Sabitri is the daughter of a poor baker in rural India. As luck would have it a wealthy woman takes her under her wing and into her home. She provides her with tuition to attend school in exchange for some house duties. Sabitri secretly begins a romance with the woman’s son and since that would be unforgivable Sabitri is immediately kicked to the street and the boy sent far away. Saddened, she later falls for the teacher who comforts her and takes her under his wing. Many years later, she is wiser but has instilled much of her fear and anxiety in her own daughter Bela. When Bela is grown she too flees with an unlikely partner. Life is not at all what she envisioned and subsequently her daughter Tara suffers in the same sad way. I love the sensitive mother daughter relationships that sweep across generations and cultures. As vastly different as our lives may be between countries and ages, we all fear and swear we will not turn into our mother’s. Mistakes will not be repeated. And human nature plays a funny trick on us and does it anyway. I happen to be a huge fan of family stories from the Indian culture. This was a solid good. It was somewhat predictable but most of them are. I think what stops it from being more than good is that I just didn’t “love” any of the characters.
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