“The fact that I’ve lived this long is not really an achievement, Time passes; we age… it’s natural. This is why it annoys me when a person watches a movie and tell me that it was ‘time pass’. Would time not have passed if he hadn’t watched the film?”
-Kamal Haasan
All of 65 and fit as a fiddle. 232 films strong with that eternal spring in his steps. Three marriages and two darling and dainty daughters in Akshara and Shruthi — that’s Paarthale Paravasam Kamal Haasan for you. Versatile, method actor. Dancer. Singer. Aesthete scripter-director. Tamil Cinema’s iconic thespian. Shaped and striven by an innate philosophy to “lust and hunger for the audience,” and “to do my duty of being better than my predecessor and to see that my successor is better than me.”
Hailed by Hollywood’s Barrie M Osburne for his intense knowledge of literature, history and films as “encyclopaedic” and Ang Lee for his brilliance and knowledge of films, Indian Cinema’s, more precisely, Tamil Cinema’s “Mr Perfectionist’s” has a simple modus operandi towards incessant success. He says, “I would like to keep updating myself. That is the only way to make life interesting. And because I am a performer, I would like to do it deliberately and with purpose.”
It is no wonder then that this very sense of purpose and life’s mission saw Kamal Haasan draw blood in the very first film he forayed into when a physician friend of his mother visited AV Meiyappan (AVM) to treat his wife, with a young child tagging along. That innocuous stripling and Destiny’s Child would catch the keen and perceptive eye of AVM’s son M Saravanan to be recommended for their production Kalathur Kannamma, in which his character, Selvam, [highlight background=”#f79126″ color=”#ffffff”]a cherubic four-year-old waif, gloriously crooned the haunting hymnal Ammavum Neeye Appavum Neeye without betraying the slightest trace of camera consciousness.[/highlight]
That his debut performance as a child artiste should have fetched him the coveted President’s Gold Medal was a presage to what followed this multifaceted, multitalented, mercurial man of the medium, admiringly and effusively proclaimed Ava (n) l Appadithan for his artistry and aesthetics. Kamal Haasan the prodigious talent would go on to rule the movie amphitheatre for 6 decades.
Born Parthasarathy, into a Tamil Iyengar family, Kamal Haasan, as he is better known by his screen name, is the youngest of four siblings. His sister Mrinalini is a classical danseuse, and his brother Charuhasan and niece Suhasini are National Film Award winning actors. He grew up in a home that was deeply steeped in performance arts; one very much like an open-air auditorium, where renowned singers of the time would enthral audiences.
Upon his father’s encouragement, he joined the repertory company (TKS Nataka Sabha) headed by T K Shanmugam even as he continued his studies at Hindu Higher Secondary School in Triplicane. The quality time with the theatre company shaping Kamal Haasan’s craft and interest in makeup.
Straddling the Kollywood cinema coliseum like a colossus, Kamal Haasan is known for his virtuosity. Among his eclectic repertoire of films as a director-actor are Raja Paarvai, Vikram, Apoorva Sagodhargal, Thevan Magan, Mahanadi, Kuruthipunal, Hey Ram, Anbe Sivam, Dasavatharam, and Virumandi, each of which explore different thematic concerns and bring to fore his wide range of acting skills, depth and intensity, and the understated manner in which he plays his parts with aplomb. He is not one who can easily be categorised in any one manner of emoting for he brings into play a variegated and nuanced rendering.
Often frowned upon for his over self-indulgence with aesthetics of film making and acting, and an unabashed pursuer of commercial dynamics, despite clinging on to his ideal idea of cinema, Kamal Haasan has never been wanting when it came to meld commerce with craft for the greater good of cinema. He is a radical experimenter always willing to take that leap of faith to sharpen audiences’ cinematic sensibilities with subtleness and complexity rather than relying on dead pot commercial cauldrons.
Kamal Haasan continues to set the bar for craftsmanship in writing, direction and acting through his constant exploration of structure and form. He educates and prepares his audiences to become better informed and to appreciate, to seek, and to solicit quality cinema from film makers. Ever exploring newer avenues of narratives, he is on a constant singular mission of re-imaging the approach to cinema beyond the mundane function of entertainment and toward a more thinking craft.
Vivien Leigh — the Scorn that Won the World
“Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.
Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.”
–Doctor Faustus (Christopher Marlowe)
Faustus, Christopher Marlowe’s scholar magician tragic hero, broke into a rapturous praise for Helen of Troy, for whom man and the gods together fought a battle that shook the earth and the heaven for ten long years. Vivien Leigh, the epitome of eternal feminine beauty, too, caught the world in a frenzy in the same manner in the 1940s and 50s with her alluring charm. Helen symbolizes not only divine beauty but also voluptuousness and hellfire. Her story is the story of war and violence. Likewise, there is more to Vivien’s chiseled charm, fluttering eyelashes and supple physique that conform to the norms of the archetypal female beauty. Her delicate contours are lined with fine strokes of angst and scorn, and her puffed nostrils and sideways glances hardly betray a hint of grinding teeth and clenching fists that characterize the subversive female. Her swan limbs are not only meant to be held in the arms of her lover and waltz round the ballroom but also to put up the fiercest fight for survival in the most difficult situation. Women with these traits are called the ‘monstrous other’, and always pose a challenge against conventions.
In this regard, Vivien Leigh the person and the artist goes much ahead of being merely a combination of beauty and talent, and is a metaphor for women’s resistance against whatever patriarchy imposes upon them. For, this is the flux and paradox in which women have found themselves in, down generations. Society expects them to remain docile and dependent, but in the hours of crisis they are required to fight their own battles. Vivien enacts these complex female experiences in all her memorable roles, including Blanche Du Bois in A Streetcar Named Desire, Myra Lester in Waterloo Bridge, and Scarlet O’Hara in Gone with the Wind.
Besides being the paragon of ethereal charm, Vivien Leigh is also the perennial split self—a place where the angel and the femme fatale reside side by side. It is this aspect of her persona that makes her suitable to play the perfect foil to unscrupulous males such as the speculating Rhett Butler and the brutish Stanley Kowalski. The sternness in Vivien’s demeanor to match Scarlett O’Hara’s strength to fight a lone battle is simply irreplaceable. And it was only an amoral Blanche Du Bois who could challenge the aggressive male in her sister’s husband. Cinematically, to highlight the striking features of the characters she play, Vivien’s roles are sometimes contrasted against good hearted but nonetheless passive women characters such as Melanie in Gone With the Windand Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire. Vivien’s rare ability to recognize and bring alive the intricacies in human situations earned her an enviously successful career that comfortably straddled the two eras before and after the Second World War and represent two distinctively different sensibilities.
Certainly, more than her beauty, it was her gift of naturalness in role playing that made her all the more irresistible. Vivien Leigh was an artist who lived a life for art’s sake. She was the kind of artist for whom the line between art and reality was too blurred to recognize and for whom happiness meant being tucked away in the make-belief world of art and imagination. For artists like her, the light of the real world was too blinding to bear. Astonishingly, this aspect of hers uncannily brings her very close to Sybil Vane, the female protagonist in the role of an actress in Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Like Sybil, who knew and loved the stage from childhood, Vivien too was fascinated by the stage from early girlhood and underwent formal training in acting from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London. Quite many actors back then used the theatre as a stepping stone to the silver screen and had no inclination to return to their roots if they struck it big it in films. Vivien Leigh, though, quite to the contrary, loved the theatre very much, found time for it throughout her film acting career, and brought out a number of memorable stage productions, mostly with Lawrence Olivier, her second husband and an acting legend by himself. Leigh was true to her belief that an actress is a real artist for lifetime while film stardom is flimsy and ephemeral.
In The Picture of Dorian Gray, every evening Sybil Vane transforms herself into a Shakespearean heroine—Juliet, Perdita, Portia or Ophelia—and enthralls her audience; for her, the stage is the real world and the emotions of these characters are the real emotions that she feels. Ironically, she has no emotion of her own. Furthermore, the moment she becomes aware of the real world beyond the stage, she ceases to be the artist she has been and finally ceases to exist altogether. Vivien Leigh’s passion for role playing too is of the same vibes. She is more real as a stubborn Southern belle or as Ophelia the eternal virgin or headstrong Cleopatra or fiendish Lady Macbeth than Vivien Leigh the real woman. Once those sublime moments of exuding all possible human passions came to an end, they gave way to nauseous moments of irreconcilable depression.
This feeling of estrangement and unease in the real life atmosphere made Vivien gradually fade away into mental and physical degeneration and finally die an untimely death at the age of fifty three. But her art endures so powerfully that even with the passage of more than eight decades, we still marvel at how Margaret Mitchell’s fictional Scarlett O’Hara became the real Scarlett O’Hara in Vivien Leigh.
This was around 1955. Ritwik Ghatak was in Bombay, sharing his living quarters with Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Producer Shashadhar Mukherjee had him employed at Filmistan Studios, writing stories and scripts for them. Ritwik had just been married to Surama Bhattacharjee. He wrote to his young bride, who was working at a school in the northeastern hill station of Shillong:
“…it’s upsetting when I see the way they work. Truth be told, there is no work at all, I just have to write a bit of rubbish once in a way and go sit in office from 10 AM to 5 PM…. I just have to grit my teeth and keep trying to earn some money. I don’t know if I’ll be successful, but nothing else is possible here. Doing good work, doing my kind of work, showing what I am capable of and trying to establish myself, all of that looks out of reach right now. I just have to find a way to earn a monthly salary….look, Lokkhi, this life is not for us. Working for money is not something I have done before and it’s disgusting to me. Somehow, if I can pay off my debt of around Rs.1000 and be in a position to pay Bhupathi 100 Rs. month for a year or so, I will leave all this. This can’t go on. I look around me and see that even people who earn three or four thousand rupees a month are not happy. But I have found peace in doing the kind of work I like without earning so much as a paisa.”
Having just married, the couple planned to start a new life, with her earning a salary as a school teacher, and him encashing his storytelling skills working in Filmistan. But the ‘job’ was tugging away at his gut. He was told he should try and write something that was more ‘Bombay-like’. Ritwik was disgusted. But he kept at it, trying to keep his head down and just do the work he was being paid for, like millions of people did every day – and still do. He was also biding his time till he could save enough and return to Calcutta and be back to ‘struggling’ as an independent artist. Struggle. A favourite word of the leftist intellectual, especially back in those days. And Ritwik Ghatak was a walking, talking, breathing embodiment of this.
He ended up righting stories for his friend and roommate Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s debut directorial venture, Musafir (1957) and for his revered Bimal Da’s Madhumati (1958). Bimal Da, who broke into the scene with Udayer Pathe/ Humrahi (1944), a production of New Theatres, Calcutta and marked for its unusual representation of caste disparity. And then, the moment he created his own banner, he created the seminal Do Bigha Zameen (1953), which was a spiritual descendant to Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948). It followed that the young rebellious filmmakers and playwrights would look up to him. Bimal Roy was a poster boy for them. Was Ritwik’s anguish also caused by this giant of a filmmaker hiring him and having him write a reincarnation love story? He indicates in other letters to ‘Lokkhi’, which was Surama’s nickname, a number of concepts that germinated in his head but had to be nipped in the bud because they were not commercial enough, not ‘Bombay enough’.
“I have planned a story for Filmistaan. I like it very much. An atomic research scientist falls asleep while doing his research, dreaming about a future world where a universal scientific community has taken shape. Of course, I have to keep space for a lot of song and dance and romance, and melodrama; I have to put in all the ingredients of a Bombay film.” He even wanted to consult legendary astrophysicist Dr. Meghnad Saha, so that his story had that ring of authenticity. But we know such a film never saw the light of the day. Shashadhar Mukherjee didn’t approve of it. There’s also an apocryphal story of him going to watch a trial show of Madhumati, which sealed the deal for Ritwik’s future career prospects in Bombay. He had just entered the theatre. The show had begun. One glance at the film and he knew this life wasn’t for him. There was no point in lying to himself anymore. He returned to Calcutta, bag and baggage. If he stayed back, he’d have seen the phenomenal success of Madhumati, and the untold riches and fame that would have obviously followed. And here’s the rub: Ritwik Ghatak hated ‘success’ with a vengeance. And in 2020, this is not any easier to understand than it was back then, in the 1950s. Every serious film director worth their salt has waxed eloquent on how Art is about not giving in to the system, about avoiding compromise at all costs. But Ritwik is probably the only filmmaker who took it all the way.
Upon returning to Calcutta, he made a bevy of films where he gave vent to his maverick spirit and uncompromising vision. Partition was a tragedy that had left deep scars in his soul. To him, it was a tragedy his fellow Bengalis, especially those from East Bengal, never quite recovered from. Each of his characters was reeling from the rootlessness he experienced all his life. But also his disillusionment and anger. In a scene from Subarnarekha (1962), Abhiram, who writes about the pain, filth and sadness he sees around him, has been turned down by an editor for the umpteenth time. He says to his wife, “Everyone is willing to suffer. You can see it all around. But try to tell them about it, and they run away.” Ritwik himself had similar things to say in his classic meditation on filmmaking, Cinema and I:
“My coming to films has nothing to do with making money. Rather, it is out of a volition for expressing my pangs and agonies about my suffering people. That is why I have come to cinema. I do not believe in ‘entertainment’ as they say it, or slogan mongering. Rather I believe in thinking deeply of the universe, the world at large, the international situations, my country and finally my own people. I make films for them. I may be a failure. That is for the people to judge..” And he didn’t care much whether the audience loved his work. Expressing what he wanted to say was more important. He said in an interview, “I have never made films for others. Truth be told, I don’t care if you dislike my films. I will do what I want to do, I will not go beyond that….Till I am alive, I can never compromise. Had it been possible, I would have done it much earlier, and would have sat pretty like a good boy. But I have not been able to do it so far, and nor will I ever be able to do it in the future. I will either live like that, or die trying.”
