As Paheli (2005) opens, a young Rajasthani bride named
Lachchi (Rani Mukherjee) is having her Mehndi Rat. This is the ceremony
in which the bride’s female friends and relatives gather together,
apply henna to her hands, and (at least in theory) explain the duties of
a wife and just what’s supposed to happen on the wedding night. Of
course you can’t have any sort of wedding ceremony involving Rani
Mukherjee without a dance number breaking out, and soon the assembled
women are singing that Lachchi “must not relent, no matter how much he
pressures you”, while Lachchi replies “Shut up, you guys! I’ve been
looking forward to this, and I plan to enjoy it!” (I’m paraphrasing
slightly.)
Lachchi dreams of a romantic future with the husband she hasn’t met yet, but the reality is a bit different. Her new husband Kishen (Shahrukh Khan) spends the entire trip back to his family home calculating and recalculating the cost of the wedding, pausing only to scold her for eating berries picked along the way. During the trip they stop briefly at a reportedly haunted well, but while Lachchi senses someone watching her, the trip continues without incident.
The wedding party finally reaches home, and the newlyweds retire to the bridal chamber, where Lachchi faces more disappointment. (No, not like that!) Kishen is still more interested in the wedding accounts than he is in her. As he explains, he has to hand the completed account to his father Bhanwarlal (Anupam Kher) in the morning before leaving on a five year long business trip. Kishen tells her to go ahead and go to sleep, since he has to get up early and as his mother told him, “Why ignite passion for only one night?” Kishen stares awkwardly as she sobs on the bed, then goes back to his accounts.
In the morning, Kishen sets out on his journey, leaving Lachchi in the company of his family. She’s quickly befriended by Gajrobai (Juhi Chawla), whose own husband Sunderlal (Sunil Shetty) left town under unglamorous circumstances.
Along the way, Kishen stops at the well and tells a stranger about how he had to leave his new wife and set out to start a new business, not knowing that the stranger is one of the ghosts haunting the well, and the mysterious presence Lachchi sensed earlier. The ghost has fallen in love with Lachchi, and so he sends Kishen on his way, assumes his form, and goes home to take his place, mollifying Bhanwarlal with a story about a passing sage blessing him with five gold coins every morning.
(The ghost is certainly an unusual one. While he’s theoretically haunting the well, he’s able to leave without any trouble, doesn’t seem interested in avenging anything, and spends very little time possessing Urmila Matondkar. He really seems to play more by genie rules than ghost rules, especially in the film’s climax.)
But while the ghost is happy to lie to everyone else, he can’t bring himself to lie to Lachchi. He takes her aside, explains who he is, and gives her a choice - if she wants him to go away, he’ll go away and never bother her again. And given the choice between the husband who left her the morning after their wedding and the ghost who assumed human form solely out of love for her, she picks the ghost. And as the years pass, she and the ghost live happily as a married couple, while Kishen, completely isolated from his family, finds himself dreaming of the wife he left behind.
Given the socially conservative nature of Bollywood, it’s an unusual relationship; Lachchi is living quite happily with a man (ghost) who is not her husband, and it is treated as a natural and healthy relationship. That’s probably why the film makes such a point of the fact that the marriage is never consummated.
Like a lot of other Bollywood love triangles, though, nobody’s evil. Kishen is not the ideal husband, but he’s not a bad guy. He’s fussy and officious, but when he finally returns, he brings some berries, because the only thing he knows about his wife is that she likes them. It’s such a stupid but oddly romantic gesture that I can’t help but feel for the guy. Kishen’s real flaw is that he never makes a choice of his own. He marries because his parents tell him to. He leaves because his parents tell him to. And even when he’s seemingly abandoned by his family and pining for his wife, he stays where he is because that’s what he was told to do. The ghost, on the other hand, chooses his own destiny and is able to woo Lachchi by offering her the chance to do the same.
