Lagaa Chunari Mein Daag – Journey of a Woman, though is produced by Aditya Chopra, is the second experiment of the Parineeta famed Pradeep Sarkar. He is even in this film trying to get a true picture of the innermost dimension of woman. We shall have to remember at the beginning that he is the same person, who two years back saw great success with his musical love story Parineeta, an adaptation of the 1914 Bengali novel by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay.
Here is the story of Laaga Chunari Mein Daag. The film from the very beginning deals with a conservative relatively poor family living on the banks of the river Ganga in Banaras and all talks revolving around the eldest girl who takes up the responsibility of protecting and supporting her family financially.
The family is consisted of Shivshankar Sahay (Anupam Kher) an ex-pensioner, his wife Sabitri (Jaya Bachchan) whose work on the stitching machine is the only source of income to the family and his two daughters Badki (Rani Mukherjee) and Chutki (Konkona Sen Sharma). Badki always gets hurt when her father keeps wishing they had a son. When dark days seem to take upon their family happiness she decides to take the stride. She soon finds herself battling in the cruel and ruthless city of Mumbai but she tackles her life with great courage. She pays the highest price in an attempt to not let the dark shadows fall on her family, by entering into a profession, called as glorified prostitituion. Will she always lead a life full of murky compromises? What will happen if her secret life gets exposed? Will she be able to save the dignity of the family for which she has paid the highest price?
Even in this film, being a talented storyteller Pradeep Sarkar has done full justice to himself. Indeed he has proficiently managed to bring to light the struggle of a woman to make a living in the cruel and demanding society with maturity and precision. Lastly, the greatest asset of the film is Rani Mukherjee who is sheerly matchless and delivers yet another award winning performance.
