In an increasingly fractured world, true companionship has now become a luxury. Love, punctuated by distances is often misunderstood, forcing us to be lonely in world meant to be lived together, hand in hand.
In today's world, loneliness is a pandemic and slow living, a sin. Director Saurav Palodhi's latest Bengali film, Onekdin Por is a timely reminder of how love can still magically sustain our broken selves.
Two friends, Ashish and Biswanath, had always wanted to live together when they got old. Biswanath's son lives abroad and his house in Kolkata seemed to close in on him after his wife's passing.
A retired professor, he opened his house to people who craved companionship, just like him. Eventually, it was a house brimming with people, albeit old, who celebrated life in their own way, despite the heartaches they hid within.
Ashish and his wife and another elderly couple, hopelessly waiting for their son to take them home with them, keep Biswanath company in his house. This is not an ordinary old-age home. This a place full of old people who are desperate to hold on to a "purpose" to live the rest of their lives with a sense of fulfilment.
The movie is anchored by actress Chitrangada Satarupa who plays Mallika, a kind, young woman, employed at Biswanath's house. Living with an alcoholic father and a mother bogged down by domestic chores, she travels long hours everyday from the outskirts of the city.
Mallika's long travels are not lonely, for she has found a friend in a young divorced father who keeps her company till they drink tea at Shibu Da's tea shop and their roads diverge.
Love is a natural emotion for the characters of Onekdin Por. They don't ask much in return except to find a purpose that makes their life worth living. The director has successfully brought together the many kinds of love in his film but has not given them the conventional arc. Instead, Saurav Palodhi has yet again achieved what he does best: find extraordinary stories in ordinary, everyday life.
With exceptional performances from the entire ensemble cast and music that evokes nostalgia, the movie might feel slow at some points, but that is perhaps the point. Certain stories are left incomplete, rather intentionally because our stories do not necessarily have perfect endings.
Onekdin Por is a movie that will warm your heart and make you think long after the credits roll. More importantly, it will reminds you that love has many colours, and we must never stop looking for it. At the end of the day, that is probably the only purpose we have.
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