Well worth a dekko

MAHESH Manjrekar’s Astitva is about a woman in search of her existence in a man’s world.

Aditi’s life is centred round her husband Shrikant Pandit and son Aniket, who is engaged to be married to Revati. The peace-loving Aditi is a typical homely Maharashtrian woman, who has loved only her husband and has devoted all her life to him. But one day when Aditi inherits a large legacy left behind by her music instructor Malhar Kamat, there is turmoil in her life. Her husband who always trusted her, gets suspcious, and takes every chance possible to make her feel guilty. Even her son begins to dislike her. After 27 years of being happily married and secure in a relationship, Aditi finds she has no life of her own and then begins searching for an identity.

Basically what the film tries to portray is the helplessness of Aditi when her family disowns her. And what really hits one hard is the attitude of the menfolk in her family. Aditi’s friend Meghna refers to Shrikant as the typical male chauvinist pig, and he manages to convince the audience that he is just that. When queried about his affairs, he replies, “So what? Main aadmi hoon”. Even the son, when he learns of his parentage (that too only when Aditi is made to disclose the truth by her husband about her moment of weakness 26 years ago, when he was away in Singapore and Nigeria for months that Malhar and Aditi end up in bed and she finds herself pregnant with Malhar’s child) calls his mother a “Bloody b...”adding Jake kahin mooh kaala kar. And he is the so-called loving son. Is this the typical Indian mentality? Does that mean that a woman has no right to be happy, no right to have her share of friends? Or does every relationship between a man and woman mean only one thing? Can’t people be just friends? Does just one mistake committed by a woman suffice to shatter all her dreams, and separate her from her people? And what kind of a man is Shrikant that he doesn’t realise that he couldn’t have fathered the child when he was away for months endlessly? And Aditi rightfully reminds him that she never had another child after Aniket. So what does that make Shrikant? And what if she hadn’t conceive Aniket, then ‘she’ would have been blamed and called a baanjh for no fault of hers.

Performance-wise Tabu, in her role as Aditi, is brilliant. Sans make-up in her role as the mother, she has managed to portray her emotions well. Her expressions are very touching and she can relate to the feelings of every woman who has lived with self-centred people. As the young and newly-wed, Tabu brings radiance to her character. As for Sachin Khedekar, his role of Aditi’s husband Shrikant Pandit, who has no qualms having flings himself and betraying his wife, is good. Yet there are times when he arouses feelings of indignation in us. Sunil Barve as the son, Ravindra Mankani and Smita Jaykar as their friends, Dr Ravi and Meghna, have little to do while Namrata Shirodkar, in a special appearance as Revati, is commendable as the girl with a modern outlook who stands by her would-be mother-in-law during her times of crisis.

A Jhamu Sugandh presentation, Astitva is produced by Friends India and Satyashwami Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. It has story, screenplay and direction by Mahesh Manjrekar who has managed to prove apoint with this film. While the Marathi dialogues of this bilingual film have been penned by Dr Chandrashekhar Phansalkar, Imtiaz Hussain takes the credit for the dialogues in Hindi.

Astitva does get heavy at times, but it is definitely worth a watch.

Namita Nivas

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