Maniklal Chatterjee – Borderless

Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC (Certified Board of Film Certification), served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.

Conversations

‘He made History stand still on his Pages’

A conversation about an eminent screenwriter and author, Nabendu Ghosh. His daughter, senior journalist Ratnottama Sengupta, unfolds stories about her father. Click here to read.

Words and Worlds of Bollywood Star Deepti Naval

Eminent film journalist, Ratnottama Sengupta, converses with legendary actress, Deepti Naval, on her literary aspirations at the Simla Literary festival, Unmesh, in June 2022. Click here to read.

Interviewing Bulbul: Remembering Mrinal Sen…

Ratnottama Sengupta introduces Bulbul Sharma to converse with her on Mrinal Sen, the legendary filmmaker, reflecting on Bulbul Sharma’s experience as an actress in his film, Interview. Click here to read.

Poetry

Poetry by Ratnottama Sengupta… Click here to read.

Prose

Abol Tabol: No Nonsense Verses of Sukumar Ray

Ratnottama Sengupta relives the fascination of Sukumar Ray’s Abol Tabol, which has just completed its centenary. Click here to read.

The Story of a Land at War with Itself

Ratnottama Sengupta presents the first hand account of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992-1995) from a letter from her brother, who was posted there as part of the peace-keeping troops. Click here to read.

Moving Images of Tagore

Ratnottama Sengupta talks of Tagore and cinema. Click here to read.

A Towering Inferno, A Girl-next-door & the Big City

Ratnottama Sengupta writes of actress Jaya Bachchan recounting her first day on the sets of Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar. Click here to read.

Magic of the Mahatma & Nabendu

Ratnottama Sengupta shows the impact of Gandhi and his call for non-violence on Nabendu Ghosh as she continues to emote over his message of Ahimsa and call for peace amidst rioting. Click here to read.

Which way, wanderer? Lyric or screenplay…

Ratnottama Sengupta explores the poetry in lyrics of Bollywood songs, discussing the Sahityotsav (Literary Festival) hosted by the Sahitya Akademi. Click here to read.

When ‘they’ Danced…

Ratnottama Sengupta discusses the unique Bhooter Naach or the Ghost Dance, in Satyajit Ray’s Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne. Click here to read.

The Roy Senguptas

Ratnottama Sengupta continues with her own family saga looking back to the last century. Click here to read.

A Solitary Pursuit: The Art of Suhas Roy

Ratnottama Sengupta journeys with the signature art of Suhas Roy as it transformed in theme, style, and medium. Click here to read.

Ghosh & Company

Ratnottama Sengupta relives the past. Click here to read.

Freedom is another word for… Zohra Sehgal

Ratnottama Sengupta gives a glimpse of the life of Zohra Sehgal, based on the book Zohra: A Biography in Four Acts by Ritu Menon, and her own personal interactions with the aging Zohra Sehgal. Click here to read.

In Memoriam: Star of the Stage Shines on Screen

Ratnottama Sengupta pays a tribute to famed actress, Swatilekha Sengupta (May 1950- June 2021). Click here to read.

A Special Tribute

In Jean Claude Carriere: A Writer for all Directors, Ratnottama Sengupta pays homage to Jean Claude Carriere (1931-2021), the legendary screenwriter of Peter Brook’s Mahabharata. Click here to read.

‘When will we ever learn? Oh, will we ever learn?’

Ratnottama Sengupta, comments on the current situation in Ukraine while dwelling on her memorable meeting with folk legend Pete Seeger, a pacifist, who wrote ‘Where have all the Flowers gone’, based on a folk song from Ukraine. Click here to read.

Beg Your Pardon

Ratnottama Sengupta explores beggary in fact, films and fiction. Click here to read.

Dhaka Book Fair: A Mansion and a Movement

Ratnottama Sengupta writes of a time a palace called Bardhaman House became the centre of a unique tryst against cultural hegemony. The Language Movement of 1952 that started in Dhaka led to the birth of Bangladesh in 1971. In 1999, UNESCO recognised February 21 as the Mother Language Day. Click here to read.

Requiem for the Melody Queen

Ratnottama Sengupta sings her own paean in which a chorus of voices across the world join her to pay a tribute to a legend called Lata Mangeshkar. Click here to read.

For the Want of a Cloth

Ratnottama Sengupta muses on an NGO who has won a Magsaysay Award for his work with cloth distribution in India contextualising it against the issues raised in Give Me a Rag, Please by Nabendu Ghosh. Click here to read.

Two Birds

Ratnottama Sengupta muses as she translates a Tagore’s song. Click here to read.

