Time flies. Way back in 1994, I picked up a few books from the Airport Book store and I remember that I read the book entitled “A Suitable Boy”, an adaptation of Vikram Seth’s novel with the same name. A Suitable Boy is a very good film coming of age-adapted by Andrew Davies from Vikram Seth’s 1993 novel. Set during the 1950s, the 6-part mini-series tells the story of a young girl’s search for love and identity in a newly independent, post-Partition India defining its own future.
Director Mira Nair has introduced BBC to an excellent team by including so many brilliant and talented actors under one roof and everybody has performed really well and was exceptional and brilliant.
In 1951, at the same time, the country is carving out her own identity as an independent nation and is about to go to the polls for its first democratic general elections. A story that is simple yet touching and set in a world that seems so relatable, and narration of the story without any bias which was absolutely wonderful. It is a story suffused, authentic, with convoluted feelings of friendship, great true stories built upon the strong bonds of affinity and unity among different religions. It talks about first love, family pressure, political unrest, poverty, illiteracy, and the great divide, of haves or have nots in this world, it is so set in the early years of independence.
It is a blend of being revolutionary in its perspective but very conventional in many other ways, it touches the values of how diverse India is in many respects and ends with making the wisest choices. Everything is immaculately presented. Much can be learned from our glorious, nearly a hundred years long, freedom struggle, which had very clear positions. It portrays the societal inequalities, poverty inequalities growing religious hatred, presence of the zamindari system, country-wide protests for academic freedom, and so on. We have also seen the rise of the economy, the mindsets, and lavish modernization in then people of Calcutta, educational system, shades of illiteracy seen amongst the villages, music, and gazals, those forts and streets of cities touched by the Ganges and cities like Benares which were all perfectly synchronized with the newly born India.
The Suitable Boy Series is richly filled with the shifting emotions of people towards society, conflicted past, divided societies, a culture that we never knew or heard of.
It is a good drama and film supported by good actors like Ram Kapoor, Tanya Maniktala. Ishaan, Khatter Aamir Bashir, Rasika Dugal, and Namit Das and special thanks to Vikram Seth, BBC, and Mira Nair for having brought such a wonderful drama and a great film to the world.