36 Chowringhee Lane (1981)

Taken at face value, this quiet film by Aparna Sen is a melancholy tale about a lonely woman facing her twilight years.  It has a clear allegorical reading, however, that is a forceful commentary on the role of the British in post-Independence India.

Violet Stoneham (Jennifer Kendal) is a mousy, quiet Anglo-Indian woman.  Living in 1970s Calcutta, she teaches Shakespeare to inattentive little girls, occasionally visits her senile brother (Geoffrey Kendal) in a nearby nursing home, and returns home to her tiny flat and the company of her cat, Sir Toby.  One day Violet encounters one of her former students, Nandita (Debashree Roy) and Nandita's boyfriend Samaresh (Dhritiman Chatterjee).  Eager to reminisce - and starved for companionship - Violet invites the young couple to her home for tea, and they politely, if reluctantly, agree.  In Violet's flat, Samaresh smells opportunity - the flat would offer a perfect, discreet hideaway for afternoon trysts with Nandita.  Nandita explains to Violet that while Samaresh is a writer, he finds it difficult to concentrate on poetry in his family's crowded home, and Violet is delighted to offer him the use of her flat.  Nandita and Samaresh frolic there every day, taking care to be dressed and presentable when Violet returns from school.  Often they serve Violet her tea or take her out for walks in the city, and their daily company cheers and energizes her.   It seems a very genuine and tender friendship, but Samaresh and Nandita see it quite differently from Violet.

At its face, 36 Chowringhee Lane is a very sympathetic tale.  Violet Stoneham is a lovable character, and her loneliness will resonate with anyone who has ever thought about getting older and being alone.  Her increasing isolation and marginalization is poignant.  And the tenderness that Nandita and Samaresh show her - at least while it appears sincere - and the warmth and joy in her response to it is touching. 

But the film seethes with symbols suggesting that its real message is a strong critique of the Anglo presence in India:  You are dated, you have outlived your usefulness; you aren't wanted or needed, so get lost.  The young couple uses her while it's convenient, but as soon as they have the opportunity to take off on their own, they do so.  The new principal at Violet's school - the school's first Indian principal, we are told - cuts back on her course load, assigning her a dreary grammar class while a new young teacher takes over the Shakespeare; even teaching quintessentially English subjects, Violet's English perspective is no longer needed.  Violet's visits to her brother are particularly unsubtle; a relic of the colonial era, he is now weak, helpless and disoriented, and Violet must repeatedly explain to him that the Raj is over, that India is independent. 

These two levels of meaning make 36 Chowringhee Lane a full meal, engaging, poignant, and thought-provoking.  The performances are smooth and natural - unlike some of Aparna Sen's later films (such as 15 Park Avenue and Mr. and Mrs. Iyer), in which her actors sometimes fumble stiffly with English dialogue.   The result is a satisfying film, and if it is a little bit sad for the increasingly irrelevant Violet Stoneham, it also portrays a confidence in the rising of an independent India.

Comments

[maajhi]

The second reading is new to me. I've never thought of the story in that way. In fact, I've seen opposite readings of it to the effect that Anglo-Indians, who have been born and brought up in India, need undersatnding from Indians, not neglect. Here's just one article of many from Googling that talks about this: http://home.alphalink.com.au/~agilbert/chowri~1.html

[carla]

That is quite interesting. It's certainly more consistent with the tone of the film to read the underlying message as sympathetic; whereas what I saw was an apparently contradictory message. I did perceive the film's sensitivity to Violet as a person, but I did not see the willfulness of the people marginalizing as a cautionary tale.

Of course, it's possible that I'm dead wrong. It's happened once or twice before. :)

[maajhi]

When I saw the movie, the central character came across as more pity-inducing than dislike. It portrays very sensitively how Anglo-Indians, once a privileged and purposefully created sub-class in the Raj machinery were hung out to dry, dislocated from their moorings and not really belonging anywhere anymore. That is what I took away.

But your reading is interesting.

Indian or not, I felt deeply for the central character - her Anglo-Indianness (admittedly mildly revolting to me, given the history) apart, this could really be the sad fate of any old person in any society.

[maxqnz]

This sounds like a fascinating movie to watch. I have a question, though. Is Violet Anglo-Indian in the sense of being fully Anglo, but born in India, or Anglo-Indian in the sense of being of mixed heritage? The casting of the two Kendalls (sic) makes me wonder, since they would have counted as Anglo-Indian in the former sense, Anglos who happened to live in India, while of course Jennifer Kendall's children would technically be Anglo-Indian in the latter sense, even if their famous family surname protected them from ever being so labelled. In the latter sense, there's the added element of the reality that India is genetically home for Anglo-Indians, too, and they may carry the same sort of "sins of the fathers" baggage suffered by the offspring sitred by GIs in Vietnam. This is not merely an academic question for me, since my father is Anglo-Indian in the "mestizo" sense of the word.

[carla]

maxqnz, I believe that Violet Stoneham is Anglo-Indian in the sense of having been born in India, though I don't believe she had mixed parentage. She had a niece (played by Soni Razdan) who was, I believe, the child of a sibling other than the brother in the nursing home, and who apparently had an Indian parent. (And there really is only one "l" in Kendal, when one is speaking of Jennifer and Geoffrey. ;) Oh, and one of Jennifer's children, Karan Kapoor, did make a brief appearance in a dream sequence. Shashi produced the film - entirely a family affair.

maajhi, I agree that Violet is very sympathetic as a lonely elderly soul; that's what made the film so sad, I think; it was sad to see her be mistreated, be neglected, and fade, all with a very British stiff upper lip.

