Tag: Satyajit Ray

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Essay

Reminiscences from a Gallery: MF Husain

By Dolly Narang

MF Husain at the opening of the exhibition “A Tree In My LIfe” in 1995.
With him are Dolly Narang (who conceptualised the show) and others.  Fifty one artists from all over the country were invited to participate. The exhibition included M.F. Husain, Raza, Ganesh Pyne, Paritosh Sen, Arpana Caur, Vivan Sundaram along with promising and emerging artists. Photo provided by Dolly Narang

It was 1989 when I  turned my passion for art into reality by opening The Village Gallery. My experience from conceptualising till the launch of my new initiative, as I negotiated unchartered waters, brought me in contact with artists and the art world.  And I had some interesting experiences as I began to fathom the nuances of this unique field.

Growing up, I was a dreamer living in my own world of happy make believe.  Enveloped by the warmth and attention of my joint family I was the cherished firstborn of my parents and my grandfather, Bauji[1]. Their adoration wrapped me in a cocoon sheltering me from the outside world.  I grew up safe, protected and loved in our home in East Patel Nagar in West Delhi.

My mother laid claim to my creative spark. She revealed one day that while she was in the serene hills of Shimla with her parents as she carried me, she was learning how to paint. My mother proudly attributed my artistic side was all because of the genes passed on from her. Her creativity much later matured into fashion design and she became a successful fashion designer in the 1960s opening a high fashion boutique catering to New Delhi’s expat and diplomatic community. Her design skills were honed. She was much ahead of her time.

My Naniji[2] embroidered sequins and beads (maternal grandmother) on small evening clutch bags as gifts. That was her passion as it helped to overcome the grief of the loss of my grandfather who passed away suddenly in his mid 40s following the Partition and the trauma of 1947, when the Indian subcontinent was split into two. My Uncle, my father’s youngest sibling, unleashed his photographic skills to capture my childhood. He won a prize for one of these photographs.

I remember as a child being fascinated by Bauji making decorative paper lanterns. He used fragile kite paper of vibrant green, pink and yellow, slowly and meticulously applying glue on the paper to paste them onto thin bamboo sticks. I must have been four or five years old.  The memory is so clearly embedded in my consciousness. He was a banker with a hectic work schedule involving travel. Our family had been uprooted during the Partition from Lyallpur in 1947 and we were in the throes of resettling ourselves. Yet, he found time to follow his creative calling.

As a child, I was fascinated by art and spent hours by myself doodling and drawing. Growing up, I have fond memories of my art class when I was in 7th or 8th grade in school. This was my happy space. My art teacher, Mrs. Dorothy Rahman, I remember was helped me to nurture my creativity with kindness and patience. She gave me special permission to work in art class during lunch hour. I loved working with my hands. Feeling the clay between my hands was exhilarating so clay was my chosen medium. Mrs. Rahman gave me a piece of soapstone a soft material and chiselling tools to chisel. This new medium opened up thrilling moments of more exploration.

My class had some students who were naturally gifted.  Their effortless creativity left me feeling somewhat inadequate. At the same time, this pushed me to work harder to hone my skills. The confluence of my family’s creative influences and the circumstances unfolding before me led me to dream of starting an art gallery and I did do exactly that.

I nurtured a desire to start my gallery with the art of the famed MF Husain. Though it seemed an impossible dream, it happened. I went ahead and I shared my idea with Arpana Caur, my childhood playmate and college mate who had made a niche for herself in the art world and received recognition as a painter of great talent and promise. Caur encouraged me to chase my dreams. The first one person show at my newborn gallery was of Husain serigraphs and lithographs.  It was a coup of sorts if I may say so myself for a new and unknown gallery and it stirred some excitement. 

When I tried to contact him, Husain Sahib finally answered the phone.  The conversation was polite and formal. He gave me appointment at his Canning Lane residence in Delhi, a charming colonial style government accommodation.

I had been warned of his proclivity for not arriving on time or not showing up at all.  I reached his house expecting in all probability not to find him there.

His single storey home lay in a verdant environment. I was seated in a simple and well-appointed living room surrounded by vibrant colors of his paintings adorning the walls.  Without keeping me waiting, a towering, calm and dignified figure emerged from the adjoining room. I introduced myself somewhat timorously trying to read his expression as I spoke.  I remember saying, “Husain Sahib, I am planning to open a gallery in a new location, Hauz Khas Village. I would like to have a show of your limited-edition prints.  I won’t be able to buy your works though.  I was wondering if it would be feasible to pay for the prints once they are sold at the exhibition.”

This was the general tone of my brief monologue as he listened politely and patiently.  I waited anxiously for his response. There was none. 

 Our meeting must have lasted fifteen minutes with mostly me muttering something to prove my credentials and at the same time trying to gauge his reaction as I continued with my monologue.

 Once I finished talking, he stood up and walked into a room attached to the living room where we were sitting. I waited, confused by his disappearance. Soon he emerged with a thick roll of black sheets and handed it to me saying you can have a show of these prints. I accepted it in complete disbelief. Thanked him and left. I thought later that I did not give my contact details and neither did he ask for them.  This was my first meeting with MF Husain.

Once the gallery interiors were ready I requested Husain Sahib if he could come to see the new space and give his suggestions before the inauguration. He arrived on the appointed day accompanied by his son Mustafa, a tall and dignified young man who came with a camera slung around his neck.

Both father and son walked around the gallery silently. It had a raw rustic interior with a cement floor and lime washed walls. I waited for their reaction, not quite sure how they would respond to the raw rusticity of the environment both internal and external. To make matters worse, a buffalo belonging to a villager put its head through the entrance door and snorted loudly.  ‘This is all I need,’ I thought, ‘especially when I am trying to make an impression.’ Just as I was going to apologize, to my surprise Husain Sahib smiled and softly said, “That’s nice.” 

Mustafa added: “My father loves the rustic environment”. Both lingered for a while enjoying the peaceful and unpretentious village setting as Mustafa took photographs.

While planning the execution for the show of his graphics, I had the opportunity to interact more frequently with Husain Sahib.  He wanted the show to have the title ‘Husain Graphis 89’. “The word graphics to be spelt without a ‘c’, as it is spelled in French,” he said.  Cards were printed announcing the exhibition of “Husain Graphis 89”.   As the exhibition cards were delivered to their addressees, I was inundated with calls advising me that the word “graphics” had been misspelled in the card.  I had a lot of explaining to do in call after call.

Photo provided by Dolly Narang

 The prints were up on the gallery walls. A few days before the opening of Husain Graphis ‘89, the artist himself visited the gallery. As he made himself comfortable in the midst of his serigraphs and lithographs, he said something that has stayed with me as a source of guidance ever since.  He waved his hands gently across the wall and said: “Make the walls of your gallery something that every artist will be proud to hang their works on.”  These words illuminated my path forward as I was inspired to conceptualise a series of shows which went onto make history.

The inauguration of Graphis’ 89 was done by SK Misra, the Secretary of Tourism at the time and a close friend of Husain Sahib’s. He had wanted him to inaugurate the show. Husain Sahib flew off to Bombay the same evening so was not present at the inauguration. Of course, we were all disappointed. The inauguration was on schedule with Misra painting a lamp on a canvas. This unique idea was suggested by the eminent scenographer, Rajeev Sethi. Misra was caught off guard when asked to paint a lamp instead of lighting it. However, he painted with the flourish of a seasoned artist.

There was a self portrait of Husain on display in Graphis’89 exhibition which had a thick red line running down the face. It generated much curiosity and many queries from viewers who wanted to know the deeper meaning behind the red line, expecting a profound philosophical response about the artist’s thoughts or his life experience behind this. During a visit to the gallery, I mentioned to Husain Sahib that I was being asked repeatedly by visitors what was the meaning behind this thick and bright red line. He simply said: “I liked it and I painted it.”  

 The next exhibition that I curated in 1989 was ‘Self Portraits’.   Twenty-four artists, from masters to beginners, were invited to showcase self-portraits in this exhibition held in October 1989. Husain Sahib loaned his self-portrait, an oil on canvas.  Fortunately, Husain Sahib was in Delhi for the opening. He arrived walking barefeet down the kuccha[3] path leading to the gallery.  Just a few feet ahead of the gallery he saw the Choudhry[4] of the village reclined on his charpai[5] smoking his hookah.   Husain Sahib was so excited by this sight that he requested for the charpai to be shifted outside the gallery. I conveyed his request to Choudhry Sahib who immediately agreed and pulled his charpai over.  Both Husain Sahib and Choudhry Sahib sat together on the charpai savoring the experience.  

The guests at the opening, several of them old friends of Husain Sahib were surprised to catch him here.  There was rambunctious camaraderie and backslapping in full public view on this village street. It occurred to him that he wanted to have his good friend and gallerist DV Chawla there.  He requested that I send the car to pick him up from the Oberoi Hotel where his gallery was located. Delhi being free from the dense traffic that the city is afflicted with today, he arrived soon enough.

As Mr Chawla arrived, there was more lively celebration of old friendships.  they all enjoyed the exhibition. The self-portraits were replete with humor or marked by self-mockery. Some were self-effacing while others, thought provoking  

 Husain Sahib joked that the real Husain was in the painting hung on the wall of the gallery and the flesh and blood sitting outside was fake.

The exhibition of self-portraits was followed by ‘The Other Ray’ in 1990, an exhibition of the graphic design, children’s drawings, and film sketches, set design drawings, film posters by Satyajit Ray. Together, we selected the works for the exhibition.  In the process Ray was surprised to see all the work that he had created compelling him to remark: “I had forgotten I had done all this work.”  

Husain at the Village Gallery. MF Husain liked walking bare-feet. Photographs provided by Dolly Narang

The opening was in October 1990. I met Husain Sahib to invite him for the preview. When he heard of ‘The Other Ray’ exhibition he asked me where the works were lying as he wanted to see them. I told him that they were lying at home and suggested it would be better to view them once they are properly hung in the gallery. But he was insistent on seeing them right away and didn’t want to wait for the opening. So, we drove to my house from AIFACs. He was overwhelmed to see the works and started to reminisce of his association with Ray. Unfortunately, I did not have a tape recorder at the time to record his thoughts but fortunately The Illustrated Weekly carried these reminiscences as an article in an issue. It’s a truly poignant piece filled with precious memories.

We got into the car to drive him home and had driven away for just a few minutes. All this while it was churning in my mind. Should I, should I not. But finally plucked up courage to tell him that it was my birthday a few days later and could I request him for a drawing.

He asked the driver to turn back to the house. He asked for sketch paper.  And resting the paper on the bonnet of the car made a drawing. 

