Sujata

'Sujata' is essentially a film about the issue of untouchability. The protagonist, Sujata, is a lower caste girl who lost her parents to a disease outbreak when she was born. She eventually grew up under the care of a civil engineer and his wife, whom she has come to consider her parents. However, they could never consider her equal to their own daughter. Thus, Sujata grows up always feeling like an outsider.

Every time someone asks the engineer and his wife who she is, they have to say she is "beti nahi, beti-jaisi" (not daughter but like a daughter). This always pierces her heart and she recedes into another room, walking heavily, feeling sad and puzzled. These silent scenes, where she walks away to her room, bring out her inner turmoil.

One day, when she cannot take it anymore, she asks her foster mother, Charu: "Mai kaun hu?" (Who am I?).

It is a moment of agony for both women. As Sujata realizes her truth, her world begins to collapse. She stands in the pouring rain, as if wondering if all the water of the heavens could cleanse her tainted life. She wants to end her life right then but is stopped by a divine intervention. She decides to live.

Under the burden of untouchability, Sujata is a girl full of life. Nutan has portrayed her with childlike enthusiasm and lady-like grace. She whole-heartedly takes care of the entire household, in the hope of being accepted as an equal some day.

But the only person who really considers her as an equal is Adheer (Sunil Dutt), a young relative of the family, a research scholar. In his presence, we find Sujata blooming and blushing like a rosebud. The moment when he first touches her means so much to her. Roy alludes to Tagore’s play 'Chandalika', where an untouchable girl is shown acceptance by a Buddhist monk. Perhaps, it served as an inspiration for this film.

But their love is not acceptable to Adheer's grandmother (Lalita Pawar), who is a staunch believer of Brahmin dharma. She represents all the women and men who profess to be very religious but forget that true religion only teaches oneness of all beings. They conveniently overlook the examples set by Rama and Krishna in accepting all as equal.

But when Adheer rebels and decides to leave the house, she gives up. She is overcome with emotion. She accepts that times are changing and perhaps old views must change. I found this a good way of sending across a message to the viewers who identify with her.

But when she agrees, Charu does not agree. Charu is a very complex character. From the very beginning, she is deeply conflicted between her natural motherly affection for Sujata and the idea that she is an untouchable. Time and again she tried to send Sujata away but she could not be so hard-hearted. 

 

There is a scene in the beginning of the film where she is singing a lullaby and putting her daughter to sleep. She sees Sujata cry in the servant quarters and she sings for her too. It’s a great moment. For a mother’s love, all crying children are equal.

But now, when her own daughter's prospective groom wants to marry Sujata, she is outraged. She feels cheated. She considers it as Sujata's ungratefulness to steal her daughter's groom. She is oblivious to the fact that Sujata had herself refused to marry Adheer and wished to live in service of her family forever.

In her rage, she meets with an accident. Strangely, it is only Sujata’s blood which matches Charu’s blood type. When Charu realises Sujata’s blood saved her, she finally gives up the idea of untouchability and accepts her as her daughter. 

What I find interesting is that Bimal Roy chose to show the issue of untouchability from the perspective of these three women. The men in the story seem to be very clear that untouchability is inhuman, which is good. Perhaps it was and is the case with a lot of educated men. But women, whether urban or rural, remain deeply conflicted about such issues, even today.

This is ironic because it is men who created the concept of untouchability in the first place, when they wrote the dharma shastras like the Manusmriti. But sadly, while men have conveniently moved on from these rules that they made, women are left trapped in their net. Men have the freedom to go out in the world, work and study, and therefore learn about new ideas. But women, who must remain within the household, who have to meet all possible social expectations in order to remain in society, find it difficult to move beyond these norms - even if their heart wants to.

This is Charu's conflict who, I feel, suffers as much as Sujata. So, if you think about it, 'Sujata' is not just the story of Sujata, but also of the grandmother, who eventually resigns from arachic ideas, and Charu, who is trapped between them.