Whether it’s Bimal in Ajantrik (1958), Nita in Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960) or Ishwar in Subarnarekha, each one of his major protagonists go through unspeakable pain and yet don’t quite achieve what they set out to achieve. When Ishwar (Abhi Bhattacharya) tries to hang himself, his old friend Haraprasad (Bijon Bhattacharjee) barges in. Later Haraprasad tells him – “Our failure is complete. We cannot even kill ourselves.” And just like his characters, Ritwik kept writhing in pain. Surama left him and took the kids along. It was obviously impossible to live with a man like that, who refuses to make even the basic adjustments necessary for survival. He drank country hooch and smoked beedi. Nabarun Bhattacharjee, the son of his friend Bijon and ace litterateur Mahashweta Devi, once spoke of how Ritwik shamelessly asked money to buy alcohol. Nabarun had just 18 paise left in his pocket. “What can you buy with this?”…”One peg of country liquor!” pat came the reply. His friend Bijon Bhattacharya often was the most striking aspect of his films. He would play Ritwik Ghatak’s stand-in, and say with a lot of pathos the things that Ritwik wanted to verbalise himself. He steps in as Nita’s father in Meghe Dhaka Tara, one of the theatre actors in Komol Gandhar (1961), and Ishwar’s friend Haraprasad in Subarnarekha. A brilliant actor, Bijon would prance about the frame, fuming and spouting poetry, mythology, chants and everyday truths – every time the camera fell short to express the things Ritwik wanted to talk about.
In his last film Jukti Takko aar Golpo (Reason, Debate and a Story; 1974), Nilkantha (played by Ritwik himself) frustrates his wife so much with his idealism that she has to leave him. Much like his real life counterpart, Ritwik’s Nilkantha is left alone, licking his wounds and drinking himself to oblivion. There was a time he lived with Biswajeet Chatterjee (Bengali superstar Prosenjit’s father, he had a fairly successful run as a leading man in 1960s Bollywood). Biswajeet offered to remake Meghe Dhaka Tara, Ghatak’s most successful film, in Hindi. Plenty of moneys were offered. But Ritwik dragged his feet at the last hour. He refused for his film to be made in Hindi. It is said that even Rajesh Khanna, of all people, approached him with an offer, but was turned down. Ironically, Meghe Dhaka Tara inspired Tamil filmmaker K. Balachander to make his own version of it, Aval Oru Thodar Kathai (She is a Never-ending Story; 1974), with substantial modifications. The film was so successful that it gave rise to a franchise of its own, with it being remade in a number of languages, each version a huge box office draw. The Balachander version had a Hindi remake, Jeevan Dhara(1982) as well as a Bengali remake, Kabita (1977), featuring Kamal Hassan in his only appearance in a Bengali film. Ritwik of course didn’t live to see any of this. But he did live long enough to witness his protégé Mani Kaul being successful. By his own admission, the most glorious years of Ritwik Ghatak’s life were spent in the Pune Film Institute (FTII, Pune, now) where his shadow still looms large. Stories abound of how he used to sit under the Wisdom Tree with his talented chelas like Mani Kaul and Kumar Shahani, sharing with them the secrets of the universe. But when has a tiger changed its stripes? He used to turn up for screenings drunk, and when a good scene came up, he used to raise a din. It was for his students to make note of the great scene. He was made a director of the Institute. He was getting the recognition, the respect he craved, and there was money too. This would have turned the tide of his life. But he couldn’t stand it.
When Ritwik joined Surama in Shillong, she thought he was there to take them along to Pune. The news of him getting on well at FTII had filled her with hope. But he revealed he had resigned from his post and left Pune for good. Surama was crestfallen. Around the late 60s, Ritwik’s alcoholism had intensified and his mind had started unraveling. He reported hallucinating women covered with blood. Women he referred to as the ‘Spirit of Bangladesh’. He was being given electric shock therapy. Ritwik Ghatak was an extraordinary man, and his extraordinariness had finally caught up with him and he spiralled into insanity. There were extended periods of lucidity where he gave the impression of having been cured. It was during these intervals that he made Titash Ekti Nodir Naam (1973) and Jukti Takko aar Goppo, the latter representing exceptional heights of creativity. And yet Jukti Takko aar Goppo depicted him the way he was. Around early 1976, Ritwik Ghatak was admitted to Calcutta Medical Hospital. But Surama had seen too much of this by now. She refused to come. On 6 February 1976, Ritwik Ghatak’s journey culminated, finally. He was at peace.
Editor-filmmaker Arjun Gourisaria reminisced to online film magazine Cinemaazi that when he used to walk through the FTII campus as a new student, the seniors would say, “Zameen pe nazar rakh ke chal, yahan Ghatak chala karta thha!” (Keep your eyes on the ground, Ghatak used to walk here.) Such is the legend, the cult of the man. But despite all the aura around him as a filmmaker, Ritwik didn’t particularly care about the medium of film either. He said, “Looking back I can say that I have no love lost with the film medium. I just want to convey whatever I feel about the reality around me and I want to shout. Cinema still seems to be the ideal medium for this because it can reach umpteen billions once the work is done. That is why I make films—not for their own sake but for the sake of my people. They say that television may soon take its place. It may reach out to millions more. Then I will kick the cinema over and turn to T.V.!”
Out of the twelve films Richard Attenborough directed in his lifetime, seven were biographical pictures, a genre that has come to be labeled as the ‘biopic’. In a marathon interview given to John Gallagher in the year 1992, Attenborough explains his fixation with the genre: “I’m fascinated by the people who have changed our attitude towards accepted authority, accepted criteria in relation to the manner in which we conduct our lives and our supposed civilised society. I’m fascinated by those who’ve revealed things to us in terms of human relationship in the way we view each other’s problems and so on…”
Attenborough had debuted as an actor at the age of 18 in the British propaganda war film In Which We Serve (1942). Actor, composer and playwright Noel Coward was hell-bent on directing the film. Since he didn’t have any experience in directing, it was suggested that he hire a remarkable editor. The best editor in all of England at the time was a young man named David Lean. Eventually Noel was bowled over by David’s talent, enough to co-direct the film with him. And that’s how David Lean and Richard Attenborough debuted with the same film. Both prolific directors, both known for their obsession with the Orient. But they never worked together again.
Richard Attenborough’s life and work was a series of serendipities that fuelled his energies and his talent. His depiction of the sinister conman Pinkie Brown in Brighton Rock (1948), a film noir, made him a star overnight. The next two decades were filled with one classic role after another – I’m All Right Jack (1959), The Great Escape (1963), Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), and Guns at Batasi (1964). He set up a film production company with his friend and fellow actor Bryan Forbes under which they made films that allowed Attenborough to attempt new kind of roles, like in The League of Gentlemen (1959) and The Angry Silence (1961). He happened upon a biography of Mahatma Gandhi by Louis Fischer. He was deeply affected by Gandhi’s life and work. He was reminded of his father, who also was an admirer of Gandhi and who, many years previously, had taken little Richard to watch a newsreel of Gandhi’s visit to India. This was when he started obsessing over making a film about Gandhi. Motilal Kothari, an Indian civil servant who worked with the Indian High Commission at London, got in touch with Attenborough to discuss a project on Gandhi. Attenborough, who was already primed for it, jumped at the idea. He was 39 and a successful producer but hadn’t started directing yet. He began developing the script. He was so consumed by the idea that he told everyone including his co-stars. Shirley Maclaine, his colleague from The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom (1968), said in an interview that Attenborough kept discussing Gandhi throughout the time they spent off screen. In fact he was spending so much money on developing the project that he said he could “barely pay the gas bill”.
Attenborough also met the then Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, with the script on which he was working. Nehru encouraged him, but with a word of caution. He said, “Make a film… don’t deify him. That’s all we do in India. He’s too great a man to be deified… but make a film about him. He was a man, not a god or a saint!” On a side note, Nehru said this in the early 60s. But even today, more than 50 years later, most Indian biopics are just that —deified eulogies.
It was around this time that he got a call from actor John Mills about directing a film called Oh! What a Lovely War (1969). Attenborough loved the script but he was curious: why him? John said, “We either ought to have a director who knew everything, or one who knew absolutely nothing!”
In the meanwhile, Nehru, who Attenborough was counting on to help with the film on Gandhi, passed away in 1964. Within a span of just 6 years, Motilal Kothari also breathed his last. Under the circumstances, it might have been prudent to give up on the biopic altogether. But Richard Attenborough kept at it, and was more determined than ever to realise his dream project.
But it was Attenborough’s second directorial feature that would become his first attempt at a biopic. Young Winston (1972) followed the exploits of a young Winston Churchill, based in part on his own book My Early Life. For the titlular role, he chose a relatively unknown stage actor named Simon Ward. The film starts with him in India, in the middle of the Sikhs and the British fighting Pashtuns in the Northwest Frontier Province in 1897. There is a flashback to his childhood years, followed by scenes of Churchill in battles in Sudan and later in South Africa. The film was a great success, and the leading man Simon Ward became a star. Simon went on to appear in a number of roles in the next 46 years, the most recent one being as Bishop Stephen Gardiner in the historical television drama The Tudors.
As he completed two more films, A Bridge Too Far (1977) and Magic (1978), Attenborough renewed his attempt at making Gandhi. The script was almost ready, but financing the film proved to be a bottleneck. Warner Brothers and MGM Studios had agreed to back the project, but eventually backed out. The newly-formed National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) stepped up and with the backing of D.V.S. Raju, the chairman of NFDC, the film eventually secured financing. By the time Attenborough was ready to roll cameras, it was November 1980.
The fact that Richard Attenborough, a major Hollywood star (While his directorial work was reasonably well-received, at this point Attenborough was more of an A-list Hollywood actor rather than a star director. This was soon going to change.) was making a film on Mahatma Gandhi had spread through the by-lanes of Indian filmdom. When he was casting for the film, a young Naseeruddin Shah was considered for the role of Gandhi. He was given a ticket to London, where the audition was supposed to happen. Shah said in an interview that he was confident that he would bag the role. Where else will they get a better actor who suits the part? In fact, the Indian media flashed it on the headlines that Naseer had actually got the role. This further reinforced Naseer’s confidence. This was the first time he had been to London, and he had a blast. He was made to stay in a hotel in Oxford street and travel in a Rolls Royce, and was given some money to spend. When Naseer was taken to Shepperton Studios for the test, he met Ben Kingsley for the first time. As soon as he set his eyes on Ben, Naseer knew he was the right man for the part. A test was conducted, but by this time Naseer was convinced that Ben looked more like Gandhi than himself, and he was indeed more suited to portray the role. He also watched Ben’s audition, which further confirmed his thoughts. Naseer admitted later that he didn’t think he could do a better job than Ben Kingsley at that time.
Ben Kingsley’s (born Krishna Bhanji) paternal family was from the Indian state of Gujarat, the same state Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was from. Ben Kingsley prepared for his role by studying newsreel footage of Gandhi, reading books on and by the man, dieting, losing weight, practicing Yoga and learning to spin thread just as Gandhi did. It was Michael Attenborough, Richard Attenborough’s son, who recommended Ben Kingsley to his father. Some other casting choices were interesting.
Daniel Day Lewis played a street-smart ruffian named Colin who bullies Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi when he was in South Africa. It was Lewis’ second film. Exactly 30 years later, he played another giant of world politics, Abraham Lincoln, in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012).
Martin Sheen, the star of major Hollywood films like Apocalypse Now, The Departed, Spider Man and Catch Me If You Can, played the role of American reporter Vince Walker. The character was fictional, and was partly based on real life journalist and war correspondent Webb Miller.
Attenborough’s doggedness which kept him attached to the project regardless of the setbacks, also reflected in his storytelling and approach to directing. There were some light moments as well. Quite literally. There was much concern expressed about how such a revered figure as Gandhi, a virtual deity to many Indians, would or should be portrayed on screen. Someone, in all seriousness, suggested that Gandhi should only be shown as a brilliant white light moving across the screen(!) An exasperated Attenborough snapped back: “I am not making a film about bloody Tinkerbell!”
The shoot was so detailed and so elaborate that every actor, including the extras, was checked for whether they were wearing any modern garments or footwear, and everyone was given 1930s style haircuts. The hairdressers were mostly women, and many of the men (who were villagers) objected to this as they were not used to strange women touching them. Amongst all the hoopla and idiosyncrasies, the film was eventually made and released in December 1982. It became an instant sensation. It became one of the highest grossing foreign films of all time in India. Critics gave sparkling reviews, and it swept the Oscars the next year, winning as many as 8 awards in various categories. When Richard Attenborough left England to make Gandhi, he was a great star who happened to be a good director. By the time he went back, he was an internationally acclaimed filmmaker.
