Movie Review: Khondo Jibon (Healing Life)

Khondo Jibon (Healing Life)

I watched the screening of the Bengali feature film called “Khondo Jibon” (“Healing Life”) on Saturday February 28, 2009 at Tribeca Cinemas in Manhattan; it was hosted by NYBAP (Network of Young Bangladeshi American Professionals). The film started at 7:30 PM and ended at around 9 PM. There was questions and answers session after the movie with the directors, producers, and a lead actor. They were very talented; none of them are professional media personnel; they have their own professional jobs, and they worked on this movie on the side.

This writing is actually not exactly a movie review; it is more of talking about a character in this movie: Shapla (American name Shelly). She may seem to be a negative character to many viewers of the movie; but to me she was a true and honest character. She lost her Mother at age of 5, and her Father raised her all by himself. She was raised in New York and was a Princeton graduate. She was pretty, intelligent, and had a mind of her own; yet she married the guy that her father chose who was a son of her father’s 1971 Bangladesh-Pakistan War friend and who just came to New York from Bangladesh with a visit visa; she married him just so that she would not have to hurt her father even though by marrying this guy she emotionally hurt herself!!! She tried to remain married to this guy, she cooked for him, cleaned for him, filled immigration papers for him, did everything for him as a wife, while also working full time in a highly competitive field at Goldman Sachs. But all her father and her husband Rana wanted was for Rana to get success in his life and she would be supporting him to get his success by being next to him all the time, by helping him with getting a Green Card, finishing his education, and achieving his dreams. But at one point, she realized she was cheating on her father, she was cheating on her husband Rana, and she was cheating on herself by trying to be a good wife to a guy who she didn’t love; she also realized that she didn’t believe in marrying someone she didn’t know, did not love and had nothing in common with.

To me, Shapla made a mistake by marrying Rana this way. She was a soft girl, and her father emotionally manipulated her into marrying Rana. This is not right to use a nice, intelligent girl like her into helping a guy getting success by having her being married to him – unless she loves him before she marries him; parents should not put their daughters into this type of marriages so their daughters can help a strange guy getting success in his life. What about your daughters’ life? Do not give your precious daughter away to someone so that person can achieve his dreams by using your daughter. Shapla is a potential girl herself; and she should be with someone who is strong enough to achieve his dreams on his own as well as also can help her to achieve her dreams; someone who she can love and respect down the road …

P.S. My review of Shapla character here is not exactly what the movie shows; I guess I have twisted the character a little bit to use it as an example of what many deshi girls in the USA have been experiencing and how their lives have been thrown into an unknown future by some parents and by some greedy guys who are only looking for a way to get legal status …

Cooking after a long time

For the last one and half year, I have been eating either from my Mom or my elder sister’s kitchen as I have been very lazy to cook. But last week, I decided that I should start cooking in my own kitchen. I was not sure how the food would come out to be after the cooking. I did the food shopping last week, and yesterday I set myself to cook. And surprisingly it was not so bad. Normally if I cook after a long time, it does not come out that good for the first couple of days; but this time, it was an exception. I made spinach bhaji, daal, chicken curry with potato, and tomato sous (all Bangladeshi dishes). I had my sister and her family, and my brother eating dinner in my place. It made me feel really good.

My next plan is to try to see if I can manage to work and cook at the same time; and I am also going to try cooking different dishes; kind of like picking cooking as a new hobby. Let’s see how it goes …

P.S. There is a good Bangladeshi cooking site at Rumana’s Kitchen