What Is Your Rosebud?

Explore the concept of “Rosebud” through iconic cinema like Citizen Kane, Wild Strawberries, Agantuk, and more. Uncover the universal yearning for lost innocence and cherished memories that shape our lives, inspire reflection, and connect us all.

“ROSEBUD”! What is it and who said it? Why does it even matter? Well, the truth is, all of us are caught in a web woven around our own Rosebuds and it DOES prick us in ways more subconscious than conscious. So, to begin talking about Rosebud, let me first tell you a few stories from world cinema that depict Rosebud in a variety of ways.

Smultronstället or Wild Strawberries (by Ingmar Bergman, 1957) portrays the life of a renowned Swedish bacteriologist Professor Isak Borg. The movie chronicles his journey through flashbacks from dream sequences, as he is driven by his daughter-in law from Stockholm to Lund to receive the Jubilee Doctor Award. Borg is a septuagenarian widower who could at best be described as a difficult person, who nonetheless gets to reevaluate his life through visions of his past, induced by the places they drive through and hitchhikers he meets along his journey. Each of them appeals to different periods of Borg’s life and personality traits, and in course of his daydream induced flashbacks, he relives much of his life. Many of the encounters remind him of his childhood memories, making him sombre. Other hitchhiker experiences remind him of his difficult marriage while some make him engulfed with guilt. Yet another hitchhiker-induced flashback reminds him of Sarah, his love interest from much younger days. Reminiscing her makes him happy and yet sad since she never became his life partner. As the movie nears closure through completion of Borg’s journey and receiving of the award, so too does Borg’s inner journey. In the end the professor gets to reflect upon his life and make assessments of his true nature, his shortcomings, his unfulfilled yearnings and also real achievements. We all reach positions in life due to our talents and fortunes and we also leave behind objects, places and people from our early days due to circumstances and time. Professor Isak Borg was no different. But in the end, for him there is calmness and closure arising from recollection and realisation, which is much desired. So, one might ask what was Isak Borg’s Rosebud and did it make him sad or happy in conclusion?

Agantuk or The Stranger (by Satyajit Ray, 1991) chronicles the return of one Mr. Manomohon Mitra to his long-lost niece Anila in Calcutta, apparently to meet her since she was his only surviving relative, before he was to move on to Australia. Not surprisingly, his arrival cast a spell of doubt over his relatives, since they had been well and truly long-lost by him and they express ambivalent feelings about his return and presence. Anila and her husband were curious to establish his real identity and purpose of his visit after a lifetime of absence. However, they did unearth the treasure trove this man had evolved into over time, with regards to his deep knowledge of the world, his philosophy and values, despite having doubts about his identity. Through a series of pleasant and unpleasant events revolving around Mr. Mitra, the family is able to confirm his identity and are deeply ashamed of having doubted him in the first place. In a final standout act of grace and magnanimity, Mitra bequeaths upon Anila, his share of the family inheritance, before disappearing into the oblivion he came from. Why did the stranger come to Anila and in search of what? Was he soul-searching for his roots, which prickled him bad enough to come back and look for his childhood imprints? Did he find his Rosebud?

Tahader Katha or Their Story (by Buddhadeb Dasgupta, 1992) depicts the tragedy of freedom fighter Shibnath, in post‑partition India. Once a symbol of youth, strength and energy, Shibnath suffered long incarceration in pursuit of India’s freedom and in return, had to bear the loss of his homeland in Eastern Bengal, post-independence. Despite encouragement from his influential friend and local politician Bipin Gupta in rural West Bengal in exchange for his electoral approval of Gupta, Shibnath the idealist, remains disillusioned. As a resettled refugee, he is only a shadow of his former self due loss of strength and self-esteem, resulting from enduring years of British torture and more so, due to loss of his homeland. His early vision of an independent and united motherland continues to haunt his existence and he remains mystified by memories of the same. Did Shibnath lose his Rosebud for good and did it permanently damage his mental faculties, rendering him unable to made a new beginning?

In Citizen Kane (by Orson Welles, 1941), we see the life and times of media baron Charles Foster Kane – one who went from triumph after triumph to the pinnacle of glory, despite having had very humble beginnings in rural Chicago.  But the movie also depicts Kane as a deeply ambitious yet uncompromising individual, whose meteoric rise to fame was also followed by scandals and an eventual downfall from grace, triggered by the choices he made in his personal life. In his deathbed, his final word was the mysterious Rosebud. That one word sent into tizzy an entire press group, who were hoping to unearth some great secret or treasure of life, alluded to by the high and mighty Charles Foster Kane in his final moments. In the end though, Rosebud remained a puzzle to all those who chased it, but thankfully for the film’s audience it was revealed in the final scene that Rosebud was nothing but the brand name of Kane’s childhood sled – a rather anticlimactical ending one might opine!

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So, what is the actual significance of Rosebud from all of the cinematic examples given above and what does it imply for people and life in general? Rosebud, as I see is a long-lost unattainable fancy of life mainly from one’s childhood, lost simply due to time, priorities or tragedy, which many a times shapes our future course of actions, or inactions. It makes us reflective, especially as we grow older, about something we held dear as a younger person and that we have left behind. In The Road Not Taken, American poet Robert Frost, expresses his yearnings for the road he left behind at the junction when he made a choice to take the less travelled road. Despite having made a conscious choice, Frost remains pensive and troubled by The Road Not Taken. The truth is that realisation of the loss of Rosebud pains us all; creating a kind of emptiness. The sweetness of the past memory, is gone for good and the yearning is sometimes suffocating. There is a Rosebud in each one of us, whether successful or broken by vagaries of life, and memories and soul searching of the roots elicit that one common yearning, which unites all of us irrespective of our socio-economic status. Rosebud is akin to Nikolai Gogol’s OVERCOAT, which we need in order to feel good and valued in our most innocent form, no matter how high we grow in life or how far away we slip due to misfortune. In conclusion, the truth about our Rosebuds melting away, is best expressed in the following quote of Franz Kafka which reflects upon the truth about Rosebud, while also showing a ray of hope and inspiration to keep moving forward in life.

“Everything you love will probably be lost, but in the end, love will return in another way.”