Attenborough made five more films on historical characters, three of which could be said to conform with the form and feel of a biopic: Shadowlands, Grey Owl and Chaplin. Shadowlands (1993) is about C.S. Lewis, the writer of the fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia, and his relationship with Joy Davidman Gresham, an American Poet. Grey Owl (1999) talks about a British man who becomes a Native American trapper, played by an early Pierce Brosnan. But after Gandhi if there’s one biopic that matched it brilliance and earned Attenborough great fanfare and admiration, it was Chaplin (1992). Robert Downey Jr. is primarily known today for playing a certain ‘genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist’, but the film that turned the tide of RDJ’s career was Chaplin. After hitting the marquee as a teen actor with films like Weird Science (1985), RDJ became the darling of primetime television when he played the romantic interest of the lead character in Ally McBeal. But even before that, Attenborough surprised everyone by casting the 27 year-old Downey Jr. as Chaplin. The studio wanted better bets like Robin Williams or Billy Crystal. Even the virtually unknown stand-up comedian-turned-actor Jim Carrey was also considered for the role. But it was Attenborough’s doggedness at play again. He stuck to his guns, and Robert Downey Jr. became a brilliant Chaplin. He infused the character with verve, charm and flamboyance to such an extent that even today, post-Iron Man, it is inconceivable of any other actor playing Charlie Chaplin on-screen. Other than Chaplin himself.
“I have never been to a cinema. But even to an outsider, the evil that it has done and is doing is patent. The good, if it has done any at all, remains to be proved.”
“If I Was Made Prime Minister… I Would Close All the Cinemas and Theatres.”
“If I had my way, I would see to it that all the cinemas and theatres in India were converted into spinning halls and factories for handicrafts of all kinds. What obscene photographs of actors and actresses are displayed in the newspapers by way of advertisement! Moreover, who are these actors and actresses if not our own brothers and sisters? We waste our money and ruin our culture at the same time.”
Truth to tell, the Mahatma has not been far off the mark in his opinion, especially in the pandemic hit Covid-19 dictated “social distancing,” “quarantine” driven masked milieu. Profound passages from several of the writings of the Mahatma (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) in various journals and speeches eloquently and evocatively convey the abject abhorrence of the Idea of Cinema from the self-confessed and implicitly-held Father of the Nation’s ‘puritanical’ and ‘catholic’ perspective.
In these troubled times, streaming works over OTT platforms has been the order of the day. Distributors are required not only to beat the Censorship blues but also to dish out all kinds of vitiating and corruptive content to cash in on the people’s need to be “engaged.” All in the excuse of providing uninterrupted ubiquitous “entertainment” to battle “ennui” and “claustrophobia” while being cocooned in the safety net of one’s homes, keeping Corona at bay.
Cinema, since he strode on this earth and eventually departed felled by an assassin’s bullet, even before the Mahatma could experience the Free India he had fought and laid down his life for, may have coveted the hallowed persona of Mahatma Gandhi to propound his philosophy and the enigma he was as a person. Yet, Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, may have been the subject of many a movie that has graced the Indian celluloid screens, from time immemorial.
Filmmakers have left no stone unturned to depict, and bring to life, the Apostle of Peace and his philosophy of non-violence as a potent weapon of civil disobedience against the State. [highlight background=”#f79126″ color=”#ffffff”]While film makers may per se not have ingrained Gandhian thoughts or philosophies themselves, the Mahatma’s influence on cinema has been pervasive.[/highlight]
The father figure, however, has been a tall, towering moral force, with movie makers perpetuating his principles and teachings in film after films, the great soul being an eternal fount of inspiration for the entire galaxy of filmmakers.
From newsreels and documentaries to feature films, Gandhiji has been a fixture. It is through them that we find our Gandhi with that rounded spectacles, an ever-smiling benign face, the chained waist watch, clad in a loin cloth and the patent furious gait with baton, the picture of him and his mannerisms, as seen on screen, in cinema.
Every October 2nd we celebrate his birthday in all forms of media entertainment platforms. We lose no moment in bringing to our living rooms some visual image of the Mahatma trying to perpetuate his “long forgotten’ ideals among the audiences – young and old, across all ages and avocations.
So much so, ironical though it may seem, in a lucid testament to his popularity in mankind’s every day discourse, you have his wax statue at Madame Tussauds sharing the limelight with other personalities drawn from the world of cinema. This testifies to being antithetical to his own held beliefs about films and its harmful and debilitating effects on the psyche and life of man.
It is no wonder then that late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, way back as early as 1963, had a word of cautionary advice to Richard Attenborough, when the latter had sought Nehru’s nod for a biopic on the Mahatma, and who in 1982, a good two decades later, eventually went on to make Gandhi.
Pandit Nehru wisely counselled Sir Attenborough thus: “Whatever you do, do not deify him – that is what we have done in India – and he was too great a man to be deified”. Gandhi “had all the frailties, all the shortcomings. Give us that. That’s the measure, the greatness of a man.”
Trust film makers to heed to such sane, wise words. [highlight background=”#f79126″ color=”#ffffff”]Such was the deification and elevation of Mahatma Gandhi to the exalted realms of “purity” and “divinity personified” that, even in his lifetime, no filmmaker or literary figure had the temerity to cast aspersions on Mahatma’s ideals, or the sagacity to evaluate his life, principles and beliefs objectively.[/highlight] Even Gandhiji’s rather fructuous filial relationships, be it with his father, wife, brothers, or sons, were always veered around to his stated belief or point, unlike his other political contemporaries who were put under the scanner.
Hindi cinema has used Gandhi’s name to sell its wares, even during Mahatma Gandhi’s lifetime. Such was Gandhi’s popularity in the 1930s and 1940s that many film hoardings would put life-size pictures of him over the photographs of heroes and heroines. So much so, after his assassination, a good plentiful of songs were composed to sing paeans on the ideals of truth and non-violence and venerate and celebrate Gandhi’s contribution to India’s freedom struggle.
Film poster of Mahatma Gandhi: 20th Century Prophet
From Mahatma Gandhi: 20th Century Prophet, a 1953 American documentary film written by Quentin Reynolds and directed by Stanley Neal and Mahatma: Life of Gandhi, 1869–1948, a 1968 documentary produced by The Gandhi National Memorial Fund in cooperation with Films Division, and written-directed by Vithalbhai Jhaveri to The Making of the Mahatma, a 1996 joint Indian-South African film by renowned filmmaker Shyam Benegal based on The Apprenticeship of a Mahatma by Fatima Meer, there has been no dearth of docu-features.
Biopics and full length fictional films on the Mahatma include Feroz Abbas Khan’s Gandhi My Father, Rajkumar Hirani’s Munna Bhai franchise, Karim Traïdia and Pankaj Sehgal’s The Gandhi Murder, and A. Balakrishnan’s Welcome Back Gandhi (Mudhalvar Mahatma). Actor-director Kamal Haasan who made Hey Ram says, “I had a controversial opinion of Gandhi when I was a teenager. This film is my apology to him. I never called him Mahatma because I wanted to see his face for what it was before such a big halo.”
Art house auteurs too were part of this Gandhi mania. In Kurmavatara, Kannada auteur Girish Kasarvalli showcased how the Gandhi name has been appropriated by all and sundry. His understudy, P Seshadri came up with an abjectly poor pastiche of a film detailing Mahatma as young Mohandas in the eponymous film Mohandasa. And you had Assamese film maker Jahnu Barua board the Bollywood bandwagon with Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara hoping to hit paydirt. The spirit of Mahatma has been all invasive and pervasive across all strands and stratosphere of film making.
However, trust the Mahatma himself to have enjoined and ingrained a similar ‘benevolent’ “all embracing goodness of cinema” disposition to the films. Gandhiji failed to see in it a medium that became the opiate of masses to escape from the harsh realities of life, seated in a dark theatres.
Film still: Gandhi My Father
It is indeed ironic that the great savant, who won India her Independence and freed India from the shackles of British Raj, and has been an inspiration to be depicted on celluloid many times over, venerating him, even to this day, took time to watch only few reels of just one movie in his entire lifetime.
Down with illness, Gandhi, aged 74, consented to see select reels of Vijay Bhatt’s Ram Rajya (1943), a film based on Gandhiji’s favourite epic, Ramayana. This was at a special screening at Juhu, in Mumbai on June 2, 1944. He had agreed to watch it for about 40 minutes, but ended up watching it for an hour and a half. The filmmaker later described Gandhiji as being “cheerful” at the end of the show.
Prior to that, Gandhi had been persuaded, unsuccessfully, to watch Mission to Moscow, a Hollywood movie by Michael Kurtiz filmed to promote American alliance with the then USSR. He is believed not to have thought very highly of cinema, for his innate belief and presumption was that Hindi as well as foreign films promoted immorality and corrupted young minds.
Given the kind of films and web series bombarding various OTT platforms today, Gandhiji’s summation on cinema is not far from the truth. [highlight background=”#f79126″ color=”#ffffff”]Free from constricting demands of Film Certification, film makers have, one may say, gone to the seed, bringing onto mobiles, TV sets, what have you, virtually visual debauchery,[/highlight] to say the least.
It is no wonder then that the Mahatma’s abhorrence of cinema and its ill-effects on mankind was so potent, omniscient, so much so that when a questionnaire was provided to Gandhiji by T Rangachariar, the then Chairman of Cinematograph Committee, in 1937, to elicit Gandhiji’s views on cinema, without an iota of hesitancy, the Father of the Nation described cinema as “sinful technology” and “a waste of resources and time.”
Such was the Mahatma’s poor opinion of cinema that, inimical to the very idea of cinema as a form of entertainment, he once told a panel, “Even if I was so minded, I should be unfit to answer your questionnaire, as I have never been to a cinema. But even to an outsider, the evil that it has done and is doing is patent. The good, if it has done any at all, remains to be proved.”
Never the one to have been enamoured or over awed by the marvel of this magical medium, his antipathy towards movies being so distasteful, in an interview published on May 3, 1942, in The Harijan, the paper he edited, the Mahatma observed, “If I began to organise picketing in respect of them (the evil of cinema), I should lose my caste, my Mahatmaship…! May I say that films are often bad.”
For, he noted, “I have never once been to a cinema. Refuse to be enthused about it. Waste God-given time in spite of pressure sometimes used by kind friends. Its corrupting influence obdurates itself upon me every day.”
[highlight background=”#f79126″ color=”#ffffff”]Gandhiji, a vociferous votary and practitioner of celibacy, believed that cinema could break a person’s vow for self-control.[/highlight] “You will avoid theatres and cinemas. Recreation is where you may not dissipate yourself but recreate yourself,” he observed in the preface to his book Self-Restraint vs Self-Indulgence.
It is such pithy aphorisms that surface as one delves into Gandhiji’s idea of cinema and its “corruptive influence” on a person’s psyche. Such was the Mahatma’s innate belief that he was not the one to climb down from his stated position despite the pleading of writer-film maker Khwaja Ahmad Abbas to him to look at the positive contribution of cinema to entertainment and its utility as a tool to further the cause of Indian freedom movement.
Such was his steadfast opinion and antipathy towards cinema that he was rather reluctant in meeting up with one of the greatest comedians of the silent era, Charlie Chaplin, whom he simply dismissed as “a buffoon”. The two, though, met on September 22, 1931 during Gandhi’s visit to England for the Round Table Conference.
It is true that during Gandhi’s lifetime, Indian cinema did not quite have the potential to shape the minds of public; that is something it acquired a few decades later, post-Independence. However, post his death, film makers have not been wanting in bringing his life story onto the screen.
Gandhiji wrote in Young India, in 1927, “You will avoid theatres and cinemas. Recreation is where you may not dissipate yourself but recreate yourself. You will, therefore, attend bhajan mandalis where word and tune uplift the soul.”
The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, 1965, provides enough personal viewpoints held by Gandhiji on cinema. In a letter to Helene Haussding, he writes, “I know that overwork and terrific strain are just as apprehensible, even though they may be in a good cause, as a drinking-bout or visiting cinemas. The results of both are the same.”
Addressing labourers in Rangoon in 1929, Gandhiji says, “The cinema, the stage, the race-course, the drink-booth and the opium-den—all are enemies of society that have sprung up under the fostering influence of the present system threaten us on all sides.”
In a letter to Kasturba, in 1934, he expounds: “In Ahmedabad, children get headaches, lose the power of thinking, get fever and die. It is on the decline now. The disease is caused by going to the cinemas.”
And at a prayer meeting in 1947, he says to the gathering, “Why do you need a cinema here? Cinema will only make you spend money. Then you will also learn to gamble and fall into other evil habits.”
But the irony of life and the times in which we live in today is that, [highlight background=”#f79126″ color=”#ffffff”]come October 2, no efforts are spared to ensure that there is a deluge of film of all hues and making on and about Gandhi as “entertainment,” to remember and pay homage to the “half naked fakir”[/highlight] as Winston Churchill described the Mahatma.
