Two Daughters (Dui Kanya) - (Mr Bongo Films) [1961]

The two daughters are Bengali. They are only related through the vision of Satyajit Ray, the Bengali auteur. Each is separate, inhabiting her own narrative world.The first daughter is Ratan, a local village girl aged about 10. She appears in “The Postmaster” (1961), the film based on a short story by celebrated Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. The postmaster is Nanda, perhaps 25. Not to make a pun of it, but he is posted to the local village post office by his superiors in Calcutta (Kolkata). The sudden out-of-the-blue appearance of Nanda in Ratan’s life will transform her.The second daughter is Mrinmoyee (nicknamed Puglee), a lively, beautiful girl of perhaps 16. She appears in “Samapti” (also 1961 and written by Tagore). Like Ratan, she’s a local village girl. A tomboy, she loves to play outdoors with other children, including the boys. She runs, climbs trees, swings on swing sets, plays with her pet squirrel Chorky, kissing and tickling him. She’s a free spirit, her joys expressive, her simple passions spontaneous. Amulya sees and admires her for this. Perhaps 21, he’s a student from the university in Calcutta, returning home now for a short period because his mother misses him. She wrote to him, asking him to return. She was ill and bedridden (or so she wrote). Actually, she is fine. The letter was a ruse, a ploy to have him return. His studies will continue, but they have been interrupted by an emergency that was no emergency. When Amulya discovers his mother’s deceit he’s irritated and disgusted. Mama wants him as her mama’s boy, but he wants no part of her emotional dependence and manipulation. In fact, he may have gone away to university in Calcutta to escape it. This is one interpretation.Ratan is a simple girl. She can speak but cannot read and write. Her village has no proper school and there have been few dramatic expectations for her, especially since she’s a girl. She can cook, mend, wash, sweep up. She’s reliable. A day will come, probably in teenhood, when she will marry. That is, if the family of any young man will have her, as she has no parents and dowry.Nanda arrives during the rainy monsoon season. The trees are wet, the air sticky. Mosquitoes buzz, the people perspire. Light clothing and simple fans provide some comfort. Paper or bamboo fans, that is, not electric ones. Like many other modern conveniences, there’s no electricity in the village. People get by as they always have, conjuring sustenance from limited resources.Nanda fancies himself a man of letters (again, not to make a pun of it). True, he stamps postmarks on the envelopes of letters and has them distributed to local people who can read. But the letters he truly values are his own, the letters and sentences he writes to express his poetic regard for the world. The writer’s calling is a higher one, he imagines, so in his isolation and boredom he writes verses to perpetuate this image of himself, the literate middle-class man, worldly and knowledgeable, marooned among the poor and poorly educated.Ratan is passive and obedient. Her eyes are large and searching, her voice quiet and meek. She comes with the job, it seems, servant to the postmaster. Whoever her parents were, they’re now gone. She’s orphaned to the village and postmaster. His role is partially to protect and provide for her. He will also expand his role by becoming her patron, teaching her to read and write. Self-interest and boredom partly account for these obligations. Ratan becomes a pet project of his, a way of keeping idleness and ennui at bay. But for her it is something else: a new world of adventure, an opportunity, an engagement beyond the menial, a chance for better and meaningful things to learn and understand.Ratan’s emotions are the main emotional force in the narrative. We experience the story through her. Although she is not outwardly expressive, we feel her inner joy, her quiet sense of discovery. We see it in her eyes and smile, and in the way she moves, her step light and graceful. A new beauty is upon her, the camera faithful to it, her joy made to sparkle, the light on her face exquisite. She also sings her happiness to her master, her modest child’s voice beautiful.But Ratan for Nanda is not the only thing. She’s a projection of self-interest. He delights in being bookish and teacherly. He wears his sense of superiority proudly, his books and learning and speech all expressions of it. Yet this pride has limitations; it can’t be worn so well among people unable to grasp the reasons for it. His poetic insights go unseen among those unaware of his hidden talents.So he needs additional diversions, anything to take his mind off his banishment to the provinces. Luckily, some villagers are musicians. They play traditional instruments and sing. Does it matter they play badly and sing off-key for him? When he grimaces we think so, but the alternative of silence seems even worse, so he smiles and pretends to enjoy what he hears. The villagers seem proud too — proud to have this man of letters among them, this bookish, worldly man who uses polysyllabic words and who wants to be entertained by their humble music.But one man in the village is unimpressed. He shows Nanda no special regard. He’s the village idiot, the local madman. He sits in the dirt and swings a stick about. He laughs and sneers at Nanda, treating him like a dog, shouting at him when he feels like it, which is often. Nanda is spooked, gives him a wide berth. The old conundrum in life and literature: who is the fool, the one who laughs or the one who is laughed at? Nanda can’t be sure, so he’s rattled, unsettled by the heckling, an area of doubt forming in the back of his mind.He falls ill. He is feverish, the malaria virus having entered his bloodstream. Some quinine is provided as medicine. Ratan nurses her master. She fans him, wipes his forehead and cheeks with a cold cloth. She’s steady and diligent, will not leave his side. The fever breaks. He pulls through. She is proud and happy for bringing him back to health.But irony is never far afield in life. Shortly after recovering he resigns his post. His request to his superiors in Calcutta for a transfer has been turned down. No longer can he handle the isolation, mosquitoes, madman, malaria, lack of literary conversation. He can’t be allowed to squander his talents forever in the decay of jungle heat. A young man filled with ambition has to meet a different future. He belongs back in the metropolis. Even his superiors understand this.Ratan does not. The circumference of her world is small. With Nanda here now she can scarcely remember a time when he was not present. Or she won’t allow herself to remember. His resignation is tragic for her, a devastation. We see it as she does. He doesn’t. He looks through it. Or, more properly, he sees it, recognises her sorrow, but doesn’t think to wonder why it’s there.The man of letters, of worldly wisdom, is blind to truths as if they were not there. So he will go forth with his pride and books and self-importance and remember little of what he could have learned as postmaster in the village.~ • ~ • ~ • ~Pride is different with the mother of Amulya. Her son may be a student, also a man of letters and knowledge, but above all he is her boy, her son. Her pride in life comes from this idea. Others see this pride and understand why she feels it as a mother. Not all families in the village have sent sons to university. Not all are as clever and successful as Amulya. The family is recognised by his merits of character and achievement, so Mama holds her head high among the others.But there is a problem. Amulya must marry. To have a good future he cannot remain single. It’s high time he should be thinking seriously about this. The days of wayward, self-indulgent bachelorhood are coming to an end, his independence secondary to the needs of the family. Thus the search for a suitable bride is on, Mama’s shopping list leading to alliances with certain local families. Girls are found and presented. They sing, play instruments, sew and knit nicely. Amulya is forced to be present for their performances and testimonials. He protests to no avail, looking distinctly ill. This in turn makes Mama ill. How can this boy, this good son, be so selfish, stubborn, wilful? How can he not love his mother after all the sacrifices she has made for him?Mrinmoyee! What? Has he lost his mind? Tell me you are joking! The tomboy who plays with squirrels? I will try to forget how you tormented me with such a thought.But Amulya knows his own mind. He has the radical thought that his own happiness in love is more important than his mother’s. He loves what he sees. Mrinmoyee’s physical beauty is obvious. She’s shapely, has long hair, high cheekbones, deep-set round eyes ringed by dark kohl. She wears bangles and jewellery. Her manners? Of course she’s wild, not ladylike. She loves to play, not study. She likes practical jokes. She laughs freely. She’s robust. She’s a free spirit, wild and independent. No use trying to explain to Mama why these traits matter to Amulya. They just do. He sees what nobody else sees. Not his mother. Not others. Not even what Mrinmoyee sees. She can’t, unable to value what others can’t either. She’s confused by his love. Plus she sees him as a prison — duty, fidelity, dependence, marriage, motherhood. She watches Chorky her squirrel suffer in his cage. She cries for him and herself, oppressed by adult thoughts she’s too young to understand and accept. She wants the world — its trees, streams, meadows and mountains — not duty and devotion. She wants the joys she has always known and passionately expressed, the same joys, paradoxically, that make Amulya love her with his confining love. She’s not ready to grow up.But girlhood to womanhood is a bridge that must be crossed. That bridge for Mrinmoyee is Amulya. She looks at him fearfully, hesitantly, uncertainly. How can she cross it?In Satyajit Ray’s exquisite cinema we shall see. The camera lingers. Shots are long and kept still. Dissolves are slow. Nuance is everything, keys to deeper emotion. We are told little, shown much. It’s up to us to be sensitive, empathetic, receptive. It’s up to us to look and understand. This is the world of adulthood, cinema made for the mature. Ray believes we will have the patience and intelligence to understand, and so do we when we look with care.

