It was many years later that I saw the films of Ghatak. I
deeply appreciated his films without the benefit of any understanding of
Bengali language, culture or history. A good film serves as a medium of
emotional expressions transcending cultures. Most of Ritwik Ghatak films were
such expressions of rare sensitivities that remain eternally with us. He places
before the viewer complex thoughts and sensitive moments of life through the
lives of ordinary and simple people in films that run at a sedate pace and in a
simple style. His films are seen as poems in celluloid as he allows emotions,
traditions and antiquities of Indian way of life to flow in his cinematic
narration.
Ritwik Ghatak, considered a classical hero among fans
of serious cinema today, was little appreciated in his days and
understood even less. Most of his films ran to empty theatres in Bengal. Nagarik was
his first film. Completed in 1953, this film was not released in his life-time.
24 years later it was first screened in 1977, a year after his passing away.
Satyajit Ray had opined that had Nagarik been released before Pather
Panjali, it would have been recognized as the maiden effort of the Indian
alternate cinema.
Nagarik remains a model for the modern Indian film. Its
unique narration style and direction makes this film an important landmark in
Indian films. One of its highlights was the brief but emotional
background score by Hariprasanna Das. The film’s form was the herald of the
later films of Ghatak, especially in its sense of melodrama.
Ghatak was not the one to ever consider melodrama as
anything less than realistic narration. As far as the Indian cinema is
concerned melodrama with the touch of realism begins and ends with Ghatak. In
Ghatak films melodrama is a form of alternate realism. Ghatak takes his
thoughts and emotions to the viewer through conscious use of repeated
narrations and coincidences.
Ghatak, as a person who trained in both folk art forms and
theatre and as somebody who had a conscience with traditional value base, chose
melodrama as the medium of his expression. His melodrama has been woven with
Indian folk and classical elements and Bertolt Brecht’s stage devices of the
west.
Ghatak had already perfected this form during his days as
actor, director and dramatist with Indian People’s Theatre Association. He
mentions this in his article ‘Cinema and I’ in 1963: “Melodrama is a much
criticized narrative form. But from that alone the truly national film will
emerge.” He had elaborated further in an interview in 1974: “I am not afraid of
melodrama. Using it as a device is the birthright of the artiste. It is a very
important form of expression in art.”
Ghatak was truly a cinema maker without peer. His art
believes in celebrating it with all branches of life. He created his fluent
style of picturisation incorporating hope, disappointment, curiosity, laughter
and tears. He declared: “I do not believe in the label ‘entertainment’, nor do
I accept sloganeering. I would like to deeply meditate on this universe, this
world, international situation, my country and my own people. I would like to
make films for them. I might have failed in it today. But Time and people alone
have to decide”
Ritwik Kumar Ghatak was born in Dhaka on 4th November
of 1925. Dhaka was, like Calcutta, the centre of multi-faceted cultural
activities in the beginning of 19th century. Many civil movements took
form there. Following Independence and Partition, along with lakhs of people
who migrated out of fear of riots and famine, Ghatak and his family arrived in
Calcutta. Ghatak grieved over the partition of Bengal to the last. Considering
himself a refugee was, to his mind, a metaphor for alienation from the basic culture
and boycott of one’s own identity. Most of the characters of his films were
people who lost their land and livelihood.
Ghatak joined the Communist movement and took active part in
its cultural organ, IPTA. Before he plunged into drama, Ghatak wanted to be a
litterateur but found it to be a form of expression without wider public
participation. This search for the form with wider participation of public
brought him to cinema. This is what he had to say: “I want to narrate the
reality around me. I want to shout out to the people. Today, cinema alone
appears to be the suitable medium for this. The reason is that as soon as I
finish my work it can reach out to millions of people. I make films for my
people.” But Ghatak had to confess on many occasions that cinema was not, for
him, a natural medium. His films suffer from many mistakes of carelessness and
in particular technical errors in picturisation. In spite of that, they grow on
our mindscape like the sorrows and elations we experience from raw forms of
music.
Ritwik Ghatak entered the world of cinema as an Assistant
Director and Actor in the film Chinaamul (The Uprooted) made by Nimai
Ghosh in 1950. Heavily in debt after being unable to release his maiden film Naagarik,
Ghatak went to Bombay and worked for some time in Filmistan Studios there. In
Bombay, he worked on the screenplays of Musafir (1957) directed by
Hrishikesh Mukherji and Madhumathi (1958) directed by Bimal Roy. His
comrade from IPTA, Salil Chowdhury, composed the music of both these films.