Joy B angla: Memories of 1971

Ratnottama Sengupta recaptures a time when as a teenager she witnessed a war that was fought to retain a language and culture. Click here to read.

Dilip Kumar: Kohinoor-e-Hind

In a tribute to Bollywood legend Dileep Kumar, Ratnottama Sengupta recollects the days the great actor sprinted about on the sets of Bombay’s studios …spiced up with fragments from the autobiography of Sengupta’s father, Nabendu Ghosh. Click here to read.

Yesterday Once More?

Ratnottama Sengupta recalls her experiences of the Egyptian unrest while covering the 35th Cairo International Film Festival in 2012. Click here to read.

Gliding along the Silk Route

Ratnottama Sengupta recaps about the silk route. Click here to read and find out more.

When Needles Became Canons…

Ratnottama Sengupta gives us the role ‘kanthas’ (hand-embroidered mats, made of old rags) played in India’s freedom struggle. Click here to read.

How Green was our Valley

Ratnottama Sengupta goes back to her childhood Mumbai to the mid-twentieth century. Click here to read.

The Worshipper of Mother Earth: A Nostalgic journey

Ratnottama Sengupta journeys to show how past and present are interlinked in art and pays tribute to a polyglot, Maniklal Chatterjee. Click here to read.

Wisdom of the Wild

Ratnottama Sengupta muses on the wisdom of the wild in a storm. Click here to read.

In Praise of Translations

Ratnottama Sengupta discusses how translations impact the world of literature. Click here to read.

Translations

Gandhiji, a short story by Nabendu Ghosh, has been translated from Bengali by Ratnottama Sengupta. Click here to read.

A translation from Nabendu Ghosh’s autobiography, Eka Naukar Jatri (Journey of a Lonesome Boat), translated by Dipankar Ghosh, from Bengali post scripted by Ratnottama Sengupta. Click here to read.

Down the stairs by Nabendu Ghosh, a gripping story exploring the greyer areas of ethical dilemmas, has been translated by Sarmishta Mukhopadhyay with editorial input from Ratnottama Sengupta. Click here to read.

Give Me A Rag, Please:A short story by Nabendu Ghosh, translated by Ratnottama Sengupta, set in the 1943 Bengal Famine, which reflects on man’s basic needs. Click here to read.

Ratnottama Sengupta translates Bengali poet Michael Madhusudan Dutt’s Bijoya Doushami. Click here to read.

Colour the World: Rangiye Diye Jao, a song by Tagore, transcreated by Ratnottama Sengupta. Click here to read.

Satyajit Ray, Bibhuti Bhushan & Nabendu Ghosh and a Famous Triology: To mark the birth centenary of Satyajit Ray, Ratnottama Sengupta translates from Nabendu Ghosh’s autobiography experience of Pather Panchali ( Song of the Road) — between covers and on screen. Click here to read.

Yet, Forget Me Not…: Short story by actress film-maker Aparajita Ghosh translated from Bengali by Ratnottama Sengupta. Click here to read.

Across Time: Ratnottama Sengupta transcreates three poems from Bengali. Click here to read.

An August Account of ‘Quit India’ Movement: Ratnottama Sengupta translates from Bengali the excerpts recorded by Sandhya Sinha (1928-2016), who witnessed an upsurge in the wake of the Quit India Movement, part of India’s struggle against colonial rule. Click here to read.

The Magic Spell of Scheherazade’s Nights: Translated by Ratnottama Sengupta, these are reflections by Sandhya Sinha (1928-2016) on the magic of storytelling in Arabian Nights. Click here to read.

The Awaited Mother’s Day: Translated by Ratnottama Sengupta, a short story by Sandhya Sinha (1928-2016). Click here to read.

Ratnottama Sengupta journeys to show how past and present are interlinked in art and pays tribute to a polyglot

I must have been six or seven years old then. I had already developed the habit of looking attentively at visual images even before I could discern the letters of the alphabet. For, even as a child I would leaf through Baba’s* books that were everywhere in our house — in the bookshelves, on the table, on the beds and even under the beds. So, when I loitered out of our home into those of our neighbours, I was drawn by the ‘Merry Christmas’ cards overflowing the mantel shelves of some and the ‘Diwali Greetings’ lining the walls of others. Later I started collecting them, and some years down, when my elder brother went off to medical school, I inherited his stamp collection. In all of these, I would involuntarily seek out Indian scenes: women plaiting hair, farmer ploughing his field, Koli* fisherfolks with their nets, boatman in the river, cow and calf, lady lighting a diya*, an itinerant sadhu, a Baul* singer…

Why was I drawn to these ‘Indian’ stories? I was, after all, growing up in Bombay of 1960s, where the citizens were commuting by train to eke out a livelihood in the mills and factories, in the corporate offices and film studios churning out tinsel dreams. I never posed these questions then but almost six decades later I have the answer:

In the rapidly industrialising country, people coming out of a glorious past were forging a new identity for another tomorrow. But even an India of new dreams could not be divorced from the lived reality of the forefathers, right?

