Paro... the invisible heroine

Today i was talking to one of my friends (girl talk) and during the course of our chatting session she suddenly mentioned that she is no paro... that started me thinking... why is it that when a guy is spurned in love, he is labelled a devdas but a girl doesnt like being called a paro?? infact, paro showed more gumption (i always wanted to use this word but never knew where :P ) than devdas anyday but no one sees that coz their love story has always been shown through the eyes of devdas... and even though people see devdas as the loser guy, they dont see the strength of character in paro who instead of crying about lost love, took charge of her life and moved on.

Recently I had the pleasure of watching Dev.D. well, I am being sarcastic... it was not pleasureable. I don't feel it was a bad movie coz it is not. It was a nice movie but I just don’t get what all the brouhahaha was all about. I agree it was well made, great music, good cinematography (after a point of time you felt you are actually drunk as well) etc etc but in the end it was yet another take on the classic devdas albeit a modern one. We all know the tragic story of devdas, the poor little rich guy, but for the uninitiated I’ll give you a quick recap - Rich guy (that’s devdas) loves poor girl (Paro). Poor Girl loves rich guy too. Rich guy goes abroad to study. Poor girl waits for the guy for 10 years. Rich guy comes back and the affair resumes. Misunderstanding (because of class and status) crops up which results in trouble in paradise. The trouble is because of family (the family’s got to do something too right?). Guy abuses girl. Girl’s ego is shattered. Girl in turn marries rich older guy (with kids mind you). Guy realizes he messed up. Guy turns to alcohol. Guy meets another girl (bechari chandramukhi). New girl falls in love with the guy (God knows why?!). Guy still loves poor girl (who is no longer poor but is infact as rich as Devdas now). Excessive drinking kills guy. The End.

Dev.d, coz its a modern take, does have certain twists (but it doesnt deviate much from the Classic) such as in the original devdas it was devdas’ family who were against the match but in this one it is paro’s dad who plays the villian (god knows why again?!). this time chunni babu is not dev’s friend but chanda a.k.a. chandramukhi’s pimp. And in the end, instead of drinking himself to death, dev gets an epiphany and realizes that he doesn’t love paro but is in love with chanda and decides to give life another chance. Happy ending for all you might say? coz dev gets chanda, chanda gets dev. but what about paro? she gets to marry a rich man. i dont thinks so. It was not a hppy ending for paro who ends up as a second wife to a much older man who she doesn’t even love.
This is what happens in this particular movie, in the other movies and the book, devdas dies. that's the easiest way to run from a problem. he couldnt face life so he gave it up. but what was left behind was paro who chose to live rather than escape.

That is why I have always believed that instead of a tragedy of devdas, it was a tragedy of paro. In the book, in the movies, it is always paro who had to suffer and maybe that's why people dont want to be like her... coz who would choose a lifetime of suffering right? what they dont see is that even if she suffered, she didnt give up.

Whatever happens to Dev and Chanda is the result of their own actions… they are the reason for whatever happens to them…good or bad. Devdas was weak… he could never take a bloody decision and stick to it. Whatever happened to him was his own doing…well, almost. He was the one who chose to believe others than the person he loved. He was the one who created the barrier of class between himself and paro. He was the one who left paro in the lurch. He was the one who forced her to move on and get married to someone else. He was the one who happily died and left all his worries behind… and in dev.d he was the one who ends up with chanda. So basically, he had his cake and ate it too.

But, where did that leave paro? She kept waiting for dev when he was attending parties and getting drunk in the UK or the US. She was ready to leave her family for him but instead had to bear his rebuke. She was the one who had to abide by her parents' wishes and get married to a gentleman who was not only elder to her but also had kids as old as her. Devdas dies but it is she who lives the decisions that she had to take... sometimes because of her family and sometimes because of her lover. I believe that she is the strongest character of the trio, she didn’t drown herself in alcohol. She didn’t take the easy way out. she had too much of self respect to run away with devdas after being made to feel like a fool by him but still no one wants to be called a paro now-a-days.

Devdas either dies or lives happily ever after with chanda / chandramukhi who also has had a tough life…granted… but in the end if she doesn’t gain anything, she doesn’t lose anything either. She can go back to living her life the way it was before the sudden arrival of dev at her dooestep. In the end, it is paro who has to live the life that is somehow goeverned by the actions of others.

Inspite of all of this, it is still dev who is hailed as the ultimate tragic lover… more like a tragic loser, if you ask me. And believe it or not I actually know some people who idolize devdas and wouldn’t mind living a life like that…well, my advice to them is – get a life first!

So, even if dev.d attempts to present a modern outlook to the whole tragic love story, it ends up being just that - another take on devdas. i mean how many different ways can u tell the story of a man who loved and lost. I wish someone would make a movie on paro… from her point of view. Her wait for dev, what does she feel when dev tells her that she is not worth him, what goes through her heart and head when she decides to marry the other man, what was her life after the marriage. Did she have a happy married life? Did she ever forget devdas? Did she ever forgave devdas? Did she have children? No one knows, and maybe no one will…

i just hope girls today instead of turning into a female devdas would try and turn into a paro. Agreed hers was not a very happy life but it was much more degnified and respectful than devdas. i also know it is pretty clear from the movies, that he is someone who shouldnt be idolized, but he still is. i just wish that for once, paro would occupy the centrestage and would not be left as just one of the character actors. is anyone listening?