These two films are wonderful, but why oh Why was this DVD released without the third story? It's like releasing a serial without the middle episodes. I want to see THREE Daughters, not TWO daughters. It seems ridiculous to have not just held release until the subtitles were complete and smacks of greed for income being put before preserving artistic integrity. I saw this many years ago when British TV held a Satyajit Ray season, so I know that there is a version out there somewhere which has subtitles for all three stories, and the missing story is a haunting gem. Therefore I will not be buying this DVD and would advise any customers to demand a complete version.

Two stories by Tagore, one longer by about half an hour, portraying relationships between educated young men and two very different 'daughters'. It is beautifully photographed and well scripted as well as being expertly acted. The action takes place in muddy-looking rural Bengal with haunting music by the director himself. There is a great focus on the faces of the protagonists which makes the film hugely enjoyable as a piece of very poetic 'Art' Cinema.

Made right after the completion of The Apu Trilogy had brought him worldwide renown, these two outstanding movies by Satyajit Ray are inspired by his mentor, the Nobel Prize-winning author Rabindranath Tagore and are set in Bengali villages.The sharp, often very funny Two Daughters was made to mark the centenary of Tagore's birth and tells two stories of relationships between educated men and simple village girls. It reveals Ray's shrewd eye for the often pompous, self-deceiving conduct of Indian intellectuals and his unpatronising compassion for the dignity of village life.