3. Antarmahal

Based on a short story of Tarashankar Bandyopadhya’s ‘Pratima’, Ghosh has shown the place of women inside the interior of feudalism. Bhubaneswar Chowdhary, who is an oppressive Zamindar played by Jacky Shroff, and the caricature of crudity (as shown in Bollywood films), is in line to win the Raibahadur title from the British Crown. And in order to impress, he decides to put the face of Queen Victoria in the body of Maa Durga. At the same time, he also wants a heir, which he failed to get from his elderly wife Mahamaya, played by Rupa Ganguly. So, he gets married to Jashomati played by Soha Ali Khan, and thrashes both the women inside the desolate palace to justify their existence as women by giving birth to a descendant. The film attracted controversy because of its sexual subjugation and extreme realism in the depiction of Zamindars and oppression. But kudos to Ghosh’s sensibility, nowhere did he utilise sexually explicit posters in the promotion of the film. As he said, “Sexuality should not be a selling point.”