Submitting to Simplicity

Submitting to Simplicity

A friend once asked me what my favorite movie is. I started with a list which includes best of the best movies of the world, obviously keeping Ray on the top. He then asked me to pick one (mind it- only one) and like everybody I quit the game.

Today I dared to face the challenge and started narrowing down the list. After many strikethroughs and backspaces, I ultimately safe-landed with one. Surprised to see myself surrendering to a simple movie with unpretentious humor and timeless romance.

The name of the movie is ‘Personal Assistant’ which was released in the year 1959, Directed by Chitrakar, starring Bhanu Bandopadhyay, Ruma Guha Thakurta, Tarun Kumar, Tulsi Chakraborty, Pahari Sanyal & Others. This movie is from the time when we used to have monochromatic televisions in our houses (making no difference to the picture colour), never imagined to visit a theatre and eagerly waited for the Sunday evening show with family without caring much about the box office success.

The movie features Rama[pada] Gupta, a poet cum author, who gets an assistant job in an all-female company under the management of classy rich Rumali Sen. Although they initially wanted a lady (assuming him to be a one by reading only his first name) in that post as a convenient option, they ended up choosing him as the most deserving candidate for the job with certain conditions around salary, benefits, stay and other responsibilities (like driving, supporting in person works  etc). Now, what make the story hilarious, are the two parallel subplots where- a)Rama pretends to be another lady-poet, named Minati Mitra, in order to grab the publisher’s attention [read affection] to become sensational and famous among his [read her] readers; and b)Rama has to commit a ‘piano performance’ behind the scene, banking on his typing skill, for a rich socialite couple who wants to show-off their non-existent talent to the community to gain some appreciation.  

One point of time all these subplots collide with each other and Rama finds himself in the middle of a chaotic, laugh-out-loud situation where everybody’s deceit is exposed in a public forum. Rama, being a simple, ‘politically’ honest and caring man, though not so bothered about the damage of his reputation, apprehends the embarrassment and face-loss in front of the lady whom he not only admires but also loves which by now he realizes. The film has a ‘feel good’, ‘happily ever after’ moment where Rumali forgives Rama embracing his vice and virtues.

It’s a SIMPLE rom-com movie which is hard to find these days, and if we think deeply, it’s a progressive movie also compared to its time. In one world it shows women power, unbiased hiring, in the other world it shows corruption and greed, [casting couch is a reality in publication industry too], it shows the shallowness of the rich society and depravity of the middle class. And everything is coated with the right mix of sugar. Besides no word is sufficient to describe the acting performances, all are legends in their own ways.

This movie proves  that simplicity can invoke many other emotions where in my case, always the ‘guilty pleasure’ prevails!