These are some of the memories I am penning down here.  There are many more…

The sketch made by Maqbool Fida Husain for Dolly Narang on her birthday: Husian signed himself McBull, a humorous take on his first name, Maqbool. He was known to sign his name in various ways. Photo provided by Dolly Narang

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[1] respectful address for an elder patriarch of the family

[2] (maternal grandmother)

[3] Untarred and uncemented path

[4] Village chief

[5] A cot made of a wooden frame and rope

Dolly Narang , a gallerist, has conceptualised  innovative  pathbreaking exhibitions. A recent student of sculpture, she has the satisfaction of experiencing both personal and spiritual evolution as a Pranic healer and as a grandmother.

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Conversation

Ramblings of Joy Bimal Roy

‘So what is it like being the son of Bimal Roy[1]?’ Ratnottama Sengupta asked the author of Ramblings of a Bandra Boy

Ratnottama Sengupta and Joy Bimal Roy. Photo Courtesy: Debashish Sengupta

Rambling, when used for writing – or speech – implies unmapped, confused or, at worst, inconsequential flow of thoughts. In another usage, the word applies to walking in the countryside for sheer pleasure. It is in this second sense that Joy Bimal Roy’s digitally published text, Ramblings of a Bandra Boy is a perfect match of form and content. For, its sweeping take hops from landscape to landscape and life to life of persons who have peopled the world of the author born in a typical Bandra household precisely 70 years ago.

Why typical Bandra household? Because Bandra – derived from the word bandar, meaning harbour – is the Queen of Mumbai’s suburbs. This pocket of history in the heart of the Financial Capital of India is also the home of VIPs, of Bollywood and of political variety too. As the time-weathered Bandra Fort overlooking the Arabian Sea vouches, Bandra predates the British ownership of the Seven Islands gifted to the Crown when Charles II married Princess Catherine of Portugal. Indeed, St Andrew’s Church, in existence since 1575, came up on the strength of Jesuit Priests who won over Koli fishermen winning Christians a stronghold in this part of coastal Maharashtra, much like in Goa.

In the 21st century, Bandra is where Mehboob Studios and Lilavati Hospital stand. Where the Bandra-Kurla Complex defines the dreams of the rich and the rising, overshadowing Asia’s biggest shanty town, Dharavi. And where the awe inspiring Bandra-Worli Sealink bridges the southern extreme of ‘Bombay’ with its ever growing ‘suburbs’.

But all through my lifetime, Bandra has been better recognised as the home of celebrities. Bollywood thespians, Dilip Kumar and Sunil Dutt, to Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan; art personalities, KK Hebbar to Kekoo Gandhy; actors, Rekha to Raakhee; directors, Nitin Bose and Hrishikesh Mukherjee, writer Gulzar and cricketer Sachin Tendulkar; umpteen fashion designers and models too have boasted 400050 as their Pincode.

Joy Bimal Roy’s Ramblings takes you on a multi-stop tour of this ‘port’ of India’s social fabric. For, as you skid from one story to another, in no predetermined chronology or thematic order, you get to meet his Yusuf Uncle (Dilip Kumar of Devdas[2] fame) and Bhoba Kaka (Ritwik Ghatak of Madhumati[3]fame), Lata Bai (Mangeshkar) and the Dutts — father Sunil and daughter Priya — who have represented North West Bombay in Parliament even as one member of that family slogged in a jail.

Take a quizzical look at Bollywood divas and peep at actors in their skin labouring on in a posh gym. Get a warm handshake with Shashi Kapoor and gift a sari to Sanjana. Riveting tales of travels to Lebanon, Beirut, Abu Dhabi, Greece, Switzerland, England, San Francisco and San Jose – they’re crowned by nuggets like “I delved into my sister’s recipe book… it has taken the place of Bhagvad Gita in my life” and “I do wish food wasn’t such an important feature in my life. Because it directly correlates to my expanding waistline.”

That’s not all. Here’s a reverential insight into what constituted Shyam Benegal’s greatness — and several irreverent accounts of the crème de la crème schools and colleges that have shaped the author who could have been a top notch contemporary artist, a charming singer, an enviable fashion designer, or an accoladed filmmaker.

Joy Bimal Roy chose not to be either of these. Instead, he stitched together Images of Kumbha Mela when he chanced upon the footage that were to be Bimal Roy’s last film. And he directed Remembering Bimal Roy [4]when his father’s birth centenary came around. He has mounted a series of world class exhibitions to showcase the photography of his mother, Manobina Roy, who, along with her twin Debalina Majumdar, was one of India’s earliest woman photo artist. And in her memory he has installed an imposing sculpture of two hands raised in prayer, ‘Requeim’, at the Bandstand promenade. He has got a road named after his venerable father. He has designed the career of musical talents like Alisha Chinai. He has up-cycled heritage saris and jewellery to support hospices. And he has been editing a newsletter chronicling the life of Bandra, the neighbourhood he was born in, grew up in, and continues to breathe life into.

Now Joy has given us Ramblings, a compilation of his posts on social media between 2017 and 2020. These slices of life “served without any extra seasoning or fancy garnish” as he puts it, have been described by Rachel Dwyer, professor of Indian Cultures and Cinema at SOAS[5], London, as jottings in kheror khata, the traditional cloth bound notebook that Satyajit Ray — and his father Sukumar Ray before him — used to pen down thoughts and visuals that are world’s treasure. In this exclusive, he converses about his book and his life.

What is your earliest memory of being the son of Bimal Roy? 

Finding out in school from classmates that my father was famous!

What is the strongest impression you retain of 8th January 1966 – the day Bimal Roy passed into eternity?

I remember hearing a song from the basti[6] behind our house while I was taking a bath. That song still haunts me. I wasn’t allowed into the living room where Baba’s body was kept, so I peered in through the slats of the back door of the living room. We lived in an old Parsi Bungalow where the wooden doors were 8 ft high and had moveable wooden shutters. The room was packed to capacity but there was pin drop silence. Time stood still. It hadn’t yet sunk in that I would never see Baba again.

Did you develop a deeper understanding of what Bimal Roy was, in the process of making Remembering Bimal Roy?

Absolutely. It was a cathartic and moving experience to hear the memories of people he had worked with over 60 years ago. Not only Tapan Sinha, who was with him in New Theatres; poet, lyricist, director Gulzar who had started as assistant in Bandini; Sharmistha Roy, daughter of his art director Sudhendu Roy; and his accountant Amrit Shah – even next generation personalities like Javed Akhtar and Ashutosh Gowarikar remembered him with so much love and respect that it brought tears to my eyes. I discovered anew that Baba was not only a superlative filmmaker but also a wonderful human being.

Did you likewise get to know Manobina Roy a little more through her photography?

Not really. I was fortunate to have her presence for 46 years of my life. So I grew up being photographed and seeing her photos. But it was only after her death that I discovered from a Bengali book called Chhobi Tola that she and her sister Debalina were two of the earliest known women photographers of India.

Has the insight into Bimal Roy films equipped you to be a responsible filmmaker? Or did you gain greater practical experience as an understudy/ through your interactions with Shyam Benegal, Girish Karnad[7], Basuda[8], and Hrishi Kaku[9]?

I had no interaction with Basuda and Girish in connection with film making. What I learned after watching the making of Chaitali[10] — the last film made under the banner of Bimal Roy Productions, nine years after Baba passed away — was how NOT to make a film. 

Whatever I learned about filmmaking was from watching Baba’s films and my work experience with Shyam Benegal.

I wouldn’t really describe myself as a ‘filmmaker’ after making one documentary on Baba. However it is true that I have very high standards and living up to them was a big responsibility. After all, I am my father’s son. He was a perfectionist and so am I. It took me six months to edit a one-hour film simply because I was striving to do the best possible job with the material I had in hand. 

Before you got into films you have ‘dabbled’ in fashion designing, worked with HMV[11],  and now you are a most absorbing and prolific writer. Personally, I have always admired your painting (which I seldom see you do now). And I know you have mesmerised your college events with your singing. Which of these is your natural calling?

All of them unfortunately, which is why I didn’t know which one I should follow. As a result I have been a ‘dabbler’ — to use your own word. You could accuse me of being a dilettante but as I said before, I have high standards. So whatever I did, it was with all my heart and soul. 

Tell me about the joys and woes of assisting Shyam Benegal.

 That is impossible to describe as one question in an interview. It would be an entire interview! You can, however, get some answers in my book.

Which of the film stars of Bimal Roy’s team have you been closest to?

None. Because I was not even eleven when Baba passed away. But we did keep in touch with Yusuf Uncle. He was incomparable.

What difference in the work culture or cinematic ethics have you noticed between these two legends? 

Baba and Shyam? I can only judge Baba from his films, but I worked with Shyam. It’s a difficult question to answer.

Please tell us about Uttama, Papri, Roopu, Sharmistha (Buri?), Aloka – essentially, about the extended Family of Bimal Roy?

That’s what all of them were and are: Family. One accepts and embraces them as they are.

What led you to the Ramblings which has been described as ‘social document of our times’?

My Facebook friends led me to Ramblings. They drove me mad demanding a book. I did it more to oblige them and make them stop making demands.

What next — cinema a la Bimal Roy — or books after Monobina Roy, who, besides being an ace photo artiste and a fabled cook, wrote Jato Door Tato Kachhe?[12]

A Bengali translation of Ramblings of a Bandra Boy. 

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[1] Bimal Roy (1909-1966) Legendary Film Director

[2] Hindi movie, 1955, Dileep Kumar (1922-2021) played the titular role

[3] Hindi movie, 1958, written by Ritwick Ghatak (1925-1976)

[4] Joy Bimal Roy lost his father filmmaker Bimal Roy when he was 11 years. Joy remembered very little of his father. ‘Remembering Bimal Roy’ made by Joy Bimal Roy is the search of a son for his father.

[5] School of Oriental and African Studies

[6] slum

[7] Girish Karnad (1938-2019) Actor, director, playwright

[8] Basu Bhattacharya (1934-1997), Film director

[9] Hrishikesh Mukherjee (1922-2006), Film Director

[10] 1975 movie directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee

[11] His Master’s Voice, British music and entertainment retailer

[12] Distance draws us closer – translation from Bengali

Read the book excerpt by clickling on this link

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, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award. 

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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Tribute

Well Done, Shyam! Never say ‘Goodbye’!

By Ratnottama Sengupta

Shyam Benegal (1934-2024)
Street art: Shyam Benegal
From Public Domain

“If I enjoy the film I have made, then I am quite certain viewers will too. And what business do I have to burden viewers with what I myself do not enjoy?”

