Nowadays Radhika Apte is a name on everyone's lips and you find her to be the face of online media streaming in our land. Netflix perhaps has been rightly rechristened as Radflix by many. Let's go back by a few years now, a decade to be precise. 23rd of January, 2009 was the date we got the first glimpse of wide-eyed, then demure Apte on the silver screen, the movie was Antaheen. The unspoken softness that one associates with her Brinda, a suitable Bengali adjective for that perhaps would be স্নিগ্ধতা, still resonates very much in our minds. Let's talk about Antaheen a bit more now.
Many of you may be wondering that 23rd of Jan, was a few months back (and that most of us have had enough of the year since, eagerly awaiting for Pujo now), then why talk about Antaheen now?
The answer to that would be the coming of the rains. I associate Antaheen with the rains, of the drops of rain, that drip unceasingly on the glass panes, of your homes, cabs or lids of the eye. Hence I believe the late or even nonexistent arrival of the monsoon can be blamed for me writing this piece this late, the wait for me too has been Antaheen.
Tony da in one of his interviews, recall how he had come by to meet Radhika in a Mumbai cafe, (Rahul Bose, of course, introduced them through his theatre connections) he had just entered the cafe, when he found Radhika, sitting cross-legged with her feet up on a chair and holding a string of spaghetti suspended mid-air and staring at it intently as it underwent the long process of being drawn into her mouth. This lasting image, immediately made him decide she would be his Brinda.
The reason for Antaheen still resonating among us might be attributed to the fact that it held a mirror to what was to come in the next few years and how modern-day relationships would take shape, in a world of wide spread social network prevalence. The wait for a phone call, rather the special one is no more eternal of course but is nonetheless often long anyways. There might even be some people still who would care to wait for it, even if it was to take a whole lifetime. Dating now has definitely moved beyond telephones. The online chat rooms of the 2000s, do not exist in the way they used to. However whenever we find Avik and Brinda in the movie, most of us root for them to complete their daily tasks quickly, go home and open their laptops. The way of their romance, with a certain anonymity, mystery almost makes us want them to not meet as the Boy In The Box and the Raat Jaga Tara for as long as possible. Knowing each other inside out often takes away a special element of a relationship, echoed by Eagles as they sing
" You're not quite lovers
And you're not quite friends
After the thrill is gone. "
The music of Antaheen marked the foray of Shantanu Moitra into Bengali films. One can see that the soundscape in the film is very minimalistic in nature and thus the lyrics are heard distinctly through the different situations. The pauses here are as important as any background score or lip-synced song( just one, in form of যাও পাখি বলো ). Chandril da and Anindya da of চন্দ্রবিন্দু wrote the songs. It was a first-timer for them too, as চন্দ্রবিন্দু is predominantly known in circles for their collegeমুখী and চ্যাংড়া songs, although they have loads of romantic numbers to their credit as well. The music becomes a very important part of the cinematography. They form a prelude to different situations in the film. The songs appear gradually, building up the tempo of the scenes and are never thrusted right into your face. The use of the music in this manner to tell a story had not been done before in Tollywood.
The story of Antaheen has been taken from life itself, Tony da maintains. Everybody in the film were regular characters, whom you may bump into, the next time you visit a friend's or colleague's place perhaps. Abhik's পিসিমা, someone who sits at home all day and embroiders, has stayed unmarried and brought him up, making an endless number of sacrifices in the way. Rina di and Kalyan Ray's characters of a separated couple, who are still friends and care for each other immensely. She knows each corner of the shelf of his wardrobe and he recites poems for her, both of their lives are incomplete without each other. The separation that exists between these two people is nothing but অভিমানের পাহাড়, as Avik puts it. The separation is perhaps the biggest compromise that these two people have agreed upon, to keep the friendship alive.
Brinda's death brings forth the conclusion of this movie, which has been resented unanimously by viewers. Tony da says that her death provides a certain closure to the characters of Mr. and Mrs. Mehra in the film, the couple with a deceased girl child, who saw glimpses of her in Brinda. An interesting anecdote can be shared here about how Abhik, a person who expresses very little, joy or sorrow alike, reacts to Brinda's death and after realizing that she was indeed his Raat Jaga Tara across the laptop screen, who would never come online again. Tony da asked Rahul to emote the same, and we watch on screen Abhik simply sitting by his laptop, touching it slightly as if holding hands of the dead Brinda who he had known only through his laptop.
The romanticism associated with writing letters to dear ones has more or less vanished today. Tony da says, being technologically challenged, he always imagined that mails being sent or received during the 2000s perhaps floated through the endless mesh of wires and clouds and then reached the other person. The blinking of the screen and the ping associated with coming of a message, as you sit, expecting it, still gives a flutter in the heart for some us though!
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