When Ramlochan entered the house shortly his brother had killed his sister-in-law, Chidam blamed his wife, Chandara, for the murder in order to save his brother from being hanged. Upon Ramlochan suggesting that Chidam should say Dukhiram killed his wife, Chidam responded that he only has one brother and that he can find another wife if this one dies. Thus, Chidam devalued his wife’s life. In addition, the back story Rabindranath provides us with on page 896, clearly shows that Chidam was not able to control his wife the way he wanted to, and was fearful of her leaving him. When Chidam’s  effort to  restrain her by physical abuse and confinement was ineffective, he wished for her to die so that he can get some peace. Rabindranath also said “human beings can hate each other more than death”(page 896) further implying that Chidam hated his wife so much that he would rather have her dead than alive.

On the other hand, in few instances, Chidam’s love for his wife is proven to be strong and worth more than his own life. While he did frame his wife, he also did not realize the impact it would have on her and their life. As the story reads, “he forgot that a lie can be even more terrible (page 894)” implying that Chidam might find his wife’s life to be more important than he thought at the heat of the moment. After this realization, Chidam asked Ramlochan to help him exonerate his wife. Chidam and Ramlochan created a story to save Chandara from the death penalty. Chidam was considered to be eye candy among the village women, however he only had eyes for his young wife (page 896), so that didn’t matter to him. Towards the end of the story, when Chandara refused to plead not guilty, Chidam told the court that he killed his sister-in-law to save his wife showing that he valued Chandara’s life more than his own.

In conclusion, Rabindranath’s display of Chidam and Chandara’s love story is contradictory. It seems to me that Chidam was never able to make up his mind about whether to love his wife or hate her for being so stubborn and unpredictable.

The short story was adopted as a movie in 2004 in Bangladesh. The following parts of the movie are closely related to the actual story we are reading in class:

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGZR9IuMbt0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYmRG8uhKfU

Unfortunately, the parts do not have subtitles and the dialogues are in Bengali. However, the videos can provide a visualization of what the culture looks like.