–Shyam Benegal (in an interaction with Ratnottama Sengupta)

Art is not elitist. Nor is artistic experience one that only the elite can enjoy. The world’s greatest art has been accessible to all mankind. Taj Mahal was erected in memory of Mumtaz Mahal but it is for the world to access and admire. The cave paintings at Ajanta propagated a certain philosophy but thousands of years later too they mesmerise one and all.  And, anyone who goes to Tanjore temple experiences its magnificence. Cinema too is capable of providing such universal experience. What is more, it is possible to provide such an experience without distorting or oversimplifying an idea.

Shyam Benegal (1934-2024) had dinned this belief into me when I interviewed with him for the first time — in Bombay of 1980. Seven years before that he had proved it to the world with his debut film, Ankur (The Seedling, 1974). It had announced itself to cineastes through its nomination for the Golden Bear at the 24th Berlin Film Festival and had gone on to win three National Awards. In the wake of stylised trendsetters like Bhuvan Shome (directed by Mrinal Sen, 1969), Uski Roti (Others’ Bread, directed by Mani Kaul, 1969) and Maya Darpan (Illusory Mirror, directed by Kumar Shahani, 1972), everyone expected Ankur to be another “arty” film. In other words, “pretentious”, “pseudo intellectual”, even “boring”. Far from refusing to peter out of theatres due to lack of footfalls, the Rs 5-lakh budget film went on to garner millions because it engaged audiences of every shade and strata. And it was hailed as marking a new beginning in Indian cinema that had roots in the narrative tradition of earlier masters such as Bimal Roy and Benegal’s own cousin, Guru Dutt.

No, Ankur was not a fluke, Nishant (Night’s End, 1975) had proven. Once again, Benegal had set his film in Telengana, that part of Andhra Pradesh which had seen him grow up with his siblings in the household of his father whose livelihood came from a photo studio. “Alwal was a semi-rural semi-urban area, so I had seen both sides of a feudal society coming to grips with modernity setting in,” Benegal had explained to me.

Ankur had touched upon several ills of the feudal system: class difference, caste inequity, sexual exploitation of women, of the physically challenged, and even alcoholism among the poor. It had a sequence of thrashing, and it closed with the indication of violent protest. Almost all these themes would flower into independent saplings in Benegal’s subsequent films. Because the important thing for him, as he once said to BBC, was that “post-Independence India was changing its feudal character to the kind of society we wanted to create. Industrialisation at one level, creation of the middle class at another level, and disappearance of the regressive values of the feudal life.” 

At that time, when I was yet to step out of my teens, I was deeply impacted by the oppressive ‘liberty’ of the caste person who thought he had a right over the lowborn woman. The empowerment of women was a theme Benegal felt strongly about. “The idea had started during the national movement with Gandhi, who first talked about women having equal responsibility,” pointed out the director of The Making of a Mahatma (1996). “They have to become aware of their strength and empower themselves because 50 percent of your population comprises of women.”

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From the birth of a new nation to the birth of a nation, Benegal constantly grappled with these themes. With “the whole business of tradition and modernity,” to borrow his words. “In an ancient society like India where so much of tradition is still valued and revered, when will we get rid of the dubious virtues?” he wondered.

Benegal functioned with a sensibility that was native to the length and breadth of the land that was his canvas. “As long as one functions with one’s sensibility, it will resonate with every person of that sensibility,” he maintained. 

To me the most endearing trait of a Benegal film is the simplicity of its narrative. His incidents came out of life, his characters were from his surroundings. And his unfolding, though devoid of gimmick, was not bereft of drama nor of violence. He learnt to steer clear of artifices while making ad films where, “because you have to make your point in one minute, you tend to fall back on gimmick.”

Clarity of purpose and simplicity of narration were the two rails that never let his script go off into a meander of ultra mystical or complex metaphors. Magic realism? Hyper realism? High pitched melodrama? Benegal had need for none of these ploys. “The most complex of ideas have a simple way of projecting themselves,” he’d say. That, and not its reverse, was the most valid mantra of his life.

Why did the Phalke or the Padma Bhushan awards like simple story telling? “Because I like to involve people, and that happens when there is a dramatic juxtaposition of characters.” The use of drama did not in any way dilute the significance of his subject — be it casteism (Samar, Conflict, 1999), women’s empowerment (Bhumika, Role, 1977), portrayal of the principles of national heroes (Making of the Mahatma), or the struggle to wrest power from an oppressor (Junoon, The Obsession, 1978). Be it in feudal Telengana (Nishant), in a Borgadar’s Bengal (Arohan, The Ascent, 1982), an industrial Bombay (Kalyug, The Age of Vice, 1981), in Bose’s Burma (The Forgotten Hero, 2005), or Mujib’s Bangla (Mujib: The Making of a Nation, 2023). 

In the process he dispelled the notion that showing our reality in cinema cannot engross or entertain. In fact, he questioned the very definition of the word ‘Entertainment’. “If a serious talk or a news holds you spellbound, isn’t that also entertainment?” he had asked me.

So, in order to engage the viewers, Benegal plunged into problems and miseries of the marginalised Indian: the milkman (Manthan, The Churning, 1976) and the weaver (Susman, The Essence, 1978), the untouchable (Samar) and the glamorous (Bhumika), the royals (Zubeidaa, 2001) and the entertainer (Sardari Begum, 1996), the middle class households where women are mere birthing machines (Hari Bhari, 2000), or the illiterate voters of Sajjanpur (Welcome to Sajjanpur, 2008).

Through all these voters, men and women, landlords and servants, on the banks of Katha Sagar (A Sea of Stories, 1986, TV series) or in the arid Birbhum or in the Mandi (Market Place, 1983) of flesh, Benegal made spectators of us. “Even a road accident turns us into spectators, some mute, some aggressive, some caring,” he’d pointed out. “What is it we want to experience when we rush to the window when we hear a car screeching to a half?” he’d asked. “Why is an unanticipated death — or murder — part of the entertainment formula? Because the adrenaline rush, the excitement in these exorcises our fears,” he had explained. 

But Benegal’s wasn’t a conventional definition of entertainment. Nor did he decry the use of violence in mainstream cinema. “Indeed, it helps society because viewers find vicarious release from the stress that builds up in the tension filled life in urban societies.” As for his own films rooted in the remote pockets away from the metros? “Sometimes we need to use force because some social problems have got so deeply entrenched,” he was unabashed about violence in his films. “Change in certain situations can come only from the use of violence. But be careful never to lose your moral compass,” he immediately warned me. “Violence cannot be indiscriminately justified nor universalised. And in no circumstance should it be  glamourised.”

* 

So human impulses, and social well-being were his prime concern.  The constant interaction between an individual and his or her milieu; suffering inequities, and standing up against exploitation — we gained insight into these when we sat in darkened auditoriums to watch Arohan, Sardari Begum, Mammo (1994), Well Done Abba…(2010)

Socio-economic. Socio-political. Socio-legal. No label of genre could own Shyam Benegal. Because? “That will restrict my own thinking. How can I keep pace with the galloping changes that come with the ticking of centuries? And when the march of science unleashes computers and cellular phones, Internet and digital filmmaking?”

But what prompted his choice of subject every time he sat down to work on a script — with Shama Zaidi or Girish Karnad, Satyadev Dubey or Khalid Mohamed[1]? “There’s an electic streak in me that will not let me go where I’ve been before or do what I’ve done before,” Benegal was clear. So historical patterns to saw him go from The Making of a Mahatma on Gandhi, the advocate of non-violence, to Bose, The Forgotten Hero who escaped home incarceration and travelled through Himalayan hurdles and joined the Japanese to fight the British colonisers of India. From the Junoon of the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, to Bharat Ek Khoj (India, a Search, 1988 TV serial) exploring the roots of India. From my Samvidhan (2010, TV mini-series),  the formulation of the Constitution that is the firm foundation of the nation he mapped through his films, to Mujib on the birth of Bangladesh.

This refusal to be contained in a box had seen Benegal go from making promotional ads to documentaries on Steel Authority of India and Artificial Insemination in Animal Husbandry, on Nehru and Satyajit Ray. Benegal’s refusal to be boxed and labelled saw him make

Manthan and Hari Bhari — two prime examples of turning a documentary subject into a feature film. Why, his varied interest saw him making a documentary that mapped the course of a raga which originated with Mallikarjun Mansur hearing a leaking tap in the kitchenette of a friend in Bombay – and went on to capture the spirit of the financial capital!

What explains the prolificity of the man who celebrated his 90th birthday on December 16 and bade goodbye a week later? His indomitable and indefatigable spirit. 

Unusual Concerts: The documentary on Mallikarjun Mansur (1910-1992) and Bombay

[1] Actors on the Hindi screen

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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, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award. 

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

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Categories
Essay

Discovering Rabindranath and My Own Self

Musings by Professor Fakrul Alam

Tagore writing
Tagore performing, 1881
Apnake jana amar phurabe na/Ei Janare shongo tomai chena/

There will be no end to my discovery of myself/And this discovery keeps coming with my discovery of you

On the one hand, Rabindranath Tagore [1861-1941] has been with me almost all my life. On the other, I only began to discover that I had Rabindranath so centrally in me relatively late in my life. In fact, I have now realised that the process of discovering the way he has been embedded in me is part of the process of discovering my own self in the course of the life that I have been leading till now.  Indeed, at this stage of my life, it seems to me that there will be no end to my discovery of the way Rabindranath has become part of my consciousness since I feel that there will be no end to discovering myself till I lose consciousness once and for all. The one thing I can say with certainty, using his words but in my translation is “There will be no end to my discovery of myself.”  For sure, this process of discovering myself endlessly keeps happening with my continuing discovery of Rabindranath.

Surely, the process through which Rabindranath had become embedded in me began in childhood. However, I did not encounter his work in my (English medium) textbooks since I did not learn Bengali in school for a while. How then did I come to remember poems such as “Tal gach ek paye dariye/shob gach chareea/ Uki mare akaashe” (Palmrya tree, Standing on one foot/Exceeding all other trees/Winking at the sky”) or “Amader Choto Nadi chole bnake bnake” (“Our little river keeps winding its way”). How do I remember these opening lines even now? And why do I still associate such palm trees and winding little rivers with these lines even now whenever I am in the Bangladeshi countryside? Surely, it must have been my mother who planted Rabindranath in me in my seed time so that he would become embedded in my unconscious, only to surface in my consciousness decades later. It is surely no coincidence that she taught me Bengali and made me learn Rabindranath’s poems indirectly.

