Memories in March

Just imagine this : One fine day, when you have gone thru the most difficult times in life and think nothing can go worse than this, you receive a call from your son's office and get the inevitable bad news : That he died in an accident at the middle of the night driving sloshed. Before one can cope up with the news, you are enlightened by yet another piece of information that he was Gay. The icing on the cake is when you are confronted with his gay lover…

Tollywood's movie 'Memories in March' is an unusual story about two men in love and much more. The movie is directed by Sanjoy Nag. Rituparno Ghosh's story is simple and the screenplay is seamless. Some of the scenes are so well-written that they seem like a page out of everyday life. It is an emotional drama based on real life experiences. However, since the film deals with just a few days in the mother's life, there is nothing much to elaborate on. While Deepti Naval's character is beautifully etched, the audience never gets to see her son or know what he was like. The movie is in English with colorful splashes of Hindi and Bengali, are witty; the sarcasm used by Rituparno's character in the film is right on.

The story relates to the heart of every viewer and is made touchier by the outstanding acting by all the main artists. It shows a strong bonding which develops between a mother of a deceased man and his lover who also greatly feels the loss of his boyfriend.

Deepti Naval plays the role of Aarti Mishra who is a 50 year old divorcée and lives in Delhi. Her husband lives in the US with another woman, Claudia. Her twenty-eight years old only son works as an executive of an ad agency in Kolkata enjoying a lavish lifestyle. He dies in a car accident in Kolkata. For this reason Deepti goes to Kolkata to complete the last rituals and to get her deceased son's belongings. In her four-day stay on Kolkata, she is helped by her son's colleagues, Raima sen (as Shahana) and Rituparno Ghosh (as Arnab). There and through his friends she learns of her son's secret engagement in a gay relationship with Arnab. The information comes to her as a deadly blow as she always thought her son to be a normal man with the usual sexual attractions. She is devastated to know the naked truth and initially puts the blame of 'seducing' her son on Arnab. She finds it next to impossible to come to terms with the real story. It surprises her as to how her son could have overlooked the beauty of Shahana and be involved with bald Arnab. She laments that if only she knew of her son's such relationship earlier; she could have shown him to a psychiatrist and got him relief.

It is gradually that she learns and begins to accept that it was her son's preference to be with Arnab with no fault of his boyfriend. Along with carrying back the belongings of her son, she is overburdened to carry back with her the truth of her son's secret gay life. A bonding develops between Arnab and Deepti Naval over the common loss, she at the loss of her only son and he at the loss of his only personal partner. Deepti Naval and Rituparno Ghosh have together done a commendable acting throughout the movie, capturing the emotions of the viewers, and surely deserve applause.

GTM's have come a long way from showing just mere love stories between two men. This movie takes a different angle on the affects people go thru in coming to terms when they come to learn about their near and dear ones being gay. And finally I Quote " I will be going far away…can I leave a little bit of me with you"….Memories In March….

A mother arrives at the city where her son used to work after he meets with a car accident. The mother finds out that he had a lover. Both the mother and lover share the memories they had of their loved one.

You can count the number of actors in the movie by your fingers, but what the movie presented was huge. Emotions shower over some moments and let you see the other side of the story. What can we accept or cannot?

Loved Rituporno more in this movie. Always used to have a special corner for him. After seeing him acting in such an unconventional role and presenting the unheard in such a graceful manner, my fondness for him only increased more. What a lovely, sharp movie. This will go in the bests of Rituporno.

The very inception of the film gives a feeling of it being ghost- directed by Rituparno Ghosh. But, the germs of it being the first film of a director under Rituparno's tutelage can be made out after one has gone through a considerable portion of the film. Excepting these discussions, what we glean from movie is a so-called aberrant sexuality which, it says, is not to be looked down upon by the fortunate heterosexuals of this world. Arati (Deepti Naval) - the mother, finding it hard to come to terms with and to switch her emotions between her son's sudden death and his homosexuality hitherto unknown to her - at first detests Ornub (Rituparno), but subsequently starts cherishing his company taking him to be her dead son's 'special' someone or her another alive son. Another relation, between Sahana (Raima Sen) and Arati, is also a very pleasant one founded on honesty and respect. Arati, during her short stay at her dead son's house, learns about certain grim truths about this world which, heretofore even her grey hair has not shown her. When she leaves, she leaves with a bagful of warm closeness she has unknowingly amassed within these few days from both Ornub and Sahana and leaves behind with them 'a bit of' herself and her dead son. The background melody and the nominal songs accentuate the situations. To draw the conclusion we can say that 'Memories in March' is a good attempt at narration, though with a profusion of Rituparnovian touches.

I wonder how much of 'Memories in March' was ghost directed by Rituparno Ghosh (who also wrote the screenplay) as it has a very Ghosh feel to it. Not to take anyway from Nag, for if he was behind most of the work, it's superb and perhaps his next films will tell us how much potential he has to stay. 'Memories in March' tells the story of s single mother who arrives to Calcutta to be present attend the wake of her recently deceased son and to collect his belongings. During her visit she is assisted by Shahana and Ornob (two people who were close to her son) who provide her good company. Conservative that she is, when she suddenly learns of a secret about her son, she's shocked and filled with resentment towards Shahana and Ornob. However, her feelings gradually change as she learns more about the relationship her son had with these two people and this is what the core of the film beautifully emphasizes.

At first 'Memories in March' might sound like a depressive movie about grief but the film is much more than that and in the end one doesn't feel depressed but rather a sense of hope and enlightenment.

Subtle, quiet, and tender, yet very lyrical, 'Memories of March' definitely strikes a chord with heartstrings. There's no melodrama or spoonfeeding. Ghosh has written a solid screenplay and to top it off, among the highlights of 'Memories of March' are the three performances by its leads: Rituparno Ghosh who shows potential as an actor, Raima Sen (who looks a little off in the beginning but gradually settles in) and especially Deepti Naval who delivers a transcendent performance that comes across as natural, raw and very human.

As mentioned earlier, this isn't another one of those depressing tearjerker. It's about leaving a piece of yourself behind with your loved ones, like what Sid did and what Aarti does.

A beautiful, sensitive portrayal of the delicateness and depth of emotions that are as a much a part of a homosexual relationship as they can be in a heterosexual relationship, conveyed in the backdrop of grief, loss and reluctant acceptance. The restrained, understated performances by Rituparno Ghosh and Deepti Naval, especially in their joint scenes are mesmerizing. Same for the ones between Deepti Naval and Raima Sen. Although the director is Sanjoy Nag, one can see Rituparno's influence throughout. The music by Debojyoti Mishra - melodious, evocative and sensual, blends seamlessly into the narrative. "Bahu manorathe" is a wonderful composition I could listen to endlessly.