Filmmaker Suman Ghosh’s new book, The Worlds of Aparna, published by Simon & Schuster India, is an intimate and illuminating compilation of conversations between Ghosh and director-actress Aparna Sen. The book offers readers a rare glimpse into the life, mind, and creative journey of one of Indian cinema’s most enduring and respected voices, charting her artistic evolution, cinematic philosophy, and the many intellectual and cultural influences that have shaped her as both actor and filmmaker. To provide historical context and depth, Ghosh also engages in conversations with some of Sen’s most influential colleagues and collaborators, including Shabana Azmi, Konkona Sensharma, Goutam Ghose, and Anjan Dutt. Sen remains the only woman in India to have won the National Award for Best Director twice — first for her directorial debut 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981) and again for Mr and Mrs Iyer (2002).
The book was launched at Tollygunge Club on October 30 in the presence of Songit Bagrodia, president of the club, Vishnupriya Sengupta, Tollygunge Club library committee chairperson, Anjan Dutt, and Sen herself. Also present was Sayantan Ghosh, editorial director of Simon & Schuster India, who moderated a panel discussion with Ghosh, Sen and Dutt.
The Worlds of Aparna is an expansion of Ghosh’s documentary Parama: A Journey with Aparna Sen, a project that first captured the filmmaker in candid conversation about her craft, convictions, and creative journey. The result is a chronicle of one of Indian cinema’s most relevant voices, offering readers a deeper understanding of the artist, the woman, and the world that has shaped her vision. Here are some excerpts from the panel.
The genesis
Suman Ghosh: A few very famous books inspired me. For example, there’s one called Conversations with Wilder (1999), which is a conversation between director Cameron Crowe and Billy Wilder. Of course, there’s the iconic Truffaut and Hitchcock book (Hitchcock/Truffaut, 1966), and Shyam Benegal also had a book on Satyajit Ray. He made a documentary about Ray, which later became a book. After reading all these, particularly the first one, I was fascinated. I just loved Conversations with Wilder. A director interviewing another director opens up a space that cannot be explored otherwise. There’s a different kind of advantage because both are from the same profession. A biography in the form of a questionnaire is very illuminating. And because I’ve worked with Aparna — she acted in one of my films — we had developed a friendship. That allowed me to explore a variety of issues she was comfortable venturing into as well. That was my thought process when I decided to write the book.
The first meeting
Anjan Dutt: Strange things used to happen when we were young, things I really miss now. I was very young then and not getting many acting offers. So I was generally hanging around when a mutual friend, Raja Dasgupta, came up to me and said, “There’s a script reading happening with Aparna Sen. You should go.” So I went to Alipore, where she lived. She was reading the story out to a group of friends and colleagues, trying to find out whether it was interesting. (The meeting was for a film Sen initially wanted to make with Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi called What the Sea Said, which later got made in Bangla as Juganto, with Anjan Dutt and Rupa Ganguly.)
That’s how I first met her, and of course, it made a huge difference to my career. Rinadi walked into my life as a director — she’s hardly seven years older than me — and through various funny experiences, I learned so much from her. She’s one of the best directors in this country. She tells you things that become incredibly important to the story — things that stay with you. She’s always full of zest, full of relish, full of love for life. She’s one of the finest and of a rare sensitivity, which, not necessarily revolutionary, is disappearing from this part of the world.
Renaissance in Bengali films
Ghosh: Rinadi is hilariously, passionately particular. It has taught me a lot. She’s very witty and humorous. She was and is a huge star. I don’t know why she doesn’t give her acting enough importance. Forget the star value of working with Uttam Kumar, Soumitra Chatterjee, and even Amitabh Bachchan — she brought a completely different style of acting to Bengali cinema, right from Samapti.
Developing a worldview
Aparna Sen: I owe a lot of who I am to my parents because they gave me a lot of exposure to many different things. You can go to any number of film schools. You can learn editing, cinematography, and scriptwriting. What you can’t learn is vision. You can’t learn a worldview. That comes only from life. Exposure is important, where you soak in life like a sponge, where you absorb experiences. That becomes your arsenal. You don’t do it deliberately, but when you write, these things just happen. A metaphor will suddenly appear because all of that has gone into making who you are. You can’t distinguish what influence came from where, but you’re grateful for all that exposure. That’s what develops your taste and eye for cinema. You learn to reject what’s not good.
One film in which I think I made the least number of mistakes is The Japanese Wife. I was very pleased with the way it looked, because I wanted to make it very minimalistic, like Japanese watercolours. I also find it very funny and very bizarre. I love the bizarre. I find it fascinating that two people who are so shy and who can’t speak each other’s language, who have to resort to English, a language they’re both bad at, are consulting dictionaries all the time. The Japanese girl consults a Japanese-English dictionary, and the Bengali boy a Bengali-English one. Yet they keep writing to each other, get married through letters, and remain married for 17 years. And despite the broken English, there is poetry in what they write.
There are very human emotions in The Japanese Wife, too. That film is very close to my heart. Juganto, too, is very close to my heart. Paromitar Ek Din is one of my best films.
Relevance and artistic honesty
Ghosh: When I wrote the book or made the documentary, one issue stood out: we now live in a moral vacuum, particularly in the last ten years or so. To me, an artist is not just an actor or filmmaker. Rinadi is an example of that. Think about Mr and Mrs Iyer — it was made before India began bordering on becoming a Hindu fundamentalist nation. If you now go back to Parama, that film started a conversation on feminism, but simply not for the sake of being bold. And 40 years later, it’s still so contemporary. She responded to time much earlier than most, and it is only now that we realise the importance of films like these.
Looking ahead
Sen: I would like people to respond emotionally or artistically to my cinema. I would like the legacy I inherited from my parents and grandparents — of being intellectually and creatively honest — to continue. My daughter (actress Konkona Sensharma) is already doing that. But most of all, I would like the idea of India that we inherited from the generations before us to be remembered.
When people ask me if I’ll make another 36 Chowringhee Lane, I say no, because that was 1981. The world has changed since then. I have changed. I’m not outside that change; it has affected me as a human being. Of course, I’m still deeply moved by the plight of marginalised older women, and I’m glad I made that film. Now, when I watch it, I might cry a little myself, because it was such a personal film. But I can’t only make personal films anymore. I have changed too much. My surroundings, my country, have changed me as a person. I watched Homebound the other day, and I told Neeraj (Ghaywan, director) that it doesn’t matter if the film has a lot of good things or maybe a few flaws. What truly moved me was that he was affected by the reality of what’s happening in India today. And I told him, “Neeraj, please continue to be affected. Don’t give up. Don’t become blasé. Don’t say, ‘I can’t do anything.’” Of course, we can’t change everything, but does that mean we shouldn’t even try? Then what’s the point? Why are we living here, at this time, if not to at least try? That, I think, is the legacy I would like to pass on. Before I begin any film, I tell my crew and cast that good films and bad films will happen. But honesty — as a person, as a filmmaker, as an artist — is what I try to live by. It’s very difficult to be honest these days, but it’s what truly matters in the long run.