 As a boy growing up at a time when the radio was the main source of entertainment in middle-class Bengali houses, my siblings and I were made to listen to Rabindra Sangeet in our house by my father, who felt that he had to share his favourite songs and singers in the musical genre with us, whether we wanted to listen to them or not. Of course, at that age I would have much rather not listen to those solemn-sounding, soulful songs, and whenever I could put my hands on the radio dials, I would listen to English popular music on Radio Ceylon. My favourite singers were Pat Boone, Elvis Presley, Cliff Richards and—a little later—the Beatles. In school, when we were not playing or talking about sports or girls, we boys would be discussing the pop music we heard on Radio Ceylon. By the end of the 60s, we would be talking about the English thrillers and comedies we saw on Dhaka television. What place could Rabindranath have in one’s life then? If Rabindranath had been placed in my innermost self by my mother through her reading of his poems to us children or my father through his addiction to Rabindra Sangeet, for the moment he was getting occluded deep inside me and, it would now seem, all but forgotten!

But from the middle of the 1960s, our lives in Dhaka began to change as the claims of Pakistan on us East Pakistanis started to loosen, little by little. It was a time when in neighbourhoods and on streets, processions would come out singing gonosangeet—literally songs of the people, but in effect music of protest and patriotism.  First, the Six Points Movement and then the Agartala Conspriacy case were on everyone’s lips and East Pakistanis everywhere were becoming activists in one way or the other. There was no escaping songs like “Shonar Bangla” (“Golden Bengal”) or “Banglar mati, banglar jol, banglar baiuo, banglar phol/Punno houk”” ( “Let the land, the waters, the air and fruits of Bengal be blessed…) and “Bartho Praner Aborjona Purea Phele Agun Jalo” (“Burn the frustrated soul’s detritus and light up a flame”). In my school where we boys now studied “Advanced English” and “Easy Bengali”. There was no way we could have learned enough Bengali to read Rabindranath or Nazrul in the original in any sustained attempt, but how could we escape the call from such songs and poems like Nazrul’s “Bidrohi” (“The Rebel”) or the call from the streets to protest and even burn for our emancipation?  At home, three of my four sisters would be practicing Rabindra Sangeet regularly, since this was what my parents wanted them to do, and so there would be no evading Rabindranath’s songs at home for this reason as well, but I was more interested in friends and sports than staying home and so I would hear the songs only in snatches at this time.

By the end of the decade though, Rabindranath was everywhere in our lives since becoming Bengali became first and being a Pakistani only came later. Even on Dhaka Television, Rabindranath’s songs and dance numbers were being aired fairly regularly then. Outside, one could get to see his plays and dance dramas being performed every now and then in functions and cultural events all over the city. He would soon become an important part of Pohela Boisakh, which itself would become instantly popular amongst us all almost as soon as Chhayanaut[1] organised the first event in Balda Garden as the decade came to a close.  But while Rabindranath was everywhere around me all of a sudden, I was still not reading him at all, preferring English thrillers and westerns initially, and later, when I became a “serious” reader from college onwards, contemporary classics of English and European literature available in English editions.

In the early seventies, however, you could not be in Bangladesh without imbibing Rabindranath at least a little, for there was a process of osmosis at work at this time. Glued as we were to Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendro[2] during our Liberation War[3], we kept listening to his patriotic songs on our radios; the promise of Shonar Bangla seemed alive and possible then. The years after liberation, my generation was exposed to Rabindranath in new ways; we would get to hear and view singers like Kanika, Debobroto and Suchitra Mitra on stage in Dhaka; their songs became freely available in tapes in our shops; and Satyajit Ray’s film version of Rabindranath’s fiction and Ray’s documentary on him became staples of Dhaka’s film societies. I was finally growing up intellectually and was hungry for culture, and so how could I have escaped the poet’s works totally at this time?

But the Rabindranath that I was imbibing thus was almost entirely coming to me aurally and visually. Because he was becoming embedded in my consciousness through songs and the silver screen as well as television, he still inhabited the surface of my consciousness. And I was certainly not making any conscious bid to savor him. The seventies and the eighties were, in fact, decades when I was becoming an even more “serious” student of English literature than before and getting “advanced” degrees in my subject and acquiring expertise for my teaching career; where would I get the time to read Rabindranath then? As an expatriate student for six years in Canada and as a visiting faculty member for two years in the USA, I would be getting small doses of Rabindranath in those countries through the songs I kept hearing in the cassettes I had brought along of my favorite singers and in the occasional film versions of his work that I would get to see because of campus film societies, and I suppose nostalgia played a part in my yearning for him then, but I had no time to spare for him and not enough exposure to his works to let his ideas and his achievement resonate in me in any way.

To sum up my encounters with Rabindranath till then, I was discovering Rabindranath in small doses all the time and experiencing him directly here and there, but my knowledge was all very superficial and my understanding of him too limited. And nothing much had happened that would allow me to tap into the unconscious where all the memories of poems and songs by him I had first come across through my parents’ enthusiasm for his works were hidden.

“Dekha hoi nai chokkhu melia/Ghor hoite shudhu dui pa felia”/

“I haven’t seen with my eyes wide open/what was there only a stride or two away from my house”

In the 1980s, I became smitten by theory, especially the works of Edward Said, and suddenly questions of postcoloniality, ideology, power and location became all-important for my understanding of literature. I was coming around to the belief that I could not be a good and truly advanced student of English literature in Bangladesh, let alone a good teacher of the subject here, unless I sensitised myself to my roots and look at the world around me. And now I remembered some lines I had been hearing since childhood without realising their relevance for me and everyone else around us then: “Dekha hoi nai chokkhu melia/Ghor hoite shudhu dui pa felia” (“I haven’t seen with my eyes wide open/What was there only a stride or two away from my house”). Rabindranath had been all around me and yet I had not opened my eyes wide enough to learn from him. I had not read his works with any kind of sensitised attention at all and I had not been able to arrive at any kind of appreciation of his achievements except the smug sense of self-satisfaction at the thought that this Bengali had once won the Nobel Prize.

Towards the end of the 1990s, for the first time really, I plunged into Rabindranath and found—to quote Dryden on Chaucer— “here was God’s plenty”. Having opened my eyes to him I realized that there was so much to him than one could take in at any one time. He had once said in a song about the infinite contained in the finite and I now thought, “How appropriate of him!” He had said in one of his most famous poems, “Balaka[4]” about how one must not succumb to stasis and how the essence of life is motion and I thought, “how inspirational!” He had written in a song about viewing the Ultimate Truth through music and I thought “Exactly!” He had looked on in amazement in a starry night at how humans have a place in the cosmos (Akaash Bhora Surjo Tara[5]) and I thrilled at the idea now. He made me see the monsoonal kadam flower that I had passed every year without blinking an eye as immensely lovely. Every poem that I read enlightened me, every song lent my soul harmony, every short story or novel took me to eternal truths about human relationships. Who would not learn from a man who had been given some of the highest honors the world has offered any human being, when he says with such unambiguous humility, “Mor nam ei bole khati houk/Aami tomaderi lok…” Let this be my claim to fame/I am all yours/This is how I would like to be introduced.” And so I kept reading him in between teaching and writing, finding him an endless source of inspiration, creativity and wisdom. I strove to learn about nature, the universe, people, relationships, beauty and the dark side of humans through his works.  And soon I felt compelled to translate some of them.  

Rabindranath, then, opened my eyes not only to the world I lived in but also helped me discover my own self as a product of forces that had taken our nation past 1947 to true liberation. He helped root me in Bengali and Bangladesh as never before, making me discover myself not merely as a Bengali but as a citizen of the world, a product of a certain history but also of the history of mankind. My discovery of him and my place in the world was furthered by the work I did in co-authoring The Essential Tagore and authoring a collection of essays on diverse aspects of his work.

But Rabindranath truly contains multitudes. What I now realise is that it is impossible to discover him fully in one life, especially when one embarks on the process of discovery so late in life. By now, therefore, I have despaired of knowing the whole man and feel I will get to know only parts of him. But I also know whatever I read of him will enlighten me and make me know myself better in every way than before. And so I’ll keep reading him and translating him, if only to know him and myself better in the days left for me!  

[1] Centre for promotion of Bengali Culture established in 1961

[2] Free Bengal Radio Centre

[3] 1971 Bangladesh was liberated from Pakistan.

[4] Swans

[5] The Star-Studded Sky

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Fakrul Alam is an academic, translator and writer from Bangladesh. He has translated works of Jibonananda Das and Rabindranath Tagore into English and is the recipient of Bangla Academy Literary Award (2012) for translation and SAARC Literary Award (2012).

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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Categories
A Special Tribute

Abol Tabol: No Nonsense Verses of Sukumar Ray

Ratnottama Sengupta relives the fascination of Sukumar Ray’s legendary Abol Tabol, which has  just completed its centenary

Sukumar Ray (1887-1923)
Abol Tabol

Sukumar Ray, the creator of Abol Tabol[1], came into my life long before Upendra Kishore Roy Chowdhury, the author of Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne. Pather Panchali, the timeless novel, cast its spell when I outgrew the ghost stories penned by the father for kishore-kishoris, the young adults of Bengal. And Satyajit Ray, Sukumar’s son, became an icon only after I got my primary lessons in film viewing. 

But, to go back to the beginning: I was a pravasi toddler growing up in Bombay when I would lisp, Baburam Sapure, kotha jaas bapu re/ Where are you off to, snake-charmer Baburam! And I’d recite, Ramgarurer chhana, haanste taader maana[2]! No no no no, we shall not laugh, I’d say, trying to choke my own laughter at the thought of forbidding laughter. For, by now, I would also fondly spout, Maasi go maasi, pachhe haansi – Neem gaache tey hocche seem… Aunt dear Aunt, I’m rolling in laughter that broad beans are growing on the neem tree! The mushroom wants to be an umbrella for the elephant, and a crow’s hatching the egg of a stork! Yes, I would laugh too as I recited these lines. For I had learnt that contradictions are funny.

Ramgarur
Hunko Mukho Hyangla
Illustration made by Sukumar Ray in Abol Tabol

There were other poems that I learnt by rote without knowing they were limericks, not mere rhymes. Some, I later realised, told stories; some were satires aimed at Sukumar’s own Banga samaj – the Bengali society – and some were oblique critiques of the Imperialists then Lording over his land. Hunko mukho hyangla, bari taar Bangla, do you know his dour-faced compatriot? And have you encountered the three pigs maathay jaader neiko tupi? The three pigs wearing no hat! 

