Phoring

I came to know of this movie from a source I would not trust, but then I am happy that I took the chance. Just a few days back, While I was checking my news feed on Facebook, every next person seemed to “feel happy watching Phoring.”  So I downloaded it to see what the fuss was all about.

I was pleasantly surprised to come across a movie after such a long time with such a fresh storyline. Well many others have touched this theme of adolescent passion, but then this one was different. It covered multiple themes, including God and death, as seen by a 14 year old.

The movie begins with Phoring, a 14 year old boy from a small town in North Bengal, fantasizing about a woman, much older in age than him, and waking up from a wet dream embarrassed. He is basically a lonely child, of a drunken father and a depressed mother. Having lost his only true friend, his elder brother, to malaria, he has no one to talk to but the Gods. His “Thakurs”. He sits by the river on a fallen tree and talks to them about everything. Pleading them to pass him in the exams to telling them about his wet dreams. Well, he talks about his wet dreams, “privately” only to the male God, and is very embarrassed when he mentions it to a “ladies” God.

When he fails his annual examination and decides to kill himself, his “Thakur” miraculously sends someone down to this village school of North Bengal, to make Phoring happy. And yes he is happy. No one ever gave him so much love as this new history teacher did. She understood his love for imagination, and suggested him ways to channelize it in to something productive. Besides, respecting this “Madam” of his, Phoring felt a tug at the heart because of this special privilege.

Naturally so, because when all the boys in his class are madly in love with this teacher, and trying too hard to find out where she lives, he gets the special privilege to visit her often, and know her a little more closely than anyone else. The passion and excitement these 14 year olds feel are portrayed wonderfully. The excitement when Madam, touches his hand or lies down on the bed and a little bit of her legs show. Then there is the jealousy. “Who is that man coming to meet Madam often?” “Why does Madam smile so much when she talks to him?”

He can’t accept the fact that Madam went away somewhere with a friend, without telling him. We also see the jealousy his classmates have against him. The way they make fun of him, because of this heart break. But then we also see the priceless smile on Phoring’s face, when Madam comes to visit him, making him feel all important. The dilemma and uncertainty of a child’s mind about how important he is to a grown up woman is very well portrayed by this child actor (I wonder how they make kids act).

This passion and love goes much deeper. So deep, that one can even give up his normal life, leave his home and go away to an unknown city in search of Madam. Work hard, wash dishes and finally find and meet Madam to ask some unanswered questions. Some questions that had been troubling the little mind for long. 

This kind of love, I think comes when one is innocent. Unperturbed by the vices of the world of a grown up. When one knows how to follow one’s heart and not care about what others say and think. But then Phoring had a very strong conscience. That came out when he conversed with his Gods. The Gods’ voice telling him how he is wrong or how he is being silly is just his inner conflict. His inner voice, stopping him from doing something or encouraging him to go ahead. But his innocent self always asked him to be spontaneous and do whatever his heart agreed to.  Not bothering about what people thinks and finally with time, Phoring learns to deal with his conscience and his conversations with his Thakurs reduce in frequency.

May be as people grow up, they tend to wear a mask, starts pretending to be someone they are not. And then with time, as the teacher aptly says, they forget about the mask. The mask becomes the reality and they tend to hold on to it, unless something traumatising happens and the mask falls off. In Phoring’s dad’s case, his mask of a bad father fell off when he realised that he has lost his son.

What is sad is when this innocence of a child is lost; the love of the untouched heart disappears too. As the movie ends with the Madam promising her student, that she would write him letters, and asks him to reply to them, I wonder, how long will the little boy keep his words? Will he fall out of the need to know where his beloved teacher is? Or will he keep his words and stay interested in the same way that he is now? Will he grow out of this innocence and realise that Madam was after all not that important? Will he lose this attachment and will it be for the good or for the bad? However everything depends on the uncertainty. And no one knows what is for the good and what for the bad. Not even the Gods. Even they fail to understand certain things we mortals do and then we should learn to stop depending on them and create our own stories. Phoring sheds away his dependence on the Gods by saying at the end of the movie: “Thakur, jeta bojhona sheta niye kotha bolo na.” (Do not talk about things you don’t understand.)  Or was he just talking to his inner voice?