This realisation came to me after I visited Santiniketan, had the good fortune to interact with pathbreaking artists like Sankho Chaudhuri, K Subramanian, Ramananda Bandopadhyay, Debabrata Mukherjee — and when I penned Krishna’s Cosmos on the art and life of pioneer printmaker Krishna Reddy. Through them all, I understood that the need for a self-perception of a ‘Bengal’ identity — both biographical and cultural — was very much alive post Partition.

Although Krishna Reddy had a divergent journey in Art, Maniklal Chatterjee, was also moulded in the same crucible as the printmaker, under the watchful eyes of the iconic Nandalal Bose. And, in a certain way, Maniklal carried on the famed Master Moshai’s* Haripura Congress tradition of capturing the everyday life of farmers and labourers, artisans and housewives. It came out of his innate love for nature and the pastoral world in the lap of mother earth. In other words, it was rooted in Life as it was lived in erstwhile East Bengal, that end of the land which was lopped off by the Radcliffe Line, forcing Maniklal to seek a new roof to shelter his homestead — and a new haven through lines and tints.

Krishna Reddy, moving in 1950 to post World War II London and Paris, realised that while Europe was seeking as escape from the horrifying memory of the holocaust, by negating human figures and going into Abstract art, Cubism, Op art and Pop art, India was looking back to its pre-colonial heritage in art: the Mughal miniatures, the folk traditions of Bengal, the bazaar art of Kalighat, the Patachitra of Puri and the homely Madhubani. It was this fount of inspiration that Maniklal Chatterjee appears to have made his own. He did not use his inborn skill to counter the influence of Academic training, nor was he being Progressive by adapting Modernism. Born of a different history and rooted in a different culture, he compulsively looked back to the home he had left behind in Barishal and drew upon the wash technique, the tempera and water colour of Santiniketan that has welded diverse art inheritances in its quest for an Oriental universality.

In short, it was this artist’s way of retaining an identity that was as much him as his Bangal accent and his commitment to Communism. Yes, he committed his grasp over the formal and technical basics of the Santiniketan/ Bengal School of painting to talk about Everyman. His imprint of life of his suffering countrymen bore the aesthetic sophistication of the hallowed School but was charged by the love for an idyllic India. A withering workman’s India. An unspoilt India now relegated to memories.

But though he dipped his brush in the colour of nostalgia, Maniklal’s art was imbued with serenity and joy. The women and men, the kids and calf pulsated with lived energy. The ‘sarbohara‘ who has lost his all — the uprooted refugee as much as the man who has nothing to lose but his chain, these were the heroes for Maniklal Chatterjee.

Those were the glorious days of IPTA (Indian People’s Theatre Association). Remember the film, Do Bigha Zamin (Two Acres of Land)? The rickshawala on foot racing with his cart against a horse drawn carriage, not just to reach his human brethren to his destination but also to earn two square meals and — more urgently — to save his two acre land, back in the country’s hinterland, came to signify the rapidly industrialising India of 1950s. It was this set of lives that Maniklal Chatterjee chose to iconise. His art sang of those deprived, but not downtrodden. Not for nothing were these celebrated as ‘Postcards from Bengal’. The poet within the artist wrote, “Tomar kaachhe aajanma wrini aami — tumi je basundhara (I am beholden to you Mother – you are the Earth).”Age cannot wither nor time stale this luminous face of Mother India — be it for Maniklal Chatterjee or for you and me. Because art for him is the expression of a deeply rooted emotion. It is as personal a portrait of his life and times as the photograph of my parents taken in a studio after their marriage: It is a time wrap, but one we will always be grateful for.

*Baba: Father. Her father was the late Nabendu Ghosh, an eminent writer in Bengali and a personality in film scripting and directing.

*Koli: Fisherfolk in Mumbai.

*diyas: oil lamp

*Baul: mystic minstrels or bards in Bengal

*Master Moshai: Teacher or Maestro in Bengali

Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and write books. Daughter of Nabendu Ghosh, she has authored Krishna’s Cosmos, a biography of the pioneering printmaker Krishna Reddy, among many other books She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.

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