But most of all, his critique of his compatriots comes through in Sat Patra, A Suitable Boy. I won prizes for reciting it, long before I understood the critique of a Bengali father’s keenness to marry off his daughter to a ‘suitable boy’ – even if the proposed groom is dark or deaf, drunkard or devil…

It took years of growing up, in the literary family of Nabendu and Kanak Ghosh, to realise that some of the lines I heard every day were not abol tabol katha, mumbo jumbo words spewed out perfunctorily. So, my mother never took ‘No’ for an answer: “Utsahey ki na hoy, ki na hoy chestaay?” She’d quote Haaturey to say, “what can not be achieved by enthusiasm and effort?” And if I screamed to protest, she’d simply smile and ‘admire’ like the he-owl, “Khasa tor chechani, how sensationally you scream!”  While Baba, come winter, would keep repeating, “Kintu sabar chaitey bhalo, powruti aar jhola gur[3]!” Who would have thought of clubbing the daily bread of the rulers with the winter delicacy of the ruled rustics!

When I visited Kolkata, I often heard the phrases “Narad! Narad! (let the fight begin)”, “Gechho Dada (here now, off again now)”, and “Nyara beltala jaay ka baar (how often does a bald-pated man walk under the wood-apple tree).” And I wondered, did Sukumar Ray weave poems around the phrases, or did they become part of our colloquialism, thanks to Abol Tabol?

It was Baba who brought me alive to the literary merits of the verses sans sense. And even as I studied Edward Lear as a student of literature, I recognised that Sukumar Ray pulled off the harnessing of contradictions with as much ease as he surprised us with his endings. Ei dekho notebook, pencil e haatey,/ Ei dekho bhara sab Kil bil lekhatey[4]. Yes, Ray’s Kheror Khaata – handmade rough red cotton cloth wrapped scroll book — was overflowing with thoughts, words and illustrations. If he was talking of the lack of coherence in God’s own country, Shib thakurer aapan deshe, he was also making fun of Ekushey Aiin, The Law of 21, whereby Karur jodi gof gajaay, a man would have to pay a hefty tax for even the natural occurrence of whiskers! And Abaak Kando! How strange that he ate with his hand, se naaki roj haat diye bhaat maakhey!

Like Satyajit Ray’s reading of his granddad’s Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, Larai Khyapa has nuggets hidden in the lines to protest the war mongering of nations. So, Saat German, Jagai eka, tabuo Jagai larey! And Paanch byata ke khatam karey Jagai Dada molo! Jagai, a homegrown brawny, alone takes on seven strapping Germans! And breathes his last only when the last of them is dead!

To conclude, I will quote Bujhiye Bola [5]and say, Ki bolchhili, esab sudhu abol  tabol bakuni? Bujhtey holey magaj laagey, bolechhilam takhuni![6]

Didn’t I tell you, you need to read and re-read Sukumar Ray, to understand the truth lining his nonsense poems?

*

Khuror Kol
Gonf Churi
Drawings of Sukumar Ray from Abol tabol

“Sukumar Ray’s drawings are a unique part of our art tradition. And Swapan Maity has dared to give sculptural forms to those two-dimensional line drawings.” It is tough to put in words the significance of these miniatures in terracotta, of those humour-induced fun-filled drawings of the quirky protagonists of Abol Tabol, said Partha Pratim Deb. The former Dean, Faculty of Visual Art at Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata was speaking at the inauguration of ‘Ajab Kumar’, a weeklong exhibition of reliefs and miniatures in terracotta along with portraits of Sukumar, his father Upendra Kishore, his son Satyajit Ray, and grandson Sandip  – each of them a legend in their own right. What made the portraits so special was that they were all done in a single stroke of one unbroken line.

Sukumar Ray – born October 30, 1887; died September 10, 1923 — is easily identified as a pioneer in Bengal’s literary art. His father was not only a writer, he played the violin, he painted, he dabbled in composing music, he was an amateur astronomer, and he was an entrepreneur in printing technology. Upendra Kishore Ray studied block-making, conducted experiments and set up a business in making blocks. His sister, Mrinalini, was married to Hemen Bose, elder brother of pioneer scientist Jagadish Bose, who was an entrepreneur of renown.

Sukumar too grew up to be an expert in Printing Technology. To master that, he travelled to London on a scholarship to train in Photography and Printing Technology at the School of Photo Engraving and Lithography. On his return, he worked to further the family firm, M/s U Ray and Sons, where he was involved with his brothers, Subinay and Subimal. And his sisters, Sukhalata Rao and Punyalata, too were involved in the magazine published by Upendra Kishore Ray,  Sandesh[7], which carved a distinct place in the realm of children’s literature in Bengali.

Sandesh covers. The Journal was started in 1913

Born at the peak of the renaissance in Bengal when literature to art, religion to fashion, were all experiencing a regeneration after coming in contact with European lifestyle and industrial revolution, Sukumar had among his friends the literary genius Rabindranath Tagore, the scientists Jagadish Chandra Bose and Prafulla Chandra Ray, composer Atul Prasad Sen. Multitalented like his father, Sukumar was adept at photography and had joined the Royal Photographic Society. And apart from limericks, he wrote the stories of Pagla Dashu[8], technical essays on the new methods he had developed in halftone block-making in journals like the Penrose Annual, plays like Abaak Jalpan (The Curious Thirst), a wealth of literature for young readers in Khai Khai[9]. And within days of his passing was published Abol Tabol – mumbo jumbo that etched his name in the mind and heart of every child born to the language spoken by Tagore and Bankim, Nazrul and Sarat Chandra.

Pagla Dashu
Khai Khai

*

The year was 1993. Swapan Maity, thirty years ago, was a student in the Visual Art Department of Rabindra Bharati University on the campus housed in the ancestral residence of the Tagores at Jorasanko. When his other batchmates spent time singing, playing, painting or simply leg pulling their friends, Maity would tirelessly bury himself in crafting figurines in clay. Some of these figures had naturally different tint – pink or red earth – determined by their source, Ganga in Kolkata or the clay of Rangamati near his hometown Midnapore.

Once satisfied with the finish, the learner would lay them out in the long corridors of the heritage architecture to let them dry in the sun. Even his friends who teased him over his ceaseless devotion to sculpture were left speechless when they recognised the life-like recreation in lifeless mud of the snake charmer, Baburam Sapure; of Uncle’s Contraption, Khuror Kal; of Kumro Potash, the Pumpkin Prince; of the Theft of the Whiskers in Gonf Churi.

Kumro Potash
Baburam Sapure
Art of Sukumar Ray in Abol Tabol

The expressive miniatures have added volume to the body of illustrations imaged by the genius of Sukumar Ray. The miniatures, unique then, are still a marvel. Reviewed in the popular magazine Desh [10]of April 9, 1994, they were exhibited in the closing month of 2023 – at Kolkata’s celebrated Academy of Fine Arts – to mark the completion of a hundred years of their creation in a Bengal – nay, an India that was ruled by the imperialist government in the name of King George V of Britain.

Along with the miniatures Maity – whose statue of Don Bosco is a landmark of Kolkata’s busy Park Circus area – had added a few relief sculptures to encapsulate the entire range of the satire robed in rhymes that amazingly continue to be repeated decade after decade by generation after generation, and still are so pertinent.

The Expressive miniatures of Sukumar Ray’s world by Swapan Maity in ‘Ajab Kumar’, a weeklong exhibition of reliefs and miniatures in terracotta. Photos provided by Ratnottama Sengupta

[1] Literal translation from Bengali: Mumbo Jumbo. First published on 19th September 1923

[2] Literal translation from Bengali: Ramgarur’s children, they are not allowed to laugh

[3] Bengali literal translation: But the most supreme food is bread with liquid molasses…

[4] Bengali literal translation: See the notebook, pencil in hand,/ See it filled with all squiggly writing

[5] Bengali literal translation: Explaining clearly

[6] Bengali literal translation: Were you saying this is all nonsensical talk? You need brains to understand what I was saying…

[7] A traditional Bengali desert

[8] Mad Dashu

[9] Literal Bengali Translation: Eat, Eat.

[10] Literal Bengali Translation: Country

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, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award. 

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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Categories
Feature

Interviewing Bulbul: Remembering Mrinal Sen…

A writer, a painter, an actor too? Which of these have I known in my friend, Bulbul Sharma? Ratnottama Sengupta ponders as she reverses the gear in the time machine

Bulbul Sharma

I have never formally ‘interviewed’ Bulbul Sharma. That’s because I was editing her writings even before I met her, became friends with her, with her brother Dr Ashok Mukherjee, her sister-in-law, Mandira, whose brother-in-law, Amulya Ganguli, was a much-respected political commentator including with The Statesman and The Times of India which I joined after I shifted to Delhi.

There were many journalists in her family. Bulbul herself was a columnist with The Telegraph when I joined the ‘handsome’ newspaper. Her columns on ‘Indian Birds’ would always come with her own illustrations. These later combined to become The Book of Indian Birds for Children – and now she’s penning stories for neo-literates. So I have never been able to separate the two souls of Bulbul – a writer whose books have been translated into French, German, Italian, Finnish, and an artist in the collection of National Gallery of Modern Art, Lalit Kala Akademi, UNICEF, Chandigarh Museum, Nehru Centre, London, National Institute of Health, Washington.

Bulbul, born in Delhi and raised in Bhilai, studied Russian and literature at Jawaharlal Nehru University before going to Moscow for further studies, in 1972. When she returned a year later, she decided to pursue her other love and made a career in art. So, in mid 1980s, once I shifted to Delhi, I got to know the artist Bulbul at close quarters. By then she was an active graphic artist who worked in the Garhi Artists’ Studio.

She would do papier mache items – sculptures, or of day-to-day usage. Then, she was teaching art to children of construction site workers left in the care of the Mobile Creche. Soon she was handholding me in creating monoprints in printmaking workshops, while my son started taking serious interest in art even as he keenly participated in her storytelling sessions.

Paper mache sculpture: Bowl
Aubergines & Onions: Etching from Ratnottama Sengupta’s collection
Artwork by Bulbul Sharma: Photos provided by Ratnottama Sengupta

And then one day Bulbul invited me to join her and Dolly Narang of The Village Gallery in Hauz Khas, to do a workshop with the inmates of Tihar Central Jail, one of the toughest in Asia, which had started off on its reformation trail under the no-nonsense IPS officer, Kiran Bedi, who dreamt of giving convicts “the hope for a better future once they stepped out as free people.”

The other avtar of Bulbul is the one you are most likely to encounter online. A gifted narrator who depicts people and places she has known and seen in person, styled with little complication, to bring out the beauty in everyday life. Her first collection of short stories, My Sainted Aunts (1992) had bewitched me as much as my son, then in his pre-teen years. For, it etched with endearing affection the reality in a Bengali household that abounded — especially in my childhood — with pishimas[1]and mashimas[2] who were eccentric yet lovable. These aunts are easily identifiable and not easily forgettable though few aunts today are widows in white, eating out of stoneware, shunning onions, or an ‘outsider’: caste, creed, chicken and dog — all were barred.