Later in 1959, Salilda composed the music for Ghatak’s film Baari Theke
Paaliye (Deserter).
After his return to Calcutta, Ghatak directed Ajantrik (Non
machine) in 1958. It was the story of a driver of rented car in love with his
old and dented car to the point of infatuation. The film placed before the
viewer a very broad canvas story covering different types of people from
different walks of life who travelled in that car. The famous Bengali sarod
maestro, Ustad Bahadur Khan, had composed sensitive but penetrating music
for Ajantrik, as he had done for many Ghatak films.
Meghe Dhaka Tara, Ghatak’s much acclaimed and biggest
and lone commercial success was released in 1960. Social and economic problems
related to partition of Bengal is the basic theme of the film. Meghe Dhaka
Tara is an important musical film. It has many Hindustani raga based songs
like the famous Hansadhwani raga number ‘Laagi Lagan Pathi Sakhi’. The film is
enriched by many bits of Rabindra Sangeet including Tagore’s famous ‘Je Raathe
More Dwaar Khuli’ (My Doors Are Open This Stormy Night) rendered by Hemant
Kumar.
Film Komal Gandhar was released in 1961. It is the
word for a music note. Gandhar refers to Ga, the third note in the music scale.
Komal Gandhar refers to the softer Ga among the two ‘Ga’s. It is more or less
the equivalent of the western music note ‘E-flat’. But Komal
Gandhar is not a music-related film. It is a film on drama troupes
and stage dramas.
But the Ghatak film I loved most was Subarnarekha (Line
of Gold). It is the name of a river in Bengal with waters of a golden hue. It
is a rare film that used melodrama in place of mechanical realism with great
élan. This film too, like other great Ghatak films, was totally rejected
by the viewing public. Today it is considered a classic poem in celluloid and a
turning point in the history of Indian films.
The songs of the film Subarnarekha lent the film a
dramatic pace and pseudo-realism. Though there were seven songs in the film,
all the emotional moments in the film were held together by one song. The
female lead of the film Sita singing that song from her childhood days. Whether
she is sitting among hills or she is walking on the banks of Subarnarekha ‘Aaj
Daaner Khethe Roudra Chaayai Luko Choorie Kela’is always on her lips. Based on
a simple tune, the song describes the natural beauty of the rural landscape of
Bengal.
Today the sunshine and shadows play hide and seek on the
paddy fields
Today in the blue skies somebody has set afloat the boats of
white clouds
Today the bees are foregoing the honey in flowers
to mob the beams of morning sun
Today we would rather stay out to drink of nature to our
heart’s content
Today we would not go home
After the commercial disaster of Subarnarekha, Ghatak
could not find a producer. Undaunted he produced two films on his own. Both
films, Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (Titash is Name of a River) and Jukti,
Takko Aar Gappo (Device, Logic and Story) were never properly released.
Around this time, he joined the faculty at Film Institute, Poona. Later, he was
to recall these years as the ‘most beautiful years’ of his life.
But he came out soon, unable to fit himself into the
discipline and authoritarian ways of the Film Institute. However, during the
time he was there, he left his indelible stamp on some of the students who
trained there. They emerged as important creators in the Indian cinema world of
seventies and eighties. Kumar Sahni, Mani Kaul, Syed Mirza, Adoor
Gopalakrishnan, Ketan Mehta and John Abraham were some of his important
students.
Ghatak lived with a sharp intellect bent on breaking
establishments, an inquiring mind and a very restless honesty. He was a very
direct person, impossible to second-guess and difficult to live with. He always
argued against all established premises. He strongly criticized Film Festival
circuits and Film Awards.
He saw his films as instruments of social change. But his
society did not understand his work. He was ignored by the majority of
film-goers. He was rejected by film producers. He was ignored during his
life-time by important film critics. He died penniless as an alcoholic and a TB
patient.
John Abraham, known as one of the first eminences of the
alternate Malayalam cinema, was one who followed Ghatak to the hilt, from his
nihilism to his drunken ways. This is what he wrote of his guru
Ritwik Ghatak
Refugee
Alien
Unwanted
Unbearable
For him life was holier
Than his holy worship
Death of a Ritwik Ghatak is an unusual happening
I rise in
pride to reminisce on my Ghatak-da
He will live eternally
In my thoughts
In my senses and in my soul
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