The two have a meet-cute (their cars collide) and fall in love and then, slowly, we find out what they’re really like. Amit’s one of those people who’s in love with the idea of being in love, and so he fits Labanya into his vision of the ideal woman (while conveniently forgetting to mention Ketaki, who occupied that space earlier).
What’s unusual is that Labanya sees exactly how he’s building her up and realises that she will not always be able to live up to his expectations.
The decision leaves her teary but asked if she’d rather never have met Amit, her reply is a firm no because she “was a shadow” before he came into her life.
While this seems to shows exceptional maturity and supreme sacrifice, we also find out that Labanya has a jealous and competitive side.
She had harshly spurned suitor Shovonlal, who was her dad’s student.
And had made it a point of telling her dad that he coached the boy so well that he beat her to top the university exams.
Soon after, she announces that she’s moving out to take up the governess job.
“You want to leave our house and me and go work as a governess?
Childishness,” her father says, and you see the heroine in a different light.
Labanya’s resolve does weaken and she accepts Amit’s proposal, but when Ketaki and his sisters reach Shillong and a confrontation occurs, it truly hits her that the man she loves is more childish than she is.
Starring: Rahul Bose, Konkona Sen Sharma, Swastika Mukherjee Director: Suman Mukhopadhyay Rating: Three and a half out of Five How interesting that both Amit (Rahul Bose) and Labanya (Konkona Sen Sharma), the main characters in Bengali film Shesher Kobita, become more and more complex, the more you get to know them.
The movie might be set in pre-independence India but it just goes to show that the course of true love never did run smooth.
At the start and on the surface, Amit is one of those rich brats: studied in England, proposed to and been accepted by a pretty girl (Ketaki played by Swastika Mukherjee) who shares a similarly privileged social standing.