A few years down, Bulbul, a naturalist who grows herbs in her orchard in the folds of Himalaya and often etches carrots and onions, came out with The Anger of Aubergines (1997) which had cuisine and recipes layering the text. It is a collection of stories about women for whom food is passion, or obsession. “For some it is a gift, for some a means of revenge, and for some it is a source of power,” as Bulbul herself might summarise. Once again, my gourmet family loved it.

Food is the most elementary aspect of human society and culture. And Bulbul has repeatedly capitalized on this multi-contextual significance of food. Not surprising, when I was editing an Encyclopedia of Culture, for the publishing house Ratna Sagar, I directly went to Bulbul for the chapter on ‘Cuisine’. In quite the same way, when a literature festival in Amritsar’s Majha House got Bulbul and me together on a panel, it was to talk about food as an expression of culture.  “Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can. There will always come a time when you will be grateful you did…” Bulbul once told a classful of students what she herself has practiced through life.

But with all this, I had virtually forgotten that Bulbul had acted in a film by Mrinal Sen[3]. Bulbul herself reminded me of this after reading my interview with Suhasini Mulay[4] occasioned by the ongoing birth centenary of the director of watersheds in Indian cinema like Bhuvan Shome[5]. I promptly wrote to her asking her to remember the salient ‘truths’ she had learnt by acting in the first of Sen’s Calcutta Trilogy[6].

Interview (1971) was a slim tale – a uni-linear storyline that unfolds on screen as a non-linear narrative. Stylistically it was the opposite of Calcutta 71 (1972), the second of Sen’s Calcutta trilogy, which built on stories by eminent authors like Manik Bandopadhyay, Prabodh Sanyal, and Samaresh Bose. Interview was about Ranjit, whose love interest Bulbul, was enacted by Bulbul Sharma.

The story went thus: A personable, smart but unemployed Ranjit is assured, in Calcutta of the post-Naxal years, of a lucrative job in a foreign firm by a family friend – if he shows up in a suit. It can’t be such a big ‘IF’, right? Wrong. He can’t get his suit back from the laundry because of a strike by the labour union. His father’s hand-me-down doesn’t fit him. He borrows from a friend but, on his way home, a fracas ensues in the bus and the net result is Ranjit is without a suit to appear in for the critical Interview. Will he, must he, go dressed in the hardcore Bengali attire of dhuti-panjabi?

Just the year before, Pratidwandi (1970) had been released, and it too had an interview at the core of the script. The first of Satyajit Ray’s Calcutta trilogy[7], it had cast newcomer Dhritiman Chatterjee, who would play the pivotal role in Padatik (1973), the clinching film in Sen’s trilogy. But Interview had cast another newcomer who was crowned the Best Actor at Karlovy Vary for playing Ranjit. In subsequent years, he became a megastar of the Bengali screen whom Ray too cast in his penultimate film, Shakha Prosakha (1990). And even as he was scoring a century in films, Ranjit Mallick’s daughter, Koel, was scaling heights as a lead actress.

Bulbul Sharma and Ranjit Mallick in Interview: Photo provided by Ratnottama Sengupta

Contrast this with Bulbul: She did not pursue a career in acting. So how had she come to play the Bulbul of Interview? Let’s hear the story in her own voice.

Bulbul Sharma: I was visiting my cousin sister Sunanda Devi — Banerjee who was a very renowned Bengali actress in the 1950s. She had featured in New Theatre’s Drishtidan[8] (1948), directed by Nitin Bose; Anjangarh[9] (1948), directed by Bimal Roy; opposite Uttam Kumar in Ajay Kar’s Shuno Baranari[10](1960) and Chitta Basu’s Maya Mriga [11](1960).

Sunanda Didi and her husband[12], who was a film distributor, had produced Mrinal Sen’s first film, Raat Bhore[13](1957). Mrinalda had come to her house to discuss something with her husband and he saw me. He asked my cousin if I would like to act in a Bengali film. I was 18 years old and a student at JNU then. I was thrilled but my parents were not keen at all. However, though reluctantly, they agreed since it was Mrinal Sen. By this time he had won national and international awards with Bhuvan Shome. 

Me: How did you prepare for the character? Did Mrinalda brief you? I don’t think he had a script in hand…

Bulbul: I did not do anything to prepare. My name in Interview is ‘Bulbul’, and Ranjit Mallick is ‘Ranjit’. Mrinalda said, “Be your natural self. Don’t try to act.” In fact I am an art student in the film. The only problem was that since I had lived all my life in Delhi, my Bengali accent was not very good. He often teased me about it. “Keep that smile for my camera,” he would say to me.

Me: Tell me about your co-actors Bulbul. Do you recall any incident that stays on in memory?

Bulbul: I remember my co-actor, Ranjit Mallick, was a serious, very quiet person. I think he got fed up of my constant chatter. He asked me once if everyone in Delhi talked so much. I was not surprised that he became one of the biggest stars in Bengali cinema but we did not keep in touch, alas.

Me: Why did you not think of pursuing acting as a career?

Bulbul: Acting was not something I had ever thought of doing. This film just happened by chance. Painting and creative writing was my passion and still is. But don’t lose hope! Recently I was offered a role of a grandmother. I might just do it!

Me: How did you respond to Interview when it released more than 50 years ago? And how do you respond to it now?

Bulbul: When I saw the film almost fifty years ago I don’t think I really understood what a brilliant film it was. I was 18 and just happy to see myself on the big screen.

Now when I saw Interview again, I really admired the way the everyday situations in a middle class Bengali home are played out. The scene when Ranjit’s mother, the great actress Karuna Banerjee – who had played Apu’s mother in Pather Panchali – searches for the dry cleaner’s receipt is just heart breaking.

The interview scene itself is so sensitively done. You want Ranjit to get the job but you know it will not happen. There is such understated humour, anger and sadness in that scene. I wish I could tell Mrinalda all that today!

Me: Interview, the first of Mrinalda’s Calcutta Trilogy, is considered a milestone in his oeuvre because of its socio-political content as well as its naturalistic form. How does it compare with the other two films of the Trilogy – Calcutta 71 and Padatik?

Bulbul: Unfortunately I have not seen these two films.

Me: Would you compare it with Ray’s Pratidwandi which also centred on a job interview?

Bulbul: Yes, Ray’s Pratidwandi also deals with the theme of unemployment during that turbulent period – 1969 to 1971 – in Kolkata. Yet they are not at all similar.

I think Mrinalda’s slightly impish, dark humour is lacking in the other film. Both are amazing films by our most brilliant directors. Films you very rarely get to see now.

Silk Painting with Kantha stitch by Bulbul Sharma
Photos provided by Ratnottama Sengupta

Okay Bulbul, now my son and I will both wait to meet your onscreen Grandma avtar!

[1] Paternal aunts

[2] Maternal aunts

[3] Indian filmmaker,

[4] Actress, had her break in films when she was picked by Mrinal Sen for Bhuvan Shome

[5] 1969 film directed by Mrinal Sen (1923-2018)

[6] Three films by Mrinal Sen: Interview (1971), Calcutta 71 (1972), Padatik (The Guerilla Fighter, 1973)

[7] Known collectively as the Calcutta trilogy, The Adversary (1970), Company Limited (1971) and The Middleman (1975) documented the radical changes Calcutta.

[8]  Translates to ‘Donating eyes’

[9] Translates to ‘Unknown Fort’

[10] Translates to ‘Listen, Wealthy Woman’

[11] Translates to ‘Illusory Fort’

[12] S. B. Productions

[13] Translates to ‘Night and Dawn’

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, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award. 

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

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Categories
A Wonderful World

Festivals of Happiness

Durga Puja, a community- based festival. Courtesy: Creative Commons

Long ago as children, we looked forward to the autumnal festival of Durga Puja. For those who lived outside Bengal, there was no holiday but it was still a break, a season filled with joie de vivre, when family and friends would gather to celebrate the community-based festival, Durga Puja. Parallelly, many from diverse Indian cultures celebrated Navratri — also to do with Durga. On the last day of the Durga Puja, when the Goddess is said to head home, North Indians and Nepalese and some in Myanmar celebrate Dusshera or Dashain, marking the victory of Rama over Ravana, a victory he achieved by praying to the same Goddess. Perhaps, myriads of festivals bloom in this season as grains would have been harvested and people would have had the leisure to celebrate.

Over time, Durga Puja continues as important as Christmas for Bengalis worldwide, though it evolved only a few centuries ago. For the diaspora, this festival, declared “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity” by UNESCO, is a source of joy. While devotees welcome the Goddess Durga and her children home, sons and daughters living away would use this event as a reason to visit their parents. Often, special journals featuring writings of greats, like Satyajit Ray, Tagore, Syed Mujtaba Ali, Nazrul would be circulated in the spirit of the festival.

The story around the festival gives out that like an immigrant, the married Goddess who lived with her husband, Shiva, would visit her parent’s home for five days. Her advent was called Agomoni. Aruna Chakravarti contends in her essay, Durga’s Agomoni “is an expression, pure and simple, of the everyday life of women in a rural community –their joys and sorrows; hopes and fears”. While some war and kill in the name of religion, as in the recent Middle Eastern conflict, Chakravarti, has given us an essay which shows how folk festivities in Bengal revelled in syncretism. Their origins were more primal than defined by the tenets of organised religion. And people celebrated the occasion together despite differences in beliefs, enjoying — sometimes even traveling. In that spirit, Somdatta Mandal has brought us travel writings by Tagore laced with humour. The spirit continues to be rekindled by writings of Tagore’s student, Syed Mujtaba Ali, and an interview with his translator, Nazes Afroz.

We start this special edition with translations of two writers who continue to be part of the syncretic celebrations beyond their lives, Tagore and Nazrul. Professor Fakrul Alam brings to us the theme of homecoming explored by Nazrul and Tagore describes the spirit that colours this mellow season of Autumn

Poetry

Nazrul’s Kon Kule Aaj Bhirlo Tori  ( On which shore has my boat moored today?), translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam, explores the theme of spiritual homecoming . Click here to read.

Tagore’s Amra Bedhechhi Kasher Guchho (We have Tied Bunches of Kash), translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty, is a hymn to the spirit of autumn which heralds the festival of Durga Puja. Click here to read.

Prose

In The Oral Traditions of Bengal: Story and Song, Aruna Chakravarti describes the syncretic culture of Bengal through its folk music and oral traditions. Click here to read.

Somdatta Mandal translates from Bengali Travels & Holidays: Humour from Rabindranath. Both the essay and letters are around travel, a favourite past time among Bengalis, especially during this festival. Click here to read.

