‘Chokher Bali’: Reimagining Tagore’s Biggest Regret

Imagine being so arrogant and entitled that your mother brings you a marriage prospect of an educated, beautiful woman and you literally blow the photo away without a second glance? You’re so selfish that you tell your childhood best friend to reject the proposal, too. The woman ends up marrying a man whose family doesn’t value her intelligence. Within a year, he dies of tuberculosis, leaving her widowed, her potential cut short. 

This is the stunning premise of Chokher Bali, a novel by Rabindranath Tagore, and the story of Binodini, portrayed by a magnetic Aishwarya Rai in Rituparno Ghosh’s 2003 film adaptation. She is a woman equally sharp, embittered, and optimistic. Yet, it is ultimately Bengali society — and yes, even Tagore — who fails her. “Ever since Chokher Bali was published, I have always regretted the ending. I ought to have been censured for it,” Tagore reportedly wrote on June 24, 1940. The key to understanding why is Binodini herself.