Bhai Dooj 2022: 5 onscreen brothers every sister would want in real life

It’s Bhai Dooj aka Bhai Phonta! The auspicious day that celebrates the eternal bond between siblings and also honors the relationship that brothers and sisters share. It reminds you of the importance of your siblings with whom you share DNA. They are the only ones who understand why your parents drive you insane. Sibling love is in the air. So we picked out five of the famous on-screen brother-sister jodis that we absolutely adore. After all, it’s no cakewalk to essay such an eternal bond on celluloid so realistically! Let’s scroll down to see who are Bengali cinema’s best on-screen brothers.

‘Pather Panchali’ (A Song of the Little Road) marked Satyajit Ray’s debut as a director. This masterpiece from Ray is a social drama inspired by a famous novel of the same name by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. ‘Pather Panchali’ plots a young boy Apu from a poor family and his daily life in a rural Indian village. The sibling love between Apu and his elder sister Durga is the heart of the film, their scenes of everyday intimacy encapsulates the sweet bonding between a brother and sister. Ray’s camera artistically captures their squabbles and tenderness, whether a huddling during rainstorm or chasing a man selling sweets – it’s better to have a close look at the sweets instead of living in a world entirely devoid of them.

‘Pupa’ tells the story of Subhro (Rahul Banerjee) who returns India after his mother dies. When he is getting ready to head back to US, his father (Pradip Mukherjee) suffers a cerebral attack. Subhro’s uncle (Kamaleshwar Mukherjee) advices him to leave behind the emotion and go back to US. His fiancé, who is starting her integrated PHD in US, is now left with no other choice but to leave him and go ahead.Sudiptaa Chakraborty plays Subhro’s sister. In this turmoil, a shocking incident leads to the climax of the story. Not only focusing on the controversial subject of ‘Euthanasia’, being a complex tale of exploring several layers of relationships in a family, ‘Pupa’ showed the bonding between a brother and sister as well. Rahul playing the troubled brother seeks advice from his sister who is herself trapped in a difficult time while adjusting with her in-laws and husband.

In ‘Ahaa Re’, the sibling bond goes beyond the typical brother-sister love. Bappa, the young boy and Basundhara, his sister-in-law, can show you what sibling love actually means. Bappa who has lost his elder brother and Basundhara who has lost her husband, with time, become the ideal brother-sister jodi sharing their responsibilities to the elderly father.

Yet another Ritwik Ghatak gem! The partition drama ‘Subarnarekha’ focuses on the dramatic conflicts portraying a strained relationship between brother and sister. Ishwar (Abhi Bhattacharya) fails to come to terms with his sister Sita (Madhabi Mukherjee), as she plans to marry Abhiram (Satindra Bhattacharya), a lower caste young man. Such caste prejudice turns into a key element in the narrative when Ishwar orders Abhiram to leave for Calcutta. When Ishwar asks Sita to meet the family which came to see her for a possible marriage arrangement, Sita’s refusal leads to patriarchal violence.

This film was both written and directed by one of Bengali cinema’s iconic figures Ritwik Ghatak and is based on a popular novel by Shaktipada Rajguru. This Bengali classic is based on the infamous 1947 partition of Bengal and how the refugees coped with their tragic fate. ‘Dada Ami Bachte Chai’ (Brother I Want To Live) could still send chills down anyone’s spine, couldn’t it? The way a selfless young woman Neeta (Supriya Choudhury) sacrificed her own happiness for her unappreciative family in the film, it’s like an unmatched one. Shankar (Anil Chatterjee), Neeta’s elder brother and a struggling singer shares a special relationship with her sister Neeta. They call each other khoka and khuki, little boy and little girl. When one is mentally down, the other steps in to cheer him up.