An excerpt of In a Land Far From Home: A Bengali in Afghanistan by Syed Mujtaba Ali, translated by Nazes Afroz. Click here to read.

Interview

A conversation with Nazes Afroz, former BBC editor, along with a brief introduction to his new translations of Syed Mujtaba Ali’s Tales of a Voyager (Jolay Dangay). Click here to read.

Durga by Jamini Roy (1887-1972)
Durga(Kalighat Pattachitra, Bengal folk art)
Categories
Contents

Borderless, May 2023

Art by Sohana Manzoor

Editorial

Dancing in May? … Click here to read.

Translations

Aparichita by Tagore has been translated from Bengali as The Stranger by Aruna Chakravarti. Click here to read.

The Kabbadi Player, a short story by the late Nadir Ali, has been translated from Punjabi by Amna Ali. Click here to read.

Carnival Time by Masud Khan has been translated from the Bengali poem by Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Desolation, a poem by Munir Momin, has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.

Loneliness, a poem, has been translated from Korean to English by the poet himself, Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read

Jonmodiner Gaan or Birthday Song by Tagore has been translated by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Conversations

A conversation with Mitra Phukan about her latest novel, What Will People Say? A Novel along with a brief introduction to the book. Click here to read.

Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri converses with Prerna Gill on her poetry and her new book of poetry, Meanwhile. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Michael Burch, Lakshmi Kannan, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Shahriyer Hossain Shetu, Peter Cashorali, K.V. Raghupathi, Wilda Morris, Ashok Suri, William Miller, Khayma Balakrishnan, Md Mujib Ullah, Urmi Chakravorty, Sreekanth Kopuri, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry & Rhys Hughes

In What I Thought I Knew About India When I was Young, Rhys Hughes travels back to his childhood with a soupçon of humour. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

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.

Kissed on Kangaroo Island

Meredith Stephens travels with her camera and her narrative to capture the flora and fauna of the island. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In The Reader, Devraj Singh Kalsi revisits his experiences at school. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Making Chop Suey in South Carolina, Suzanne Kamata recaptures a flavour from her past. Click here to read.

Essays

Rabindranath’s Monsoonal Music

Professor Fakrul Alam brings to us Tagore songs in translation and in discussion on the season that follows the scorching heat of summer months. Click here to read.

A Night Hike in Nepal

Ravi Shankar hikes uphill in Nepal on a wet and rainy night along with leeches and water buffaloes. Click here to read.

Moving Images of Tagore

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

Stories

Threads

Julian Gallo explores addiction. Click here to read.

The Whirlpool

Abdullah Rayhan takes us back to a village in Bangladesh to give a poignant story about a young boy who dreamt of hunting. Click here to read.

Look but with Love

Sreelekha Chatterjee writes a story set in the world of media. Click here to read.

The Mysterious Murder of Adamov Plut

A globe-trotting murder mystery by Paul Mirabile, a sequel to his last month’s story, ‘The Book Hunter’. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Aruna Chakravarti’s Daughter’s of Jorasanko describing the last birthday celebration of Tagore. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Bhubaneswar@75 – Perspectives, edited by Bhaskar Parichha/ Charudutta Panigrahi. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Meenakshi Malhotra revisits Tagore’s Farewell Song, translated from Bengali by Radha Chakravarty. Click here to read.

Somdatta Mandal reviews KR Meera’s Jezebel translated from Malayalam by Abhirami Girija Sriram and K. S. Bijukumar. Click here to read.

Lakshmi Kannan has reviewed Jaydeep Sarangi’s collection of poems, letters in lower case. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews Journey After Midnight – A Punjabi Life: From India to Canada by Ujjal Dosanjh. Click here to read.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Editorial

Dancing in May?

Courtesy: Creative Commons
“May is pretty, May is mild,
Dances like a happy child…”

Annette Wynne (Early twentieth century)

Each month is expressed in a different form by nature in various parts of the world. In the tropics, May is sweltering and hot — peak summer. In the Southern hemisphere, it is cold. However, with climate change setting in, the patterns are changing, and the temperatures are swinging to extremes. Sometimes, one wonders if this is a reflection of human minds, which seem to swing like pendulums to create dissensions and conflicts in the current world. Nothing seems constant and the winds of change have taken on a menacing appearance. If we go by Nazrul’s outlook, destruction is a part of creating a new way of life as he contends in his poem, ‘Ring Bells of Victory’ — “Why fear destruction? It’s the gateway to creation!” Is this how we will move towards ‘dancing like a happy child’?

Mitra Phukan addresses this need for change in her novel, What Will People Say — not with intensity of Nazrul nor in poetry but with a light feathery wand, more in the tradition of Jane Austen. Her narrative reflects on change at various levels to explore the destruction of old customs giving way to new that are more accepting and kinder to inclusivity, addressing issues like widow remarriage in conservative Hindu frameworks, female fellowship and ageing as Phukan tells us in her interview. Upcoming voice, Prerna Gill, lauded by names like Arundhathi Subramaniam and Chitra Divakaruni, has also been in conversation with Shantanu Ray Choudhuri on her book of verses, Meanwhile. She has refreshing perspectives on life and literature.

Poetry in Borderless means variety and diaspora. Peter Cashorali’s poem addresses changes that quite literally upend the sky and the Earth! Michael Burch reflects on a change that continues to evolve – climate change. Ryan Quinn Flanagan explores societal irritants with irony. Seasons are explored by KV Raghupathi and Ashok Suri. Wilda Morris brings in humour with universal truths. William Miller explores crime and punishment. Lakshmi Kannan and Shahriyer Hossain Shetu weave words around mythical lore. We have passionate poetry from Md Mujib Ullah and Urmi Chakravorty. It is difficult to go into each poem with their diverse colours but Rhys Hughes has brought in wry humour with his long poem on eighteen goblins… or is the count nineteen? In his column, Hughes has dwelt on tall tales he heard about India during his childhood in a light tone, stories that sound truly fantastic…

Devraj Singh Kalsi has written a nostalgic piece that hovers between irony and perhaps, a reformatory urge… I am not quite sure, but it is as enjoyable and compelling as Meredith Stephen’s narrative on her conservation efforts in Kangaroo Island in the Southern hemisphere and fantastic animals she meets, livened further by her photography. Ravi Shankar talks of his night hikes in the Northern hemisphere, more accurately, in the Himalayas. While trekking at night seems a risky task, trying to recreate dishes from the past is no less daunting, as Suzanne Kamata tells us in her Notes from Japan.

May hosts the birthday of a number of greats, including Tagore and Satyajit Ray. Ratnottama Sengupta’s piece on Ray’s birth anniversary celebrations with actress Jaya Bachchan recounting her experience while working for Ray in Mahanagar (Big City), a film that has been restored and was part of celebrations for the filmmaker’s 102nd Birth anniversary captures the nostalgia of a famous actress on the greatest filmmakers of our times. She has also given us an essay on Tagore and cinema in memory of the great soul, who was just sixty years older to Ray and impacted the filmmaker too. Ray had a year-long sojourn in Santiniketan during his youth.

Eulogising Rabindrasangeet and its lyrics is an essay by Professor Fakrul Alam on Tagore. Professor Alam has translated number of his songs for the essay as he has, a powerful poem from Bengali by Masud Khan. A transcreation of Tagore’s first birthday poem , a wonderful translation of Balochi poetry by Fazal Baloch of Munir Momin’s verses, another one from Korean by Ihlwha Choi rounds up the translated poetry in this edition. Stories that reach out with their poignant telling include Nadir Ali’s narrative, translated from Punjabi by his daughter, Amna Ali, and Aruna Chakravarti’s translation of a short story by Tagore. We have more stories from around the world with Julian Gallo exploring addiction, Abdullah Rayhan with a poignant narrative from Bangladesh, Sreelekha Chatterjee with a short funny tale and Paul Mirabile exploring the supernatural and horror, a sequel to ‘The Book Hunter‘, published in the April issue.

All the genres we host seem to be topped with a sprinkling of pieces on Tagore as this is his birth month. A book excerpt from Chakravarti’s Daughters of Jorasanko narrates her well-researched version of Tagore’s last birthday celebration and carries her translation of the last birthday song by the giant of Bengali literature. The other book excerpt is from Bhubaneswar@75 – Perspectives, edited by Bhaskar Parichha/ Charudutta Panigrahi. Parichha has also reviewed Journey After Midnight – A Punjabi Life: From India to Canada by Ujjal Dosanjh, a book that starts in pre-independent India and travels with the writer to Canada via UK. Again to commemorate the maestro’s birth anniversary, Meenakshi Malhotra has revisited Radha Chakravarty’s translation of Tagore’s Farewell Song. Somdatta Mandal has critiqued KR Meera’s Jezebel, translated from Malayalam by Abhirami Girija Sriram and K. S. Bijukuma. Lakshmi Kannan has introduced to us Jaydeep Sarangi’s collection of poems, letters in lower case.

There are pieces that still reach out to be mentioned. Do visit our content page for May. I would like to thank Sohana Manzoor for her fantastic artwork and continued editorial support for the Tagore translations and the whole team for helping me put together this issue. Thank you. A huge thanks to our loyal readers and contributors who continue to bring in vibrant content, photography and artwork. Without you all, we would not be where we are today.

Wish you a lovely month.

Mitali Chakravarty

borderlessjournal.com

Categories
Slices from Life

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

Ratnottama Sengupta time travels fifty years back as famed actress Jaya Bachchan recounts her first day on the sets of Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar

In this event, Jaya Bachchan recounts her days while acting in Satyajit Ray’s award-winning film Mahanagar or The Big City. Photo provided by Ratnottama Sengupta

When Shanti Di, my eldest aunt’s eldest daughter, had got married in 1964, she was already working. So she did not have to face the resistance Arati, the pivotal character of Mahanagar had to face from her in-laws and son. But prejudices and cryptic comments she did face — from her male colleagues. “Women in workplace? They only deprive deserving men of a livelihood,” they would say. “Because, men have to run entire households on their earnings while women work only for the ‘sauce’ — jewellery and saris!”

Mahanagar poster designed by Satyajit Ray. Photo provided by Ratnottama Sengupta

I remembered this at the screening of a restored print of Mahanagar (The Big City, 1963) at Nandan, the West Bengal Film Centre, to mark the 102nd birth anniversary of Satyajit Ray. Based on Narendra Mitra[1]‘s novel, Abataranika (Staircase), the film followed the trials and triumph of Arati, a housewife who steps out of the narrow domestic walls when she finds her husband Subrato bending under the weight of fending for a superannuated father, an aged mother, a school going sister, and their little boy along with themselves. 

