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Bipasha বিপাশা (1962): A tale of three rivers

Bipasha (Bengali, 1962) is concerned with reconciling cultural beliefs about spatial identity and meaning with the political realities of independence and division. It also intends to redeem the personal trauma and shame of the children of Partition. In order to achieve these monumental tasks, Bipasha engages in an aggressive and relentless flow of narrative symbolism. But if you can manage to rise above the torrent of religious, nationalist, and spatial mythology, it's a film that will reward patient viewers. GEOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND Bipasha, our heroine, shares a name with the traditional Sanskrit title for the Beas river, Vipas विपाशा or Vyasa. In Bengali, as "v's" become "b's", the protagonist is alternately called Biyash or Bipasha. This scripting choice seems to intentionally link the heroine to the mythological river as it is known in both the Rig Veda and Mahabharata . Beas Watershed (Stanford, 2012) Historically, the river is also lege...

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