Personal choice is a major theme of Paheli, and the film handles it well right up until the epilogue, which undercuts the theme in order to ensure a happy ending. That problem aside, I enjoyed Paheli. It has a charming dream-like quality, an engaging cast, great music, and a rare chance to see Shahrukh play a different character. And it’s nice to see an Indian film deal with women’s issues without anyone being set on fire.
Lachchi dreams of a romantic future with the husband she hasn’t met yet, but the reality is a bit different. Her new husband Kishen (Shahrukh Khan) spends the entire trip back to his family home calculating and recalculating the cost of the wedding, pausing only to scold her for eating berries picked along the way. During the trip they stop briefly at a reportedly haunted well, but while Lachchi senses someone watching her, the trip continues without incident.
The wedding party finally reaches home, and the newlyweds retire to the bridal chamber, where Lachchi faces more disappointment. (No, not like that!) Kishen is still more interested in the wedding accounts than he is in her. As he explains, he has to hand the completed account to his father Bhanwarlal (Anupam Kher) in the morning before leaving on a five year long business trip. Kishen tells her to go ahead and go to sleep, since he has to get up early and as his mother told him, “Why ignite passion for only one night?” Kishen stares awkwardly as she sobs on the bed, then goes back to his accounts.
In the morning, Kishen sets out on his journey, leaving Lachchi in the company of his family. She’s quickly befriended by Gajrobai (Juhi Chawla), whose own husband Sunderlal (Sunil Shetty) left town under unglamorous circumstances.
Along the way, Kishen stops at the well and tells a stranger about how he had to leave his new wife and set out to start a new business, not knowing that the stranger is one of the ghosts haunting the well, and the mysterious presence Lachchi sensed earlier. The ghost has fallen in love with Lachchi, and so he sends Kishen on his way, assumes his form, and goes home to take his place, mollifying Bhanwarlal with a story about a passing sage blessing him with five gold coins every morning.
(The ghost is certainly an unusual one. While he’s theoretically haunting the well, he’s able to leave without any trouble, doesn’t seem interested in avenging anything, and spends very little time possessing Urmila Matondkar. He really seems to play more by genie rules than ghost rules, especially in the film’s climax.)
But while the ghost is happy to lie to everyone else, he can’t bring himself to lie to Lachchi. He takes her aside, explains who he is, and gives her a choice - if she wants him to go away, he’ll go away and never bother her again. And given the choice between the husband who left her the morning after their wedding and the ghost who assumed human form solely out of love for her, she picks the ghost. And as the years pass, she and the ghost live happily as a married couple, while Kishen, completely isolated from his family, finds himself dreaming of the wife he left behind.
Given the socially conservative nature of Bollywood, it’s an unusual relationship; Lachchi is living quite happily with a man (ghost) who is not her husband, and it is treated as a natural and healthy relationship. That’s probably why the film makes such a point of the fact that the marriage is never consummated.
Like a lot of other Bollywood love triangles, though, nobody’s evil. Kishen is not the ideal husband, but he’s not a bad guy. He’s fussy and officious, but when he finally returns, he brings some berries, because the only thing he knows about his wife is that she likes them. It’s such a stupid but oddly romantic gesture that I can’t help but feel for the guy. Kishen’s real flaw is that he never makes a choice of his own. He marries because his parents tell him to. He leaves because his parents tell him to. And even when he’s seemingly abandoned by his family and pining for his wife, he stays where he is because that’s what he was told to do. The ghost, on the other hand, chooses his own destiny and is able to woo Lachchi by offering her the chance to do the same.
Personal choice is a major theme of Paheli, and the film handles it well right up until the epilogue, which undercuts the theme in order to ensure a happy ending. That problem aside, I enjoyed Paheli. It has a charming dream-like quality, an engaging cast, great music, and a rare chance to see Shahrukh play a different character. And it’s nice to see an Indian film deal with women’s issues without anyone being set on fire.
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