Gandhi may have shunned, and smirked at, film as an avoidable and detestable corruptive beast, but the beast of cinema makes the most of the Mahatma whenever it falls short of ideas; it seeks refuge in his name and fame to champion the man and his message. Then, today and tomorrow. It’s good that his venerable memory is being perpetuated. For, as Albert Einstein once said, “Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this one ever in flesh and blood walked upon this Earth.”
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety
These lines from Antony and Cleopatra, originally woven by the Bard of Avon to sing a paean to the Egyptian queen, seem apt for Shabana Azmi. There is an unwritten norm that most celebrities much before they approach seventy opt for retirement and live the life of a recluse making only selective public appearances. On her seventieth birthday, contrarily, Shabana is still going strong and is still at the helm, experimenting with her craft, generating public opinion on social or political issues, and sitting for long, engaging interviews for both domestic and international television channels.
In her forty-six-year-long career in the film industry she has wondrously transformed herself and evolved not just as an actress but as a public speaker too. Shabana has always been articulate, but with age, a mellowed warmth has become an added feature of her personality, opening her up for more conversations. Sometimes she is playful with her fetish perfection, sometimes she is elegance and wisdom personified, and sometimes she is a grand dame in bright purple patched sarees, with a big sprig of flowers tucked in her bun.
Living up to her philosophy that the ‘political is personal’ and the ‘personal is political’, she has kept her personal and public lives in perfect harmony, something that many celebrities and otherwise successful people fail to do. For they are usually very insecure and protective about their private lives. Shabana, on the contrary, has never attempted to compartmentalize her personal, professional or social lives, for she has lived by certain core values and she wants those values to be reflected in all spheres of her life. And the more she mellows in age the more she appears to gather more energy to carry on her missions.
Shabana Azmi has been around for a long time as the cynosure of cinema lovers and has become an inspiration for many, yet very few have been able to emulate her way of believing in oneself, her way of suppleness in work, her multi dimensional personality and her hypnotising oratory. As I sing this paean, the unforgettable images of her as Jamini amidst the ruins in Khandhar (1984), her as Mitthu walking along the craggy contours in Namkeen (1982), and her with the blank stare of the hukka smoking Begum of Awadh in Shatranj Ke Khiladi (1977) rush past my mind; each role is unparalleled and unsurpassable, a sui generis, a class in itself—just like the real Shabana.
With five National Awards in the Best Actress category, from the startled-eyed Lakshmi in Ankur (1974) to the gun-wielding matriarch of Godmother (1999), Shabana Azmi’s celluloid journey, which spans more than four decades, is nothing short of a dream ride. But she is an artist who has never taken her awards and accolades for granted and asserts that it is more a journey of hard work and commitment than one of just talent and privileges, while modestly acknowledging that the right opportunities came to her at the right times. She is proud and grateful to be backed by two strong legacies from her parents—socialist ideologies from her father Kaifi Azmi and the gift of acting from her mother Shaukat Azmi. With age, she has brought slight squints to her big kohl laden eyes, as if to see things better and beyond and a little twist to one corner of her lips, and to show amusement and pretend detachment; but, in actuality she is hardly ever detached from the realities of her surroundings, be it social, cultural or political.
Shabana Azmi belongs to the clan of those handful of artists whose performance, even within the limited space allotted to an actor (for it is commonly believed that cinema is the director’s space), asserts the unlimited possibilities that cinema can explore—cinema as art, as philosophy, as an intellectual movement or a weapon for social change, as entertainment, or cinema as life is—unchanging and unchangeable. In Khandhar, her character accepts the utter deprivation of her situation, but at the end, her reticent, sensitive part is badly defeated as her emotions get better of her; yet it does not promise any change in her life; her image amidst the ruins that Subhash captures, symbolically shows her entrapment to that frame forever.
As an actress, Azmi’s forte is to make her part extraordinarily engaging even though hers is not the key role of the narrative or she is not the prime focus of the director’s camera. Her role as Mitthu in Namkeen is a part of that slice of life left to the doom or destiny, where human beings lack the agency to change it. Mitthu is traumatized and speechless but caring and understanding. She finds new happiness in her life as she befriends and falls in love with a stranger. She shares this newfound happiness with the rocks of the valley, but when the stranger leaves, she receives another shock, never to recover again. The seemingly simple yet nuanced narrative leaves many things unexplained. Shabana’s careless, unmeasured steps on the rocks and her grey silhouette against the craggy contours linger as some enduring images from the movie.
In Shatranj Ke Khiladi, another movie without a central character, Shabana Azmi is the purdah observing and hukkasmoking Begum of Awadh, who is ignored by her husband for the sake of a game of chess. Her blank stare and muffled entreaties are the external markers of her repressed self and they match well with the stifling, closed interiors and beautifully contrast against her husband’s indifference and obsession with chess.
In playing numerous other roles, Shabana has been continuously taking new turns and setting up standards for herself. She closely observes women’s lives and has a deep understanding of how women struggle for their own space. We see her donning as many different hats as none else has ever tried—innocent victim, corrupt powermonger, ridiculous whorehouse owner, what you will. In all these roles, she tries to capture the elusive spectrum of women’s lives, generally caught in the complex web of patriarchy and a gender insensitive society. Instead of flaunting the garb of a ‘humanist’, she calls herself a downright feminist who wishes that women become more visible everywhere.
Shabana Azmi is not an artist who believes in art for art’s sake. Her consciousness is deeply rooted in the social and cultural ethos of her time and she calls for a fine balance between rights and responsibilities that artists must build up in them. She repeatedly urges people to recognize the fine line between celebration of sensuality and commodification of sensuality.
Shabana Azmi is a film personality, a stage performer and an activist with commitment and political consciousness, not in terms of petty party politics, but in the context of larger, day-to-day social interactions. Each side of her personality enriches the other and makes her a person with introspection and high moral responsibility towards the society; however, that does not make her a somber looking matron out to silence noisy children under her ruler. Her offscreen image is one of a vivacious lady always open for dialogues, and also opening new issues for more dialogues. She switches between English and Urdu-accented Hindi with equal flair and is often heard reciting her father’s famous poem:
Uth meri jaan mere saath hi chalna hai tujhe
Tujhme sholay bhi hai, bas ashk ki nishani hi nahin
Tu haqeeqat bhi hai, dilchasp kahani hi nahin
Tere hasti bhi hai ek cheej, jawani hi nahin
Apni tariff ka mizan badalna hai tujhe
Uth meri jaan mere saath hi chalna hai tujhe
(Rise, my beloved, you’ve to walk by my side
You’ve the sparks, you’re not just a hint of tears
You’re reality too, not just an engaging story
You’ve an individuality, not youth alone
You’ve to change the scale of measuring yourself
Rise, my beloved, you’ve to walk by my side.)
Shabana has always stood by this, not for her own sake, but for all women.
Shabana Azmi made her debut as an actress in Shyam Benegal’s directorial debut, Ankur, for which she received her first of five National Film Awards. This is what Satyajit Ray had to say of her act: “Her poise and personality are never in doubt. In two high pitched scenes, she pulls out the stops to firmly establish herself as one of our finest dramatic actresses.”
Which author holds the distinction of being the most adapted writer in the cinema of India? Shakespeare? Tagore? Premchand? Or, perhaps, Dharmvir Bharati? We Indians have never demonstrated excessive love for adaptations. Thus, if one were to list the most iconic litterateurs of the subcontinent, it would be noticed that quite a few of them, such as C. Rajagopalachari, Sarojini Naidu, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Suryakant Tripathi, Amitav Ghosh, and Anita Desai have not a single proper film adaptation to their name. There is however [highlight background=”#f79126″ color=”#ffffff”]one Indian writer whose works have been incessantly adapted, in multiple languages, and across the country — Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay.[/highlight]
IMDB lists 77 titles with Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay credited as writer. It includes films in five languages, spanning 97 years and encompassing filmmakers as diverse as Bimal Roy, Mehul Kumar, Crossbelt Mani, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Anurag Kashyap, Basu Chatterjee, Ajoy Kar, and Adurthi Subba Rao. In fact, in just two years’ time, Sarat Chandra adaptations would have completed a whole century in the film industry.
Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay
Sarat himself led a spectacularly fascinating life. During his early days at Bhagalpur, he was so enamoured by the writings of English authors like Charles Dickens, Henry Wood and Marie Corelli, that he himself adopted the pseudonym “St. C. Lara”. Apparently, the St. and C referred to his first name Sarat and middle name Chandra. His mother Bubanmohini Debi passed away when he was only 19. By then, the bug of writing had bit him hard, and he started penning stories in Bengali for local magazines. His father Motilal Chattopadhyay, of extremely humble means, managed to get him a job at the local zamindar’s estate. But Sarat wasn’t at all happy with the work, and following an argument with his father, the former left home.
Sometime later, [highlight background=”#f79126″ color=”#ffffff”]Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay was discovered in the guise of a sanyasi, standing in the Muzaffarpur office of a popular magazine those days, called Bharatvarsha. In flawless Hindi, he requested to be furnished with writing materials. He was out of pen and paper.[/highlight] He was carrying a notebook, and the pages of that notebook were filled with countless stories. He was shipped back to his hometown.
Around this time, certain accounts mention a lover, a young widow who had captured his imagination. He kept alluding to her in various letters, without explicitly revealing who she was. Apparently, at the behest of this lady love, Sarat sailed for Rangoon in search of a livelihood. According to Radharani Devi, a close confidante of Sarat Chandra and a fiery feminist (back in the early 20th century, she wrote pieces on whether the “dignity” of a woman could be tied to her being a virgin), this mystery woman in Sarat’s live was probably Nirupama Devi, who was widowed as a child and spent a lifetime of rituals and strict rules that were painfully inflicted on Brahmin widows of the time. In his own writings, notably, Charitraheen and Srikanto, Sarat portrayed the state of young widows in Bengal but always fell short of getting them married. It has been hinted that this was because the woman he was in love with never got a chance at such liberation.
Sarat Chandra remained in Rangoon till 1916, and it was during this phase that he got married to Shanti Devi. They were blessed with their first child, a son. But within a year, Shanti Devi and her infant child were claimed by the great plague of 1908. Two years later, Sarat got married again, this time to a widow. They were childless and stayed married till the end of his days. [highlight background=”#f79126″ color=”#ffffff”]It was after his second marriage that Sarat truly flourished as a literary genius. His new bride, Hironmoyee, was an illiterate but provided the fuel for his creative output.[/highlight] Saratchandra was in his late 30s. In an incredible burst of prolificity, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay produced some of his best works in the next 25 years. Even while in Rangoon, in just the first two years he wrote works like Ramer Shumoti, Bindur Chhele, Naarir Mulyo and Charitraheen. Almost all of these books had formidable women characters, and the male characters seemed to pale in comparison. This remained a hallmark of Sarat’s writing throughout his oeuvre.
Sarat was back in Bengal and within a few years, the stage adaptations began. It was the golden age of Bengali theatre, and the great theatrical genius Sisir Kumar Bhaduri was prancing about on the stages of Calcutta. Sisir Kumar adapted his story Shoroshi for the theatre and it was a raging hit. Sarat later wrote about it to his soul-sister Radharani Devi, speaking about Sisir in glowing terms. The first film adaptation of his work—Andhare Alo (1922)—was also directed by Sisir Kumar Bhaduri. The silent film was co-directed by Naresh Mitra, who within six years made the first adaptation of Devdas (1928). This was followed by Dhirendranath Ganguly’s adaptation of Charitraheen (1931).
This was the time when a young filmmaker from Assam, Pramathesh Chandra Barua, was experimenting with the new technology of “talkie” films, in Calcutta, and for the first time there was the question of which language to make films in. Barua made the first “talkie” adaptation of Devdas (1935) in Bengali, with him playing the eponymous character. It was an instant sensation. In the following year, Barua directed the Hindi version, with singer-actor Kundan Lal Saigal playing the hero. The Hindi version was an even bigger hit. A Tamil version was made in the year after that. Danseuse and filmmaker Vedantam Raghavaiah made a Telugu/ Tamil bilingual in 1953. It had Telugu superstar Akkineni Nageswara Rao reprising the iconic role. The film became a milestone. Devdas Mukherjee, a jolted, ill-fated lover with a penchant for self-harm, had become the darling of the masses.
But Sarat himself did not think too highly of this work. While he was in Rangoon, his friend Pramathanath Bhattacharya tried to coax him into publishing Devdas, which he had written way back in 1901. Sarat responded, “Don’t even think of it. It was written in a drunken state. I am ashamed of the book now. It is immoral…” But Pramathanath convinced him and eventually it was published in the former’s magazine, Bharatvarsha, in 1917.
[highlight background=”#f79126″ color=”#ffffff”]It has been more than a hundred years, but Indian cinema’s obsession with the character hasn’t dissipated.[/highlight] The cinematographer of P.C. Barua’s Devdas, a young cameraman called Bimal Roy, adapted his version of the story in 1955. It still remains the most iconic of the lot, and stars Dilip Kumar, Vyjayanthimala and Suchitra Sen. Devdas has been made in Bengali (India and Bangladesh), Telugu, Tamil, Assamese and Malayalam. There was even an Urdu version made in Pakistan, a film that was supposedly a “tribute to Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Bimal Roy and The Great Dilip Kumar”, but the lead actor Nadeem Shah kept aping Shah Rukh Khan, who himself featured in a much-maligned-but-loved adaptation by Sanjay Leela Bhansali in 2002. Even Anurag Kashyap, who, much like Sarat himself, disliked the story, filmed a re-imagination called Dev D in 2009. Bimal Roy’s protege Gulzar planned an adaptation with Dharmendra, Hema Malini and Sharmila Tagore but it never did come to fruition.