[maxqnz]

Thanks, and for the correction. I will look out for this film, and ask my family in Bangalore if they've seen it and if so, how they took its message.

[maajhi]

Carla, if your reading of it really was the director's intent, the lead character wouldn't be so sympathetic - ie, the British presence in India would not be portrayed so sympathetically. Thinking about the portrayal, your allegorical reading, and the people involved in it, it makes all the more sense to me that the movie is simply a moving portrayal of the Anglo-Indian situation after Independence, possibly an attempt by Anglo-Indians to evoke sympathy for their condition.

[carla]

Perhaps you are right maajhi. But when I'm interpreting a text I don't really care what the intent of the author was; the text stands alone. I have set forth what this text says to me, and while it may or may not be what Aparna Sen intended it to mean it's nevertheless the message I got, clear as day. Making the English characters boorish and obnoxious would have been dull and predictable; it's precisely the juxtaposition of a sympathetic character with a less than sympathetic subtext that makes it interesting to me.

[maxqnz]

"it's precisely the juxtaposition of a sympathetic character with a less than sympathetic *subtext* that makes it interesting to me." vs "the *text* stands alone"(e.a.). This raises an interesting question for me, one that I've often wondered about in relation to art in general. The author writes the text, but who writes the subtext?

For instance, if in this case Ms Sen were to say emphatically that the film was NOT intended to convey the message you read in it, does that mean that YOU wrote the subtext? If, in matters artistic, a cigar is NOT just a cigar, who gets to say what it is? And if the creator of said cigar insists that it IS nothing more than a presidential sex toy, what of those who say otherwise?

It seems to me that there is a difference between asserting that "the text stands alone" and interpreting the "subtext", the very existence of which may be debatable, and is certainly subjective.

[maajhi]

maxqnz, "ceci n'est pas une pipe" in other words :). Jokes apart, I think subtexts may be intentional, or they may be purely the imagination of the consumer. Both are valid. I find Carla's interpretation to be interesting, though I don't quite understand how the juxtaposition she speaks of really works - how it brings her subtext into relief.

[maxqnz]

Great, now I'm filled with an inexplicable urge to re-watch the Pierce Brosnan version of "The Thomas Crown Affair". :)

My post was a genuine question, though, not a criticism. I am a profoundly shallow person who seldom sees a subtext even when rammed down my throat. On a Bollywood movie forum I managed to get myself expelled from there was a contributor who would write astoshingly in-depth treatises on the subtext of even the (imo) most excruciatingly braindead David Dhawan type bakvaas. I was left both amused and bemused by this, but it did raise the same issue, namely is it possible for "the text stands alone" to be compatible with the (inherently and justly) subjective nature of any perceived subtext.

[maajhi]

Re. Thomas Crown Affair: I haven't seen that movie. Could you elaborate on what it has to do with this discussion?

[maxqnz]

"ceci n'est pas une pipe" plays a critical role in the climax of the film. It's an entertaining if undemanding watch, more fun than many of his Bond films.

[maxqnz]

I must confress it wasn't "pipe", but another Magritte painting in Thomas Crown, but a friend used to use "Son of Man" with "ceci n'est pas une pipe" written underneath as an Internet avatar, so the two paintings are inextricably linked for me. And that's the end of this distraction from Carla's thoughtful blogging.

[Beth]

This really has nothing to do with any discussion of the movie, but I suddenly wondered if there's some significance to 36, since there's also 36 China Town? IMDB lists quite a few films with 36 in their title and Wikipedia maybe even more, though those were the only two Indian ones I could find. Hmmm.

[carla]

Beth, I couldn't begin to guess. I think it's odd enough that Aparna Sen has two films whose titles are street addresses!

On the interesting discussion about text and subtext, I wonder if it's even a well-defined question to ask what an author's intent is. Unless the author just did a terrible job of expressing him- or herself, it may be reasonable to conclude that any subtext present within a text was intended - consciously or not - to be there. That would include the simultaneous existence of subtexts that are apparently contradictory, as true meaning is rarely simple, and the human mind is very capable of harboring contradictory ideas. The manipulation of symbols and archetypes can be done with consciousness, but even symbols and archetypes consciously played with are perhaps at some level adsorbed into the author's mind, as much as they are into the mind of the viewer and into the general cultural milieu. And the more overloaded the symbols, the richer and more complex the subtext. That's not intended as an answer; merely as a rumination.

[the post-punk cinema club]

Coming in a year late, but I just saw this last night...

Very interesting comments, as always, Carla. I was grappling with the postcolonial themes and getting all mixed up, but you've presented a very clear and compelling analysis.

Also, I'm very much in agreement that reading a text should provide something coherent and productive, and it doesn't necessarily have to have anything to do with the author's intents. A good example being Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. He denied writing it as WW2 allegory, and yet - given the historical context - it's a bit hard not to read that into it.

Regarding the separation of author and text, I've always found Roland Barthes' essay, Death of the Author, very interesting (and agreeable): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_author

[Samit Gupta]

The film has another interpretation. It indulges sympathy for the reasonable sensible remnants of the English. Indian (aristocratic) intellectuals drape their survivalistic materialism in the warm and comfortable matress of western free thinking and eventually leave out (not their families) but also the apologetic westerners who give them those liberal cultural motifs. The film also inverts the realities of Indian humaneness and western pragmatism in matters of human relationship. The Indians have been traditionally stereotyped as decent friendly people who remember a favour for 10 decades while, historically westerners have been stereotyped as selfish and practical if not also cruel to foreign blood. The movie suggests that since the world war and almost simultaneous liberation of British colonies in Asia, there has been visible role inversion as symbolized by Violet and Nandita and Samaresh.