got in today.

Amir is good? let me give it a shot...guess its available here.

phish said...

belated shubho bijoya to you too. finally found the time to come and break some seconds here. hope you doing good.

Anonymous said...

I was intrigued, so went to check out IMDB, and now am more intrigued. I'm asking my husband to add this to our Netflix queue.

Thanks.

And, shubho bijoya!

meraj said...

thats great! am sure you will enjoy Devi.

and its sweet of you to extend the wishes.

alien said...

nothing in particular I was just watching a show on television and they were showing MICA which i thought was not justification to the institute as i had a different picture and I thought I'll ask you to share some memories.

meraj said...

will do so, alien. let me try and recollect how things were 10 years ago :)

Strip Poker said...

Also what in that case it is necessary to do?