Gulzar with his Devdas cast. Photo: https://twitter.com/FilmHistoryPic
Gulzar did however adapt Sarat Chandra’s Pondit Moshai as Khushboo (1975). Basu Chatterjee filmed three adaptations—Swami (1977), Apne Paraye (1980) and Zevar (1987). Bimal Roy directed as many as three adaptations, including Parineeta (1953) and Biraj Bahu (1954). Hrishikesh Mukherjee made Majhli Didi (1950). There were too a number of Telugu superhits starring Akkineni Nageswara Rao, and Tamil films like Manamalai (1958), Maalaiyitta Mangai (1958), and Kaanal Neer (1961).
Sarat Chandra stands tall in the Indian literary pantheon. He wrote only in Bengali, but [highlight background=”#f79126″ color=”#ffffff”]his translated works are so native to North India that many of his works are considered a part of Hindi literature.[/highlight] Hindi writer Vishnu Prabhakar wrote a biography called Awara Maseeha, which is a veritable classic. Malayali poet Dr. Ottaplakkal Neelakandan Velu Kurup a.k.a. O.N.V. Kurup once said, “Sarat Chandra’s name is cherished as dearly as the names of eminent Malayalam novelists. His name has been a household word.” In a similar vein, his Marathi translations became native to Maharashtra.
Almost all his works are marked by complex and layered female characters and flawed heroes. His almost-autobiographical Srikanto, in its original unedited version, begins with the protagonist writing while in an opium-intoxicated stupor. The portion had to be excised later. Since he showed an upper-class Brahmin widow fall in love in Charitraheen copies of his books were burned in front of his house. His novel Pother Dabi was banned by the British Raj for the depiction of armed revolutionaries.
But while Devdas, admittedly Sarat’s weakest work, has been adapted with great fanfare, [highlight background=”#f79126″ color=”#ffffff”]his magnum opus Srikanto, which displays fascinating glimpses of his personal life and includes some awe-inspiring women, is yet to be adapted in its entirety.[/highlight] Some portions of the latter have been brought to the screen in Bengali, and there was, in the 80s, a television serial featuring Farooq Sheikh as Shrikant. One would think that there is scope for a delightfully complex and layered adaptation of this book, now that we are in the middle of The Great Streaming Wars.
Even before Satyajit Ray made history with his first film ‘Pather Panchali’ in 1955, he had written a script based on Rabindranath Tagore’s novel published in 1916, “Ghare Baire” (The Home and the World) [1], that was to have been directed by a friend Harisadhan Dasgupta according to the official website of Ray [2]. The Tagore novel continued to fascinate him though. In the early 80’s he revived the project, produced by NFDC, with a new script as he wasn’t happy with the earlier version. Despite suffering a heart attack and undergoing a bypass surgery, he got the film completed by his son Sandip Ray under his supervision. It was nominated for Palme d’Or at Cannes film festival 1984 although it didn’t win the award. It received positive reviews from foreign film critics such as Pauline Kael [3], Roger Ebert [4] and Vincent Canby [5]. However, ‘Ghare Baire’, in general, didn’t get the kind of acclaim that Ray’s ‘Charulata’ (1964), yet another adaptation of Tagore with a love triangle, received. In this Satyajit Ray centenary year, it is richly rewarding to have a relook at ‘Ghare Baire’ in which the master scaled new heights.
Background
Before delving into the novel and the film, there is a need to understand the effect the Swadeshi (meaning: of one’s own country and not imported) movement in the beginning of the 20th century had on Tagore which led to his writing of the novel. Lord Curzon’s partition of Bengal in 1905 drove a wedge between Hindus and Muslims and gave rise to the Swadeshi movement and boycott of British goods. But Indian made goods were much more expensive, widening the rift between them as most of the Hindus could afford the boycott unlike most of the Muslims.
In his remarkably well researched and comprehensive book, “Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye”, Andrew Robinson has written elaborately on ‘Ghare Baire’ in the chapter “The Home and the World”. Robinson has written about Tagore and his family’s involvement during the beginning of the movement: “[Swadeshi movement’s] most enduring positive legacy is, by general agreement, the body of stirring and beautiful songs composed by Rabindranath Tagore as a Swadeshi leader, one of which is sung by Sandip in the film… Rabindranath and other members of the Tagore family had been among the earliest Bengalis to experiment with Swadeshi businesses” [6]. Tagore distanced himself from the movement when it grew violent in 1906, attracting criticism from the leaders. Robinson writes that Nikhil in the novel speaks for Tagore, quoting Satyajit Ray[6].
“Ghare Baire” the Novel
Set in the turbulent period that witnessed the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, the novel deals with the lives of an aristocratic couple Nikhil and Bimala who have been shaped by the ideals of Bengal renaissance. Nikhil’s friend Sandip, an anti-British nationalist with extremist views enters their household. A truly modern Nikhil encourages Bimala to come out of her quarters (zenana). He convinces her that only by meeting and recognizing each other in the real world there will be true love. Enticed by Sandip, she is willing to help his Swadeshi cause even at the cost of betraying her husband. But, as the events unfold, she comes to know of the violence unleashed by his rhetoric.
The title of the novel (“The Home and the World” in English) has multiple meanings. The obvious one is the aristocratic household and the outside world in turmoil that has an impact on the former. To look at yet another meaning, the prominent theorist Partha Chatterjee has written insightfully in his book “The Nation and Its Fragments” [7] that the nationalist discourse condensed material/spiritual distinction into outer/inner dichotomy. He has elaborated that the inner/outer distinction divided the social space into home (ghar) and the world (bahir). Chatterjee has come up with how they were represented: The world is the domain of the male open to the influence of the coloniser and the home is the domain of the woman which cannot be colonized. This dichotomy explains the way upper class women were confined, in continuation from an earlier period onwards, to the zenana, also called andaramahala. The progressive Nikhil wants Bimala to come out of the zenana, which is the home, to the outer apartment in their palace – the world to meet other men such as Sandip and continue to love her husband if he is worthy of it.
The names of the three main characters coined by Tagore fit their personalities. Nikhil means “whole’ which suits the aristocrat who is for universal brotherhood. Sandip means “kindling, arousing or exciting” which denotes the Swadeshi leader. Bimala means “pure” which befits Nikhil’s wife who attains purity in her love after undergoing a tortuous test at a heavy price. Their full names come through in the film: Nikhilesh Choudhury, Sandip Mukherjee and Bimala Choudhury. Perhaps it is as per the novel in the original Bengali as the English translation doesn’t give the full names.
The novel’s structure is that of the first-person accounts of the three main characters Bimala, Nikhil and Sandip who take turns to come up with their stories. Each one is given a few chapters then the novel moves to the other and so on in a round robin sequence. We get an insight into their minds and also the character progression of Bimala. The novel starts with Bimala’s story and ends with it, for she is the one who is most impacted by the events.
Apart from the main themes reflected in its title, there are several recurring themes in the novel such as Bande maataram (meaning “Hail Mother”, the opening words of a song, that extols India as the Mother, written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, the famous Bengali novelist), Bimala as Goddess, and characters misinterpreting the Bhagavad Gita. On Bande maataram Nikhil makes a case for universal brotherhood as against narrow nationalism. Sandip calls Bimala as goddess the very first time he meets her. His repeated addressing of her as goddess instils the self-image of the Shakthi of womanhood in Bimala. As she says in her story, Sandip subtly interweaves his worship of the country with his worship of Bimala making her “blood dance, indeed, and the barriers of my hesitation totter”. In this way Sandip manipulates her to look upon herself as the deity that will give boon to the worshipper by giving away money. Both Sandip and the young revolutionary Amulya misinterpret the Bhagavad Gita in their own way to justify their actions.
Tagore’s novel was praised by the playwright Bertolt Brecht (“a fine, powerful piece of work”), misread and panned by the Marxist critic György Lukács, and criticized as well as appreciated by the novelist EM Forster [6]. Forster came up with an observation that “the characters have to be accepted as vehicles for Tagore’s always interesting philosophy and not be required to function as individuals with a life of their own, which they are not” although Tagore appears to have based some of the characters in the novel on real people including himself. In “Ghare Baire” Tagore took up a couple of subjects of importance for him – emancipation of women and Swadeshi – and weaved a story around them in his poetic style. Because of its preoccupation with ideas, the novel appears to deal with types. It is essentially a novel of ideas where the clash of the personal and the political is handled with such intensity thanks to the force of conviction Tagore must have attained from his own experience during the Swadeshi movement.
Gopa Aich and Swatilekha Sengupta (nee, Chatterjee) in ‘Ghare Baire’
“Ghare Baire” the Film
Satyajit Ray made the film dramatic by changing the structure in his adaptation of the novel. Ray’s ‘Ghare Baire’ begins with the end: Bimala (Swatilekha Chatterjee (Sengupta)) is in tears after the tragic death of Nikhil (Victor Banerjee). There is the sense of foreboding doom accentuated by the theme music. The novel is preoccupied with the minds of the three characters so it is told as a series of first-person narration of them. Ray also brought in these voices but he simplified the structure for the film by having just two sections for Bimala and one section each for Sandip (Soumitra Chatterjee) and Nikhil. Bimala’s first story, lasting for 57 minutes, starts with about 2 minutes of her narration in which she recounts how she got married and entered Nikhil’s palace (reminding us of yet another outstanding Ray film ‘Jalsaghar’ (1958) which had a palace in ruins but the palace in ‘Ghare Baire’ is lived-in and very much in use). The rest of the section is in her point of view. There is her voice-over during the crossing of the passage with stained-glass windows by her for the first time. Sandip’s section, Nikhil’s section and Bimala’s second section start with a very brief monologue after which the rest of the sections are in their points of view. The durations for these sections are 15 minutes (Sandip’s), 15 minutes (Bimala’s second) and 12 minutes (Nikhil’s) respectively. The remaining part of the film running for about 50 minutes is in the third person omniscient point of view.
Analysing the structure of the film helps in understanding how it works. Although it is Nikhil who encourages Bimala to come out of the zenana, once she does it, it is mainly Bimala and Sandip who drive the events. Nikhil is a passive participant. In his section, Nikhil takes stock of the turbulence caused by Sandip but he doesn’t want to force himself on Sandip and Bimala. The last section shows the trouble sparked off by Swadeshis leading to communal violence, Nikhil asserting himself, Sandip’s leaving and the tragic end of Nikhil. Ray has invented several scenes of his own and enlarged the scenes, which are not in detail in the novel such as the speech delivered by Sandip for the benefit of the public. The Nikhil household has been created with all its period detail. The dialogue is almost entirely written by Ray using bare minimum lines from the novel. The conversations among Nikhil, Bimala and Sandip are invested with Ray’s touch of humour.
Satyajit Ray displayed his mastery of filmmaking right from his early films reaching a highpoint in ‘Charulata’. In ‘Ghare Baire’ he goes even beyond that peak to a higher level. The film is a masterclass which makes it worthwhile to see some of the scenes in detail. The title scene opens with the Swadeshi bonfire in the background accompanied by the ominous theme music on the sound track which ends with the cries of Bande maataram. Fire is a recurrent motif in the film. From the fire of the title scene, it cuts to the opening scene which shows fire raging in the estate at a distance, ignited by the communal violence. Then the camera pans left to the close-up of the teary eyed Bimala narrating her story saying “What was impure in me has been burnt to ashes”. No wonder she is named Bimala (pure). The camera then tracks closer to her as she says “What remains in me I dedicate to him who received all my failings in the depths of his stricken heart. Now I know there is not one like him”. Then there is a cut to a much bigger close-up of Nikhil with his wedding headgear as we hear Bimala saying on the sound track “It was ten years ago that I first met him”. The camera zooms out and cuts to a younger Bimala bedecked in bridal finery, perhaps being carried to Nikhil’s palace. On the soundtrack we hear Bimala saying, “He was the son of a noble family and I was his bride.” It cuts to her face in the huge picture of the couple – sepia tinted – and then zooms out to show both of them.
Then there is a cut to Nikhil’s sister-in-law (Gopa Aich) in white and we learn from Bimala’s commentary that she was already a widow when Bimala entered the household. The camera pans right to show Bimala as a servant plaits her hair. The camera tracks back to show both of them and the maids sitting in the corridor of the aristocratic mansion. The sister-in-law is clapping and swaying to the song played on the gramophone. This is an excellent opening which gives an introduction with economy and style.
