Biraj Bahu

'Biraj Bahu' is a film about a woman named Biraj, who is the elder bahu (daughter-in-law) of a village household, her relationship with her husband, and an unfortunate turn of events in their life which shows the cruelty of social expectations from women.

In the beginning, Biraj’s life seems pretty good. She has a happy family life. She does not have a nasty mother-in-law giving her a hard time, as was the case in many stories of a bahu’s plight. Her husband, too, is a saintly man, who is completely in love with her, not a drunkard who beats her up or anything. These are not the tragedies of her life.

The tragedy of her life, and this becomes clear only at the very end, is that she is a woman. She is a woman in a society which professes to worship the Goddess but chains women to the unimaginably high standards of virtue and purity, and if there ever arises a situation where her purity is attacked, it is she who has to suffer, not the perpetrator. 

The sad thing is that such ideas are socially conditioned into women's belief systems and instead of opposing them, they accept them and live by them. Biraj, a deeply moralistic woman, believes strongly in the Brahmin idea of social order, where a woman's virtue lies in her chastity and her complete devotion to her husband. So much so, that her highest aspiration in life is to die at the feet of her husband. 

Her story brings out the extremely fragile position of a woman in society. The evil zamindar eyes her everyday when she goes to fill water from the river. The villagers do not take any action against him because he is rich and powerful. Eventually, Biraj herself has to ask him to leave. But this one conversation is misinterpreted and she is questioned for her purity. 

On one frightful, stormy night, her husband loses his mind and accuses her of unchaste behaviour. That is the end for her. She feels there is no reason left for her to live and she walks out in the storm to take her life. This is the deeply troubled state of her being.

Biraj’s story reminds one of Sita from Ramayana. Like Sita, Biraj is the epitome of all virtues, her greatest virtue being her complete devotion to her husband. Like Sita became victim to the evil Ravana, Biraj falls prey to the evil zamindar, and even though she manages to save her honour and escape, society accuses her for being unchaste. A woman like Biraj can bear everything but not this taint on her chastity and it ultimately proves fatal for her.

Bimal Roy brings out this parallel in the song 'Suno Sita ki kahani'

"Bol gayi dharti ki kaya kaanp gayo aakash
Bina dosh ke Sita ko jab Ram diyo vanvas

Suno Sita ki kahani 
Wo mahlo ki rani 
Chhod ghar baar gayi vanvas 
Kisi ne kadar na jani"

In a moment of extreme pathos, we see Biraj saying: 
"Mera koi ghar nahi... Mera koi nahi..." 
(I don't have any home..No one is mine..) 

The film thus brings out the extreme cruelty of social expectations from women, which have not really changed in five thousand years. They are the same today as they were in Sita’s time. Even today, a woman of Sita’s stature has to go through an agni pariksha and has to prove her chastity time and again. Even today, she has to meet Sita’s fate, a Rama-like noble husband notwithstanding.