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Goynar Baksho
Author: Sirshendu Mukhopadhyay

Publisher: Ananda Publishers
ISBN: 978172151867
Pages: 86
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A story of women of three generations and their lives and changing position of society. And this is shown in relation to a jewellery box The grandniece is visited by the spirit of the matriarch, who demands that she hide the jewelry box from her relatives. Over the years, the family descends into poverty, losing money in judicial proceedings over family property disputes, while the grandniece, regularly monitored by the spirit of the matriarch, keeps the jewels hidden. Eventually, the spirit of the matriarch allows the grandniece to pawn some of the jewels so that her husband can set up a business, over the objections of the family, selling saris . The prosperity of the business allows her to buy the jewels back, completing the hidden collection. The grandniece discovers that her husband is having an extramarital affair, and complains to the ghost of the matriarch. The ghost of the matriarch regales her with a story of a torrid sexual liaison that she had with a labourer when she was alive and young, and encourages the grandniece to take on a lover of her own. She does so, and sires an illegitimate daughter with a secret lover. She masks the daughter as the husbands and raises her. The ghost of the matriarch abandons the grandniece and begins to visit her daughter instead.

The final part of the film revolves around the daughter as she grows up (Srabanti Chatterjee) and becomes a modern Bengali Indian woman; going to college, driving, and becoming involved in politics. The film approaches the year 1971, when the Bangladesh Liberation War breaks out in East Pakistan. Bengalis in East Pakistan demand political, cultural and linguistic freedom from the intense and brutal oppression of Pakistan, and rebel against West Pakistan. The daughter's lover regularly crosses the border over to East Pakistan to aid the Mukti Bahini rebels in their struggle for freedom. The 1971 Bangladesh genocide becomes a backdrop of the film, and one of the rebels is murdered by a Pakistani death squad, following which the ghost of the matriarch advises the daughter to donate the jewels to the cause of the Mukti Bahini.