Swatilekha Sengupta and Jennifer Kapoor
The scene in which the progressive Nikhil tries to convince his wife Bimala to come out of the zenana and meet his friend could have easily become heavy handed but Ray pulls it off with his deft touch! Bimala tries on various blouses made of imported cloth and designed by her to the appreciation of the sister-in-law who also comments on her foreign clothes and perfumes. Nikhil enters the scene, admires her dress and the couple sing a few lines of a Bengali song together. Is there a better way of capturing marital bliss? Ray infuses humour in the intelligent conversation which goes on as Bimala keeps trying on the clothes received from the tailor. Nikhil would like his beautifully dressed wife to be seen by his friends. Confining women to the house was not a Hindu custom in the past he says. He thinks that the Muslims introduced the custom. Towards the end Bimala hums the English song (Tell me the tales that to me were so dear, Long long ago, long long ago) she has learnt from her British governess Miss Gilby (Jennifer Kendal). Perhaps Ray suggests here that by now she is exposed to new ideas and she is open to them. This is the time when Nikhil tells her that he’ll be proud to persuade her to meet his friends. Bimala asks him whether he means the one in a photo on the table. It is that of Sandip whom Nikhil calls a genius. Ray manages to include a brief introduction to the Swadeshi movement when Nikhil is surprised that his wife knows about the movement and quizzes her about it. Bimala comes to know from her husband that so many articles in her room are imported: the thread with which her saree is woven, the brush, the mirror, the comb, the hairpins, the perfumes, the bottles made of cut glass, the table and the furniture. The marital bliss evoked in this scene is going to be ironically ruined once Bimala comes out of her confinement. It is an example of how set design, costumes, lighting, camera work, dialogue, competent acting and music (although very little in this scene) work together under Ray’s direction to make a memorable scene.
The meeting with Miss Gilby – who has a head injury after a schoolboy, influenced by Swadeshi, hit her head with a stone – conveys the hatred for the British that endangers innocent people. Miss Gilby leaves putting an end to all the learning of Bimala: singing, piano, English and etiquette. This scene is done in just one shot with the three of them in a triangular composition.
Soumitra Chatterjee
It is followed by the arrival of the demagogue Sandip at Nikhil’s estate to deliver a speech that fascinates Bimala. She sees him carried by Swadeshis on their shoulders through the grille from the first floor of the palace. As a leader of the Swadeshi movement Sandip captures the imagination of the public. Bimala too falls for his speech lasting for 4 minutes – written and shot so well by Satyajit Ray creating an impact. Sandip’s oration starts with a long shot of him, shot from behind the audience after which there is a medium shot of him which zooms into a close-up. The camera pans to show the first floor of the building from where Bimala is watching him from behind the screen. Cuts to Bimala’s profile and zooms into her. Cuts to her point of view shot of Sandip through the grille. Close-up of Sandip from the front, shot in low angle. Cuts to her profile shot and the camera zooms into her. Cuts to her point of view shot of Sandip through the grille and the camera zooms into him. Long shot of Sandip from behind the audience. Close-up of Sandip shot in low angle. Bigger close-up of Sandip in low angle. Cuts to Bimala’s profile and zooms into her. Cuts to close-up of Sandip. Long shot of Sandip from behind the audience from an elevation. Camera comes down the crane and zooms into him as his speech reaches a crescendo. He ends his speech with the slogan Bande maataram – “sacred mantra” as he calls it – which is repeated by the audience in which we can see his followers in their uniform. This scene shows how Bimala is bowled over by Sandip’s speech and it leads to her taking up the cause of Swadeshi. But his call for boycott of cheap foreign goods wouldn’t have gone well with the minority community which was relatively poor. The religious references in this scene such as the saffron uniform and the “sacred mantra” Bande maataram which hails the nation symbolised as mother goddess would have distanced it further.
A scene which can be called pure cinema is the one in which Bimala, accompanied by Nikhil, crosses the passage and enters the outer apartment. The novel simply says that Nikhil called Bimala to introduce the guest. For the film medium, capturing the moment of crossing is important and Ray has done it with his touch of mastery accompanied by a Tagore tune that celebrates the moment albeit with a touch of pathos. This scene lasts for about a minute. It starts with the long shot of the inner corridor with the door leading to Bimala’s quarters at the end closed. There is the voice-over of Bimala which says “On November 15, 1907, the young mistress of the Choudhury house defied all convention and stepped into the passage leading to the outer apartments.”. The door opens and Bimala and Nikhil come out. It cuts to the close-up of their feet as they set foot in the inner corridor. Music starts. Cuts to long shot of the corridor as they walk slowly and gracefully towards the camera. As they reach the end, it cuts to the long shot of the outer corridor with Bimala and Nikhil at the entrance at the other end. Camera slowly tracks to the right and moves towards them as they are walking forward. When they go out of the left of the frame, there is a cut to the shot of them framed by two pillars and the camera tracks to the left as they continue to walk forward gracefully. They go out to the left of the frame. Cuts to the medium shot of Sandip in the hall who turns and looks surprised. Music ends. Cuts to the two entering the hall and Bimala folding her hands greeting Sandip with “namashkar”.
Soumitra Chatterjee, Swatilekha Sengupta and Victor Banerjee
In this first meeting with Bimala, Sandip realizing that she is interested in the Swadeshi movement, attracts her to his cause by singing a song “Bidhir Badhon Kaatbe Tumi” written by Rabindranath Tagore when he supported the movement. Tagore’s song asserts that the weak will rise up, however mighty the British are. Bimala agrees to join Sandip’s cause. The scene ends with the shot of the ashtray in which the smoke emanates from the cigarette stub left by Sandip, indicating the stirring passion in her. Nikhil has been shown to be passionate about Bimala but it looks like there is no physical intimacy between them except Nikhil keeping his head on her shoulder and holding her hand. In a film which has kissing scenes to show physical intimacy, the only time they kiss each other is towards the end of the film. The couple are childless and their lack of a child is not touched upon by both the novel and the film. This is particularly striking in the film as Ray has added so much detail. Perhaps it is not an issue that will be raised openly in an upper-class household. The childlessness and the lack of physical intimacy between Nikhil and Bimala might have driven Bimala to the charismatic Sandip who woos her.
In their second meeting Bimala goes to see Sandip without Nikhil accompanying her. As asked by Sandip, Bimala sits next to him in the sofa. Sandip has decided to keep their estate as his base with him as a bee working for Bimala the Queen Bee. Sandip finds a hairpin in the sofa and keeps it in his pocket. This is reminiscent of Satyajit Ray’s ‘Apur Sansar’ (1959) in which there is the use of the hairpin that Apu takes out from the bed to suggest the physical intimacy between Apu and his wife. Here the relationship developing between Sandip and Bimala is captured by this device of hairpin which Sandip says is the only foreign item he’ll keep with him. He convinces her to ask Nikhil not to let foreign goods sold in his market. Later she talks to Nikhil about banning foreign goods in his market. Nikhil cannot stop the poor Muslim traders from selling the much cheaper foreign goods as nobody will buy the costlier Indian goods which were of inferior quality at that time. He also tells Bimala that he doesn’t share the feeling of Swadeshis for an abstract idea of the country as the mother.
Sandip’s story starts with his close-up – his face lit by the raging bonfire nearby – as he comes up with a brief monologue in which he says, “OnIy what I can snatch away by force is mine”. This story is all about Sandip’s activities so Bimala is kept out entirely. Sandip happens to meet Nikhil and the school headmaster (Manoj Mitra) who voice their disapproval of what Sandip has been doing in the estate. Sandip gives a speech at Nikhil’s market which fails to persuade the traders. A boat can be seen in the river in the background. There is a brief monologue of Sandip which says that he has to use other means. The traders are robbed of their goods which are set to bonfire by Swadeshis. The manager of Nikhil’s estate is surprised to see that Sandip smokes foreign cigarette. That’s the only exception he makes to Swadeshi Sandip claims. Sandip’s attraction for foreign medicine in the novel has been replaced by foreign cigarettes in the film. As they speak, we can see a boat sailing in the river in the background. They decide to put an end to the supply of foreign goods by sinking the boat of Mirjan.
Bimala’s second story starts with her monologue revealing her attraction to Sandip, followed by her third meeting with Sandip in which Bimala moves about more freely in the room. Nikhil has been kept out of this section as it is largely about her growing relationship with Sandip and not having much with Nikhil. In her first meeting with Sandip she is seen sitting along with Nikhil. In the second one she meets Sandip alone and she is nervous because Sandip makes her sit next to her. She is relieved when Sandip lets her leave. Satyajit Ray has explained the third meeting between them which helps to understand his method: “… she has all the time in the world; therefore, she doesn’t sit down. She walks, first to the window, sings, sits down at the piano, and then walks again, takes her time in front of the mirror and then there’s a conversation. And then there comes a point where she’s offended by something Sandip suggests and she wants to leave and then they really come together. It was necessary to have a point for them to come together and here was a perfectly logical reason because Sandip naturally wants to prevent her from leaving, and he comes as close as possible to an embrace, but it’s not yet time for an embrace because the relationship hasn’t got to that point yet. Anyway, he holds her hand and she has to say ‘Please let me go’. And there’s the slight suggestion that he’s holding her hand so tight it’s actually hurting her. And then she goes… Psychology dictates her movement and therefore the movement of the scene is dependent on the relationship between the two characters” [6].
Nikhil in his story starts with a monologue, wondering whether he has the strength to bear what is going on. Both Bimala and Sandip have been kept out of this scene except for a fleeting glimpse of Bimala that Nikhil has of her standing in the corridor and staring outside. This section is about what Nikhil is going through. The school headmaster is worried about the worsening situation. Nikhil says that he has read about preachers from Dacca stirring up the locals. He also feels for the way the minority community has been treated. The headmaster tells him to ask Sandip to leave the estate. His sister-in-law too feels the same. She tells him to see the result of freeing Bimala from her moorings. Nikhil says that it was not a foolish notion. She requests him to ask Sandip to leave. Nikhil tells her that if he asks Sandip to leave, he’ll find Bimala regretting it because it wouldn’t be her decision. That would be unbearable both for her and for him. Nikhil says that he can’t do it out of his own selfishness. Ray gives Nikhil the least screen time in the film to underscore his passive approach.
The rest of the film is in the third person omniscient point of view. There is Bimala’s fourth meeting with Sandip in which she appears to come on her own without being called by him. She sees him playing the piano and singing a few lines of yet another Tagore song, “Chalre Chal Sabe Bharat Santan” (Onward, sons of India, the MotherIand calls). Bimala picks up his foreign cigarette packet and says “I gather you have won the hearts of many women both Swadeshi and foreign”. Indicating that she has fallen in love with Sandip, there is a close-up of a figurine of lovers on the table she walks up to. Sandip breaks into singing the song “Bujhte nari naree ki chay” (Who can ever fathom a woman’s ways?) written by Akshay Kumar Borai. The playback singer for all the three songs sung by Sandip in the film was Kishore Kumar, one of the most popular singers of Hindi film songs. Bimala is shocked to know that Sandip may leave their estate. After Sandip says he needs five thousand rupees, Bimala pleads with him whether he’ll stay if she gives him the money. She says “I did it all for you”. She doesn’t realise that all the talk of him as a bee working for the Queen bee was to flatter her. She is so emotionally attached to him that she can’t think of him leaving the palace. This brings both of them together and Sandip kisses her. It was perhaps the first time there was a kiss in a Ray film.
Nikhil goes out on horseback in his riding attire inspecting the ghost village. There is absolute quiet as everybody has gone to the mosque. As Nikhil approaches the mosque, he starts hearing the speech of the preacher who stirs up the peasants. This scene is not there in the novel although it is alluded to. Back in his palace the headmaster rushes to him when a shot is heard. Nikhil assures him that he’ll tell Sandip to leave. The fifth meeting between Bimala and Sandip starts with a kiss. She gives him the money. But things take a turn as Nikhil comes to the room and tells Sandip firmly that he doesn’t want him to stay there any longer as in Tagore’s novel. Nikhil says that he is aware of what Sandip has caused: setting fire to peasants’ barns and sinking Mirjan’s boat. For the first time, Bimala comes to know of the violence unleashed by Sandip. She turns her back to him. Sandip asks her whether she wants him to stay or not. This part is not in the novel. She doesn’t answer his question but asks him to inform Amulya (Indrapramit Roy), his deputy, to meet her. From Amulya, Bimala comes to know that Sandip asked her for more money than needed and that Sandip is a big spender who always travels first class. The sixth meeting shows a clear break between Bimala and Sandip. Now Bimala cares only for Nikhil’s safety and no one else matters for her. In the seventh meeting Sandip returns the jewellery box, takes the money and bids goodbye. Now that the riot has erupted, he has to do his proverbial escape. Despite his charisma and commitment to Swadeshi, Sandip comes across as an opportunist. In contrast the young Swadeshi Amulya is more committed as he would rather stay in the village and face the situation. Thus, over these seven meetings Satyajit Ray has developed the growing and changing relationship between Bimala and Sandip with great skill.