But once she starts working, she enjoys her new role of conversing with and convincing women with deep pockets to buy her products — and soon her confidence in her work grows along with her empathy with other women who are yet to be empowered like her sister-in-law, Bani, her mother-in-law, Sarojini, her Anglo Indian colleague, Edith Simmons…  When her husband loses his job, Arati firmly negotiates a raise. And when Edith is fired for absence due to ill health she takes up cudgel for the ‘insult’. 

The remarkable sensitivity and the eye for details with which Satyajit Ray etched the ordinary lives of a middle class family earned him the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival 1964. The director’s son, Sandip Ray, remembers attending the ceremony with his parents. “Why were you not there?”  a voice from the audience asked Jaya Bachchan, who was in conversation with the maestro’s son, now a renowned director in his own right. “Why would they invite me, who was just a ‘cameo artiste’ as someone mentioned this evening?”

Jaya Bachchan and Sandipt Ray conversing at the event on May 1, 2023.

Jaya Di[2] — as I am privileged to address her, much like Sandip ‘Babu’ Ray — was much more than a cameo artiste in Mahanagar. Her ‘Bani’ was a flesh and blood character as she brought to life a marriageable sister who, in my childhood and not just in Bengal, was a part and parcel of any Indian household. Bubbly, sincere, attached to her Boudi as much as to her little nephew whom she mothers when the housewife is earning the family its bread, she is pampered by her brother even as she is being trained by her mother to pick up the haata-khunti…spatula-spoon…in the kitchen!

“I distinctly remember the first day of shooting in Indrapuri Studios. It marked my debut in films. Madhabi Di and Anil Kaku were in that shot which is reproduced whenever something is written about Mahanagar. I am at the study table, trying to write something. Those days I used to wear specs when I was reading.  Manik[3] Kaku must have made a mental note of that, he said, ‘Don’t take off your specs, keep them on for the shot.’ I didn’t have any dialogue for the scene. So, although I had not even been on stage before this, I didn’t feel that I was acting. The camera in front of me with Subrata Mitra behind it was not daunting. I was comfortable, just my usual self…”

Little did Jaya Bhaduri know, then, that this ‘girl-next-door’ identity would become her calling card in the years to come, storming even the glamorous boulevards of tinsel town Bollywood.

*

How did Jaya reach the sets of Mahanagar? She didn’t: Ray had sent for the girl in her teens. In all probability, she was recommended by Robi Ghosh and Sharmila Tagore. “They were shooting for Tapan Sinha’s Nirjan Saikatey (1963) when I had gone to Puri with my father, Tarun Bhaduri,” Jaya Di recounts. “We met them and on their return to Kolkata both Robi Kaku[4] and Rinku[5] Di told Manik Kaku that ‘the girl for that role (of sister) has been found at last!'” 

The first time she met Ray he did not ask her anything special. Nor did he ask her to do anything particular on the set. Young Jaya was told to read her lessons aloud, which she did, just as any school going child in Bengal did half a century ago. “I remember that Baba told Jaya Di to continue reading after the camera had moved on because he wanted an audio track of her reading in the background,” Sandip recalled in the course of the conversation. “She continued to read, but suddenly there was a sound of coughing. What happened?? In reply to everyone’s anxious query she coolly replied, ‘Why? Can’t a fly wing its way into my mouth while I’m reading?'”

Jaya Di herself has no recollection of this prank, but she vividly remembers that she would pester people on the set, incessantly asking questions. She especially questioned Subrato Mitra for taking time to light up! “It was as if we were out on a picnic,” she smiles. “The entire unit indulged me like a little girl. I was very comfortable because I had no burden to carry. In the presence of major actors I was required to do very little!”  

*

Jaya Bhaduri was not given any express direction — neither about how to speak her lines nor about action or emotion. She had full freedom to interpret the scene and react to the other characters. “Manik Kaku used to call all the artistes and read out all the dialogues to us. His intonation would give us an idea of what he wanted from us. We interpreted the scene according to our capacity and gave our best shot. He went about canning it, he never had any problem with my delivery.” 

But lessons in acting she did learn on the sets of Mahanagar — by observing how the director groomed the lead actress. “I have seen Manik Kaku directing Madhabi Di to grow into the role of Arati. He literally groomed her in acting. ‘Look this way, through the corner of your eyes. Turn your head like this. Say it like this. Wear the sari in this manner…’ The fact is that Satyajit Ray had a strong visual sense. He envisaged how the character would look and behave at the outset, how she would change, how she would resolve her dilemmas.” 

In other words, his actors were not puppets: he allowed the spontaneity of some, like Jaya; he moulded the emotive action of some, like Madhabi Mukherjee who would soon storm the silver screen as Charulata (1964).

*

“Mahanagar was a very modern film, and not just at the time it was made,” Jaya Bachchan observes. Her critique of Ray’s first urban development film gains greater weight from the fact that, in the intervening years, she has ‘grown up’.  From a school girl to a trained actor. From the heartthrob of every Indian family in 1970s to the heartthrob of her ‘Lambuji[6]‘ — Amitabh Bachchan — whose charisma straddles two centuries, three generations, five continents. From a reclusive personal life to a vibrant political presence in the upper house of India’s Parliament. 

Young Jaya Bhaduri (now Jaya Bachchan) in between lead actress Madhabi Mukherjee and Anil Chatterjee. Photo provided by Ratnottama Sengupta

So let me elaborate on her observation, taking off from a scene between her and Subroto, her elder brother in Mahanagar, enacted by Anil Chatterjee.

Subrato has come home from work and his sister asks him for his pen as hers has run out of ink. He enquires when her exams are to commence, then he comments, “What use is this reading and writing? Sei toh henshel thelte hobey, you’ll end up dealing with only pots and pans!” 

“Sekhaay toh,” Bani is quick to revert. “They teach us that too – it’s Domestic Science.”

That statement portrayed Ray’s attitude towards housewife. It was and still is a commentary on the identity — role — of a contemporary wife. It is in fact every woman’s attitude in contemporary India, 

Jaya Di has observed: “Today every woman also has to and does work. Not only for economic reasons but for identity, purpose in life. Those who have had higher education, certainly do. Those who have not studied much, who help with housework also have such dignity. I see their confidence in the way they carry themselves. They know their mind and they don’t hesitate to say up front what work they will do and what they won’t; how much time they will apportion to a household and when they will leave. And like urban working women, they too save a little from their earnings, use some of it and keep some for emergencies.”

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Ray’s masterstroke is seen in the way he sketched the nuances of the bank clerk husband, complete with his angst and jealousy. He is proud of his wife’s charming appearance, he is confident she can steer herself through the career of a salesgirl, he is happy when the second income flows in. Yet — and especially when he loses his job — he suffers from insecurity, jealousy, suspicion. To the extent that the man who wrote her application letters, goads her to write a resignation letter. He is redeemed by the stand he takes at the very end when she gives up her much-needed job to protest a wrong against a colleague.  

Critics have found Ray to be more kind to the protagonist than Narendra Nath Mitra,  the Bengali author who also penned Ras[7] (made into the Hindi film Saudagar (Trader, 1973) which again builds upon how economic realities can make or mar a marriage. About a decade later Jaya Bachchan co-starred with husband Amitabh Bachchan in Abhimaan[8] (1973). In it Hrishikesh Mukherjee takes to an extreme the consequences of a husband’s ego trip when his wife fares better than him, professionally and financially.

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Earlier Hrishikesh Mukherjee had, in Guddi (1971), given the young sister of Mahanagar a full canvas to come into her own as an actor. The same bubbly girl matures into a woman who can differentiate between love and infatuation. “After Mahanagar I was very selective. I chose to work only with directors who had a ‘Bengali’ sensibility,” Jaya Di says without a hint of hesitation. 

And the rapport she struck with Ray? It lasted a lifetime. When she joined the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) she asked her Manik Kaku for a letter of commendation to go with her biodata. He wrote back saying that she doesn’t need an institute but join it, “it is the place for you”. 

She went thinking she would not last beyond a few months but with batchmates like Anil Dhawan, her co-star in Piya Ka Ghar (1972), and Danny Denzongpa, she stayed the full course. “And when Manik Kaku came with the print of Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (1969), I felt so proud! I went to the airport to pick him up!”

That bonding would show every time they were in each other’s vicinity, Sandip Ray reiterates. “Once we were in Bombay and Baba stepped out of the Taj Mahal Hotel to leaf through books in the stall just outside. Suddenly a shrill voice screamed, ‘Manik Kakuuu!’ Jaya Di was passing by in her car and had spotted him!” “And I hugged him!” Jaya Di adds, “I took liberties others would hesitate to.” 

So why was she was not seen in his films again? “There were talks of casting me in Pratidwandi (1970) opposite Dhritiman Chatterjee,” Jaya recalls, “but I was in FTII then. Later I accosted him for not giving me a thought (for the role) – ‘You could have at least called me!’ His reply? ‘It was not necessary.’ That’s all!

“As if to add insult to injury, Manik Kaku got Amitji to do the voice over for Shatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players, 1977)  but a role for me? No! I was so angry I went and met him in Rajkamal Studio. His reply? ‘ Ha ha ha…’ Not a word more.”

Amitabh Bachchan doing the voice over for Satyajit Ray in Shatranj Ke Khilari. Picture from Bachchan’s FB, provided by Ratnottama Sengupta.

That did not stop Jaya Bachchan from going to Bishop Lefroy Road every time she happened to be in Kolkata. She had, after all, seen the films the ‘Towering Inferno’ made even before Mahanagar. “Every time I watched a film by Ray I felt this is his best. Until the next one came along…” So, when Charulata came, Mahanagar paled. But wait, to this day Debi (The Goddess, 1960) continues to haunt Jaya Bachchan.

And to think that, when Ray had sent for her, the young girl growing up in Bhopal was beset with doubt and hesitation. “I was studying in a convent school, and I feared that the nuns would disapprove of my acting in a film. But my father said, ‘It’s the opportunity of a lifetime — don’t let go of it.'”

Cut to the convent when she went back after Mahanagar. The same austere nuns came and said, ” ‘You have acted in a Satyajit Ray film?! You are so lucky!!’ That is when I first realised, even before he was crowned in Berlin, what a major director my Manik Kaku was!”

Jaya Bachchan on 1/5/2023. Photo provided by Ratnottama Sengupta

[1] Bengali writer (1916-1975)

[2] An honorific for elder sister

[3] Satyajit Ray was Manik to his friends.

[4] Uncle, father’s younger brother

[5] Sharmila Tagore

[6] Tall man

[7] Juice

[8] Pride

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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, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award. 

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