Charulata (1964)

Soumitra Chatterjee: Amal, Bhupati's cousin

Photos 

Quotes 

• Amal : All done with studies, exams, professors, cutting classes.

  Charulata : What's left? Foolishness and mischief?

  Amal : Poetry. Rhythm. You know, I was thinking.

  Charulata : What?

  Amal : All of life is like a rhythm. Birth, death. Day - night. Happiness - sorrow. Meeting - parting. Like the waves on the ocean, now rising - now falling. One complements the other.

• Amal : Cousin, "The Lotus" accepted my essay.

  Bhupati Dutta : "Light of the Moonless Night"?

  Amal : No. "Dark of the Sun".

• Amal : Hail Krishna! Slayer of demons!

• Bhupati Dutta : You'll have to work.

  Amal : Work? Oh, that cursed word!

• Bhupati Dutta : Let me see a copy. Twenty-fourth issue of "The Sentinel." Dated, April the ninth, 1879.

  [Amal takes the just printed newspaper out of Bhupati's hands] 

  Bhupati Dutta : Careful! It's still wet.

  Amal : Very nice name.

  Bhupati Dutta : That was Nishikanta's idea. The motto was mine.

  Amal : "Truth Survives." But will the paper survive?

• Bhupati Dutta : You missed the most important thing - my editorial.

  Amal : What's this? Criticizing the government?

  Bhupati Dutta : Why not? Why not, Amal? Why are they carrying on the Afghan campaign? Because England's prestige in Europe is at stake. But India bears the cost. Why? Should we support this? And what about the Press Act? Three years now and they haven't changed it. And what about the Civil Service scheme? What about the Arms Act? The salt tax? The rent tax? The British government is running the country - fine. But the business of running the country, the Indians have no say. Why? There is no representation. They've left no scope for that. Am I wrong to condemn it?

  Amal : What if you're arrested?

  Bhupati Dutta : Why? To be outspoken is not necessarily to be disloyal.

  Amal : Good Lord - sedition!

• Amal : [singing]  The cuckoo roams from bower to bower, Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, she cries...

  Charulata : You still sing?

  Amal : [singing]  Deep within my heart is yearning, Alas, alas, I know not why

• Amal : I need to do something. What should I do?

  Charulata : From the way you're going on, it's very clear.

  Amal : What?

  Charulata : Get married.

  Amal : Oh! The female mind always...

• Amal : A woman can't understand the female mind. Only a man can.

• Amal : [singing]  No use worrying and fretting

  Mandakini : Oh, my!

  Amal : [singing]  What is destined to happen will happen

• Amal : What's this?

  Mandakini : Slippers for the master.

  Amal : [singing]  What good fortune my cousin has!

  Charulata : [singing]  You shall have what he has

  Amal : You mean slippers?

  Charulata : A wife.

• Amal : "Lonesome Melodies"?

  Charulata : Loathsome melodies.

  Amal : Lonesome Melodies!

  Charulata : Loathsome melodies.

• Charulata : [discussing the writings of Bankim-babu]  What descriptions! His women are so beautiful! So much perfection isn't right. They make me feel ugly. They're all so beautiful. Mrinalini's beautiful, Radharanfs beautiful, Saibalini's beautiful, Kapalkundala's beautiful...

  Amal : And Kundanandini?

  Charulata : She's beautiful too, but not perfect.

  Amal : Lutfunnessa's not perfect either. She's too tall and her lips are bit thin.

  Charulata : And she's dark-skinned.

• Amal : One could sit here and compose an entire rubaiyat.

• Amal : O river! O youth! O time! O world! You too can only march onward. You never turn back along the path strewn with memory's gilded pebbles. Only the mind of man looks back. The rest of creation never does.

• Bhupati Dutta : England!

  Amal : The land of Shakespeare.

  Bhupati Dutta : Why just Shakespeare? Burke, Macaulay, Gladstone!

• Amal : [singing]  I've seen you, In the depths of my head, I've seen you, In the depths of my head, O fair one from afar. I turn my ear to the sky, And hear your song go by, I turn my ear to the sky, And hear your song go by, I dedicate my life to you, O fair one from afar, I dedicate my life to you, O fair one from afar. After roaming heaven and earth, Here I am in this new land, After roaming heaven and earth, Here I am in this new land, Now I stand at your door, Now I stand at your door, O fair one from afar, O fair one from afar. O fair one from afar, O fair one from afar...

• Amal : Babu Bankim Chandra. Byron to Bankim. Bishabriksha.