This is an unusual love story in which we feel sympathetic to Bimala who is unfortunate. By the time she sees through Sandip and truly loves Nikhil, he kisses her and leaves on horseback to quell the riot. There is a shot of raging fire at a distance seen from the balcony of his palace and the camera zooms in. The next morning from the same balcony the camera shows the headmaster and others coming slowly in a procession towards the palace to beating of drums and mournful music. They are followed by a palanquin and Nikhil’s horse without a rider. This is a departure from the novel which is open ended. The doctor in the novel can’t say yet on Nikhil’s condition. The wound in the head is a serious one. In the film he is dead. While it makes the film dramatic and gives a circular structure, Tagore’s open ending left some hope however faint it was. The camera moves to the left to show the grief stricken Bimala standing against the wall and moves towards her for a bigger close-up. There is a dissolve which shows her without the bindi in her forehead. In yet another dissolve it shows her in white saree worn by widows. Then the camera tracks back a little showing her in a medium shot.
Criticism on ‘Ghare Baire’ the film
One of the criticisms on the film was whether it faithfully depicted the Swadeshi movement. After the advent of Gandhi, the movement got revived by him as a non-violent movement but the film covers the earlier period as in the novel. Tagore wrote it in 1912 based on his experience in the movement from 1905 to 1906. So, the film must be seen confined to that period.
Madhabi Mukherjee and Soumitra Chatterjee in ‘Charulata’
‘Ghare Baire’ is usually compared with Ray’s highly acclaimed ‘Charulata’ the Golden Bear award winner at Berlin. It is as though people wanted yet another ‘Charulata’ from Ray. A common criticism made in comparison with Ray’s earlier masterpiece is that ‘Ghare Baire’ is too ‘talkative’ [6]. ‘Charulata’ is a very good example of a Ray film that narrates the story of individuals in their naturalistic setting with acute observation of details and less talk. In his book “The Cinema of Satyajit Ray”, the highly respected film critic Chidananda Das Gupta wrote about the film: “Ray’s analytical method, his ability to reveal the mental event with exactness and with few words reaches its height in ‘Charulata’ “ [8]. In his novel “Ghare Baire”, Tagore had based Nikhil on himself and he appears to have modelled Sandip after Swadeshi leaders he came across. Satyajit Ray added all the details and portrayed the characters in flesh and blood. Yet, because of the strong ideas behind the story, the characters may appear as types. While ‘Charulata’, a chamber film like ‘Ghare Baire’, has some scenes which are great examples of visual narration, ‘Ghare Baire’ deals with a couple of subjects, viz. women’s emancipation and Swadeshi, involving conversations but Ray makes them intelligent and witty. Comparatively ‘Ghare Baire’ has more outdoor scenes than ‘Charulata’, setting its domestic drama against the disturbances happening in the outside world which are of relevance even today. Vincent Canby has rightly called ‘Ghare Baire’ a “sweeping chamber-epic” [4].
The characterization of Nikhil and Sandip in the film has been criticized. Nikhil comes out self-critical in the following passage in the novel: “I could only preach and preach, so I mused, and get my effigy burnt for my pains. I had not yet been able to bring back a single soul from the path of death. They who have the power can do by a mere sign. My words have not that ineffable meaning. I am not a flame, only a black coal, which has gone out. I can light no lamp. That is what the story of my life shows, my row of lamps has remained unlit” [1]. Andrew Robinson, in his book on Ray, wonders whether Ray didn’t find fault with Nikhil as he looked upon Nikhil as Tagore [6]. But this self-critical passage which fits the poetic style of the novel might have looked out of place in the film. Not that Nikhil in the film is faultless. As Vincent Canby [5] has pointed out, Nikhil comes out egocentric as one of the reasons he wants Bimala to come out of her zenana is that he wants her to evaluate him in comparison with other men. He wants to be found to fare better than others and loved by Bimala. Also, for his selfish reason, as he says, he does not force himself on Bimala and Sandip (till the riot breaks out). As Roger Ebert has written “all the time her husband stands by, his detachment becoming one of the fascinations of the movie” [4]. Pauline Kael has likened the core situation in the film to that in James Joyce’s play “Exiles” [3].
Ironically, Nikhil’s extreme idealism leads to pushing Bimala in Sandip’s embrace. Andrew Robinson has written that “the Tagores went in for such a behaviour, according to Ray” citing an actual example in which Tagore’s eldest brother Satyendranath Tagore pushed his friend to sit on his wife’s bed under a mosquito net and left them to get acquainted [6]. A more common sensical man in Nikhil’s place would have kept Bimala away from a philanderer like Sandip. Nikhil’s idealism also makes him politically naive. Somebody who understands the politics wouldn’t have let Sandip stay in his house, arouse the Swadeshis against the poor traders, use Nikhil’s manager to get Mirjan’s boat sunk and cause a riot in his estate. Nikhil’s heroic rising to the occasion to quell the riot only results in riding to his death. However, as Roger Ebert has written, Nikhil’s detachment is a fascination in the movie. It elevates the film to a visionary level. Victor Banerjee excels in the role of Nikhil with his superlative performance. It’ll go down as one of the all-time great performances in Indian cinema.
Tagore has poetic lines for Sandip too. Bimala says the following about Sandip in the novel: “There is much in Sandip that is coarse, that is sensuous, that is false, much that is overlaid with layer after layer of fleshly covering. Yet, yet it is best to confess that there is a great deal in the depths of him which we do not, cannot understand, much in ourselves too. A wonderful thing is man” [1]. This passage has no place in Ray’s film perhaps for the same reason why Ray didn’t have the poetic monologue of Nikhil. But Ray cast Soumitra Chatterjee, who played Apu in ‘Apur Sansar’ and Amal in ‘Charulata’ in the role of Sandip. As Andrew Robinson has written, Soumitra Chatterjee was fiftyish when ‘Ghare Baire’ was made and he lacked a little in elan [6]. However, Soumitra Chatterjee’s image that we hold in our mind – especially that of Amal to whom Charulata is drawn to in Ray’s ‘Charulata’ – a somewhat similar film with a love triangle – makes him charming although he plays an antihero here. Thanks to his image, Satyajit Ray’s casting of Soumitra Chatterjee as Sandip lends some positive aspects to the character. As played competently by Chatterjee – although his age was not on his side for the role – Sandip’s oratorical skills, his singing and his revolutionary posture appeal to Bimala and she falls for him. Ray’s master stroke is to let us see Sandip through Bimala’s point of view in the first 57 minutes. Like Bimala, we too fall for him. It is only after that we come to know of his designs from his story. As Nikhil describes Sandip, “despite all his gifts, he hasn’t really accomplished anything” and Sandip comes out as an opportunist. This attracted criticism that unlike ‘Charulata’ the characters in ‘Ghare Baire’ are in black and white. But in ‘Charulata’ there is the character of Charulata’s elder brother, Umapada, who swindles Charulata’s husband Bhupati of his money, destroying his newspaper. Since Umapada is a peripheral character unlike Sandip, a main character in ‘Ghare Baire’ who does the damage, ‘Charulata’ may appear more nuanced.
Yet another criticism on the film was the casting of Bimala. Perhaps people wanted to see yet another beautiful and talented actor like Madhabi Mukherjee to play the role. But in Tagore’s novel, Sandip talks about Bimala in his story in the following way: “Her tall, slim figure these boors would call “lanky”. Her complexion is dark, but it is the lustrous darkness of a sword-blade, keen and scintillating” [1]. Madhabi Mukherjee didn’t fit the description of Bimala in the novel. It would have been very difficult to find an actor who could perform well as well as meet with Tagore’s description. Perhaps Ray might have still cast a great actor like her but she was older for this part in the early 80s. Swatilekha Chatterjee (Sengupta) didn’t fit the description either. It seems she was “a stage actress he [Satyajit Ray] saw in 1981, had both personality, command of Bengali, and ‘the intellect to understand what she was doing’” [6]. Swatilekha Chatterjee (Sengupta) has the maximum screen time in the film among the three main actors. It’s one of the most difficult female roles in Indian cinema which she enacted admirably for a newcomer. To quote Pauline Kael, “Bimala is girlish and coquettish in the early scenes in the women’s quarters, and part of the fascination of the movie is that Swatilekha Chatterjee grows with her role, and becomes more absorbing the longer you see her. She is not a mere ingénue; she’s a full-bodied, rounded beauty, and her Bimala has an earthy, sensual presence” [3]. Unlike in ‘Charulata’ in which the protagonist’s blossoming of a writer alone is hurried though with a montage, ‘Ghare Baire’ brings out Bimala’s character development in all its detail.
‘Ghare Baire’ has some similarities with Ray’s ‘Shatranj Ke Khilari’ (1977), based on a Munshi Premchand short story, in that both are based on literary works that cover a period of upheaval in Indian history. ‘Shatranj Ke Khilari’ is more in the nature of a historical and the best Indian film in that category. ‘Ghare Baire’ is essentially a love story – however unusual – impacted by a turmoil, the politics of which the film brings out acutely. Like ‘Shatranj Ke Khilari’, the period has been captured in great detail in ‘Ghare Baire’ too. The production design by Ashoke Bose recreates the period exquisitely and Soumendu Roy’s cinematography lights up the film with the right ambience. Satyajit Ray started operating the camera himself from 1964 onwards and in ‘Ghare Baire’ too he would have wielded the camera perhaps not fully as he had a heart attack towards the end of making the film. His son Sandip completed it with Ray’s supervision. Those who were critical of the film attributed the “failure” of the film to his illness [6]. On the contrary, the film belies the fact that Ray was unwell as he can be seen touching the pinnacle of his filmmaking in ‘Ghare Baire’ with his screenplay, music and direction – signified by the masterly one-minute sequence of crossing the passage which is pure cinema.
References
[1] “The Home and the World”, Rabindranath Tagore, translated [from Bengali to English] by Surendranath Tagore, London: Macmillan, 1919 [published in India, 1915, 1916]. Link: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7166/pg7166.html
[2] The Script Writer page in the official website of Satyajit Ray. Link: https://satyajitrayworld.org/script_writer.html
[3] Pauline Kael’s review of ‘The Home and the World’, New yorker July 1, 1985. Reprinted in her collection of reviews titled “State of the Art”, Published by Plume, 1985, pp 380 -382, ISBN 0-7145-2869-2.
[4] Roger Ebert’s review of ‘The Home and the World’, Chicago Sun-Times, January, 1, 1984. Reproduced in the Reviews page of the rogerebert dot com website. Link: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-home-and-the-world-1984
[5] Vincent Canby’s review of ‘The Home and the World’ in New York Times, June 21, 1985. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/21/movies/film-by-satyajit-ray.html
[6] “Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye”, Andrew Robinson, Published by I. B. Tauris; New edition (21 February 2004), pp 263-273, ISBN-10: 1860649653
[7] The Nation and Its Fragments – Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, Published by Princeton University Press, 1993, p 20, ISBN-10: 0691019436
[8] “The Cinema of Satyajit Ray”, Chidananda Das Gupta, Published by Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd., 1980, p 36, ISBN-10: 0706910354
Dialogue from Pa. Ranjith’s Sarpatta Parambarai, which revolves around boxing, a bloody, violent sport and identity of clan prestige.
Mahatma Gandhi epitomised non-violence as a potent tool to express one’s strong dissension against injustice. His peaceful protests against the brutal force unleashed by the mighty British Raj to cow down citizens into servility and submission ultimately won India her freedom. It is now nearly 125 years since that child from Porbandar, the young lawyer from South Africa, rose to singularly take on the mantle of leading India to independence. Answering violence with peaceful, pacifist protest, dialogue and reasoning, affirmative action, rather than by baton for baton and bullet for bullet, Gandhi epitomised what non-violence and civil disobedience can do to unreasoning powerful State authority and its venal, brutal ways.
It would have been great if our blue blood, modern day young and aspiring film directors took lessons from India’s painful past and gave wings to it in their works of art as they bring to centre stage of public discourse the various ills that still dog the Indian society. However, that is not to be. Filmmaker after filmmaker, in recent times, with wanton disregard to the fact that violence only begets violence, have been celebrating violence as if it were a virtue and their birth right.
Vicious, vituperative violence is being extolled in film after film as a legitimate form of registering the filmmaker’s displeasure at how the marginalised and underprivileged, especially the Dalits, are being treated in society. Dalit-oriented films have become the staple fodder to draw unsuspecting crowds of late. So much so that every second or third film that graces the movie marquee today, be it at traditional single theatres or streaming platforms, invariably revolves around championing the cause of the much-abused Dalit minority.
While one does not dispute their legitimate desire to present the problems that have been haunting the marginalised ilk since eons even to this day, what is problematic is the way these directors advocate violence as a necessary and inevitable recourse to protect one’s identity and also earn respect in society. Bikas Mishra correctly avers, “the politics of identity – caste – are central… Things have to be destroyed and demolished for a new world to emerge.” And there is a proper /better way to do it. In the recent past, there have been films such as Chauranga, Court, Fandry, Sairat, Masaan, Anhey Ghore Da Daan, Papilio Buddha, Pariyerum Perumal, and Mandela that capture the humiliation and discontent in the lives of the marginalised and underprivileged sections in a much more humane, subtler, and sensitive manner.
Currently, particularly in the cinema of Tamil, the erstwhile servile, subservient Dalit character has taken a 360 degree turn. They are now the protagonists and take on their powerful oppressors by fighting back tooth for tooth and eye for eye.
