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October 1940
FILM INDIA
Shantaram's story begins with a prostitute, the ostracized member of society. A stress is made on the economic conditions of want and hunger which make women prostitutes and keep them in those immoral shackles. Society is shown as using the prostitute for its entertainment and casting her away heartlessly the next minute.
"Admi" is the story of a prostitute whose soul rebels at her fate and finding an opportunity she decides to bury the past and build a new and better future.
Love is used as a motive in this struggle, love of Kesar, the prostitute for Moti, the policeman. Moti is the symbol of the man-made better society. Kesar is the prostitute, spurned and hated, because for a living she trades in flesh and blood.
Through her love Kesar fights to regenerate herself. Moti is willing. But the grip of traditions, the prying eyes of society and her very love for the man all conspire to make Kesar a coward at the last minute.
Kesar feels that she can never purge her soul of the sins of the past and she defeats herself in her purpose.
But in this very defeat, Shantaram provoked society to new thought and the thought is: when will society reclaim the prostitute who is more sinned against than a sinner?
Sherwood's "Waterloo Bridgehasn't any such high ideals inspiring the theme.
While "Admi" opens with the heroine as a prostitute, "Waterloo Bridge" begins with the heroine as a ballet dancer.
A ballet dancer is not socially ostracized in the West like the prostitute. In fact the regimental commander of the hero of "Waterloo Bridge" gives his permission to the here to marry the heroine knowing that she is a dancer. Tne mother and the society of the hero receive the heroine also knowing her professional past.
Sherwood's heroine becomes a prostitute believing that the hero is dead and because of hunger and unemployment. She falls from a pedestal.
Shantaram begins with a fallen woman and tries to regenerate her and give her a new social life.
And therefore while Sherwood's drama becomes individual, Shantaram gives a problem of universal interest. Where Sherwood ends, Shantaram begins and sets a new problem to society.
ITS SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE
Let us consider the different impulses that drive the two heroines to throw up the sponge.
Myra. Sherwood's heroine, becomes conscious of the hero's family name and tradition when his regi
mental commander points at his
army symbol and expresses his
confidence in Myra to maintain its
age-old glory.
Myra suddenly takes panic and
finds that she cannot outlive her bad
past and some day it would pull
her down from the pedestal she was
trying to reach and that day it would
break her lover's heart. Purely a
material consideration, prompted
more by innate vanity and the fear
of disgrace.
Kesar Shantaram's heroine, be>
gins as a prostitute and has nothing to hide of her past from Moti, her lover. Moti has in fact condoned the
The heroine of "Admi" begins as a fallen woman in a noble attempt to grab at a higher life which ultimately escapes her.
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