This change occurred with the emergence of filmmakers belonging to the marginalised class; filmmakers such as Pa. Ranjith, Mari Selvaraj, Balaji Shaktivel, and Vetri Maran. The criticism is that by foisting aggressively assertive, heroic Dalit figures, the filmmakers have conveniently cultivated a commercial narrative rather than reflect the actual reality in a more nuanced and subtle manner. While it is important to make the Dalit empowering, assertive, and aspirational, the manner in which this is carried out is equally important.
Violence is promoted by the cultivation of a sense of inevitability about some allegedly unique—often belligerent—identity that we are supposed to have and which makes extensive demands on us (sometimes, of a most disagreeable kind)… Violence is fomented by the imposition of singular and belligerent identities on gullible peoples, championed by proficient artisans of terror. (Amartya Sen)[1]
Replace ‘gullible people’ with ‘mass audiences in India,’ and ‘proficient artisans of terror’ with ‘filmmakers and lead actors who portray the injured Dalit,’ and the ugliness of the complete picture gets revealed. The blinkered approach of these filmmakers, some of whom have had the luxury of good education, raises an abject sense of disquiet and anxiety.
Our society’s engagement with caste—whether it is cinema or any other domain—has been very poor. We have reduced the narrative to caste as a problem that concerns only Dalits, and involves the perpetration of physical violence. In reality, caste in India works in a myriad of ways. But most of our filmmakers do not seem to see the value in representing these aspects. (Rajesh Rajamani)[2]
To instigate a new discourse in public sphere, both among afflicted and perpetrators, on subaltern struggles of marginalised and oppressed underprivileged sections of society, their brutalised existence, these new age filmmakers, get carried away depicting visual violence without realising the deleterious effect it may have on the consuming, participative audiences.
Be it Palasa (1978) or recent releases such as Asuran, Karnan, Kaala, and Kabali, with Dalit protagonists, violence becomes the baton of battle against the dominant and domineering class. The Telugu film Ardha Shathabdham goes to the extent of having a tagline that screams, “Democratic Violence”.
Playing to the gallery by populating the visual narratives with gratuitous, gruesome and vengeful violence, and streaking the screen in blood, has become the new normal. A pointer to this tempestuous trajectory can be gauged by the dialogues of the sword-wielding Dhanush in Karnan, “They beat us for just asserting ourselves. Now that the assertion has started, we won’t back down,” and Rajnikanth in Kabali, “We will sit, putting foot over foot”.
Visual violence by idolised icons is an enticing market-driven demand. Therefore, there ought to be a law to ensure that filmmakers and stars take responsibility on how their films are received by impressionable fans eager to mimic their larger-than-life screen idols.
Dalits are consistently shown as powerless. It is as though Dalit existence has meaning only in relation to caste society, and that victimisation is the essence of ‘Dalithood’… Popular cinemas narrativise the social experiences of the communities corresponding to their constituencies… Strategy is to place a key social happening at the centre of the narrative and use it to relay a ‘political truth’ to then be learned by a chosen protagonist/character… It is therefore easy to confuse the star with his/her role – which might also explain the phenomenal success of some film stars as political leaders. Stars rise into prominence when their physiognomies and screen presences answer to the requirements of the time, and it is uncommon for film stars to play against the types they are habituated to playing… The audience is invited to identify with the protagonist, and it is evidently intended to imbibe the same truths. The effect this has on film narrative is that characters then become empty receptacles for instruction. (MK Raghavendra)[3]
These new age filmmakers may be making an effort to instigate a new discourse, both among afflicted and the perpetrators. However, instead of abjuring excessive visual violence as form of retribution, they are merely stoking a dormant volcano of impressionable audiences into angry avengers. Instead of extolling machismo virtues and overt caste and identity glorification, Dalit filmmakers should be careful and conscious in every aspect of filmmaking. Shouldering immense responsibility, they should shun over-glorification of violence, pride and bigotry to emphasise on alternative education, constitutional resolution and empowerment.
Dalit cinema should be careful to not set a wrong example for the Dalit community. Will that happen? Future films and their makers may provide the answer. Till then, violence will continue to rule the roost in Dalit cinemas, as Dalits fight for affirmation, acceptance and assimilative identity in the socio-political scheme of the public discourse.
References
[1]Sen, Amartya. Identity & Violence: The Illusion of Destiny.
[3]Raghavendra, MK. Philosophical Issues in Indian Cinema. Routledge. 2021.
Bibliography
Viduthalai, P, Divakar, AK, Natarajan, V. Failure of Dalit Renaissance: A semiotic analysis of Dalit and Non Dalit films. Periyar University. Amity Journal of Media & Communication Studies. Vol. 7, No. 1. 2017.
Susairaj, Antony. The Paradigm shifts in the Portrayal of Caste in Tamil Cinema and its impact on the Tamil Society. Journal of the Nanzan Academic Society Humanities and Natural Sciences (20), 121-138. 2020. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/328007935.pdf
When I was completing the edit of my film ‘Remembering Bimal Roy‘ on my father, my editor asked me who would do the final sound design. This was the first time I heard the term sound design and realised that my documentary would need one. Shajith
By sheer serendipity a dear friend Meena Pillai mentioned that Shajith Koyeri, a friend of hers, had just won a National Award for Sound Design. This could not be a coincidence. I told Meena to fix an appointment for me to meet him, which she did instantly. When I was shown in to the mixing room to meet Shajith I gave an involuntary start as I set eyes on him for the first time. Shajith was seated on a chair which seemed so large in comparison to him that it seemed to swallow him up in its recesses. That was because he was tiny in size and painfully thin, and [highlight background=”#f79126″ color=”#ffffff”]severe arthritis had turned his fingers into claws. I couldn’t imagine how he could handle the sound controls with those bent claws. And yet this man had won a National Ward for his skills.[/highlight] His achievement was all the more miraculous because he did not have any formal training in sound design. Whatever he had learned was by observation and practice.
I personally witnessed the magic of those bent fingers when we sat together for the sound design of my film. His keen intelligence and sensitive hearing enabled him to maximize the potential of the existing soundtrack and better it when required. The seamless and near flawless final soundtrack created by Shajith far surpassed my expectations. And his sunny disposition made it a pleasure to work with him.
Shajith’s story is a fascinating example of how destiny can play a pivotal role in one’s life.
Consider this. Shajith grew up in a small town called Punnol in Kerala. His father owned a ration shop and his mother taught Hindi in a government school. Shajith was a normal school going kid who loved football. But at age thirteen he was detected with juvenile arthritis. The local doctor gave him wrong medication for two years at the end of which Shajith’s condition had deteriorated alarmingly. The parents finally took him to a senior doctor in an adjoining town, and that medication helped to stop the deterioration. But the damage had already been done. He began to suffer from severe depression. But he finally took up a job in a local library and he became a voracious reader. His mind opened up and he became curious to know more about politics, world affairs, history and space. And he was fascinated by unexplained phenomena like the Bermuda triangle. His depression lifted and he was in a better space.
All through this time his friend Satish who lived next door was a great support and would spend time with him to cheer him up. Satish then went to the Film and Television Institute to study sound design and finally opened his own studio in Bombay. But it took Shajith several years of suffering and hardship before Satish rescued him from wasting away in a small town. His one day visit to Satish turned into 7 days. Shajith would spend the day in Satish’s studio. [highlight background=”#f79126″ color=”#ffffff”]He was fascinated by the process of mixing sound. Shajith told me that from childhood natural sounds had fascinated him… for example the difference in sound when the same person walked on sand and then on the road. He had already developed a very keen ear for sound.[/highlight] And his interest in Hindi cinema, unusual for a boy from a small town in Kerala, was because his mother taught Hindi and would take him to see Hindi films. He confessed that he had been a great fan of Amir Khan, so he would buy old copies of Filmfare from a second hand bookshop to know more about him and Bollywood. Obviously life was preparing him for a career in shaping the sound of Hindi cinema.
It has been a long and arduous journey for Shajith from Ponnul to Bollywood and from depression to jubilation. Shajith’s story is inspirational particularly for handicapped people. His life proves that one’s strength of mind and determination can make the impossible possible.
Often frowned upon for his over self-indulgence with aesthetics of film making and acting, and an unabashed pursuer of commercial dynamics, despite clinging on to his ideal idea of cinema, Kamal Haasan has never been wanting when it came to meld commerce with craft for the greater good of cinema. He is a radical experimenter always willing to take that leap of faith to sharpen audiences’ cinematic sensibilities with subtleness and complexity rather than relying on dead pot commercial cauldrons.
Such was his steadfast opinion and antipathy towards cinema that he was rather reluctant in meeting up with one of the greatest comedians of the silent era, Charlie Chaplin, whom he simply dismissed as “a buffoon”. The two, though, met on September 22, 1931 during Gandhi’s visit to England for the Round Table Conference.
The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, 1965, provides enough personal viewpoints held by Gandhiji on cinema. In a letter to Helene Haussding, he writes, “I know that overwork and terrific strain are just as apprehensible, even though they may be in a good cause, as a drinking-bout or visiting cinemas. The results of both are the same.”
This was the time when a young filmmaker from Assam, Pramathesh Chandra Barua, was experimenting with the new technology of “talkie” films, in Calcutta, and for the first time there was the question of which language to make films in. Barua made the first “talkie” adaptation of Devdas (1935) in Bengali, with him playing the eponymous character. It was an instant sensation. In the following year, Barua directed the Hindi version, with singer-actor Kundan Lal Saigal playing the hero. The Hindi version was an even bigger hit. A Tamil version was made in the year after that. Danseuse and filmmaker Vedantam Raghavaiah made a Telugu/ Tamil bilingual in 1953. It had Telugu superstar Akkineni Nageswara Rao reprising the iconic role. The film became a milestone. Devdas Mukherjee, a jolted, ill-fated lover with a penchant for self-harm, had become the darling of the masses.
This is an unusual love story in which we feel sympathetic to Bimala who is unfortunate. By the time she sees through Sandip and truly loves Nikhil, he kisses her and leaves on horseback to quell the riot. There is a shot of raging fire at a distance seen from the balcony of his palace and the camera zooms in. The next morning from the same balcony the camera shows the headmaster and others coming slowly in a procession towards the palace to beating of drums and mournful music. They are followed by a palanquin and Nikhil’s horse without a rider. This is a departure from the novel which is open ended. The doctor in the novel can’t say yet on Nikhil’s condition. The wound in the head is a serious one. In the film he is dead. While it makes the film dramatic and gives a circular structure, Tagore’s open ending left some hope however faint it was. The camera moves to the left to show the grief stricken Bimala standing against the wall and moves towards her for a bigger close-up. There is a dissolve which shows her without the bindi in her forehead. In yet another dissolve it shows her in white saree worn by widows. Then the camera tracks back a little showing her in a medium shot.
Ironically, Nikhil’s extreme idealism leads to pushing Bimala in Sandip’s embrace. Andrew Robinson has written that “the Tagores went in for such a behaviour, according to Ray” citing an actual example in which Tagore’s eldest brother Satyendranath Tagore pushed his friend to sit on his wife’s bed under a mosquito net and left them to get acquainted [6]. A more common sensical man in Nikhil’s place would have kept Bimala away from a philanderer like Sandip. Nikhil’s idealism also makes him politically naive. Somebody who understands the politics wouldn’t have let Sandip stay in his house, arouse the Swadeshis against the poor traders, use Nikhil’s manager to get Mirjan’s boat sunk and cause a riot in his estate. Nikhil’s heroic rising to the occasion to quell the riot only results in riding to his death. However, as Roger Ebert has written, Nikhil’s detachment is a fascination in the movie. It elevates the film to a visionary level. Victor Banerjee excels in the role of Nikhil with his superlative performance. It’ll go down as one of the all-time great performances in Indian cinema.
Yet another criticism on the film was the casting of Bimala. Perhaps people wanted to see yet another beautiful and talented actor like Madhabi Mukherjee to play the role. But in Tagore’s novel, Sandip talks about Bimala in his story in the following way: “Her tall, slim figure these boors would call “lanky”. Her complexion is dark, but it is the lustrous darkness of a sword-blade, keen and scintillating” [1]. Madhabi Mukherjee didn’t fit the description of Bimala in the novel. It would have been very difficult to find an actor who could perform well as well as meet with Tagore’s description. Perhaps Ray might have still cast a great actor like her but she was older for this part in the early 80s. Swatilekha Chatterjee (Sengupta) didn’t fit the description either. It seems she was “a stage actress he [Satyajit Ray] saw in 1981, had both personality, command of Bengali, and ‘the intellect to understand what she was doing’” [6]. Swatilekha Chatterjee (Sengupta) has the maximum screen time in the film among the three main actors. It’s one of the most difficult female roles in Indian cinema which she enacted admirably for a newcomer. To quote Pauline Kael, “Bimala is girlish and coquettish in the early scenes in the women’s quarters, and part of the fascination of the movie is that Swatilekha Chatterjee grows with her role, and becomes more absorbing the longer you see her. She is not a mere ingénue; she’s a full-bodied, rounded beauty, and her Bimala has an earthy, sensual presence” [3]. Unlike in ‘Charulata’ in which the protagonist’s blossoming of a writer alone is hurried though with a montage, ‘Ghare Baire’ brings out Bimala’s character development in all its detail.
Shajith’s story is a fascinating example of how destiny can play a pivotal role in one’s life.