The last-minute cancellation of the screening of two of Ritwik Ghatak’s films at a government school in south Calcutta, allegedly due to political pressure, evoked a response in the eastern part of the city. A Leftist magazine organised a screening of those two films — Amar Lenin and Komal Gandhar — at the Aikatan auditorium of EZCC to mark Ghatak’s birth centenary year.
“When we heard that the screening was disallowed at the school, we decided to hold one. Ghatak is not just Bengal’s pride, he is India’s pride,” said Soumitra Lahiri, advisor to the editorial board of Srishtir Ekush Shatak, a literary magazine brought out by the publishing house Ekush Shatak.
The FD Block resident spoke of Ghatak’s unpublished manuscript that was discovered after his death, in 1993. This manuscript, a thesis submitted to the Communist Party of India in 1954, remained buried in the archives until its accidental discovery. The thesis, which Ghatak wrote when he was a member of the Communist Party, explores the role of artists in society and their relationship with the people.
Assistant professor of film studies at Jadavpur University Manas Ghosh, the featured speaker of the day, started out by refuting the claim that Ghatak made the Partition trilogy — Meghe Dhaka Tara, Komal Gandhar and Subarnarekha — on the deprivations of Hindu refugees. “He spoke of refugees. Period. If I talk of Syrian or Gazan refugees today, will I refer to them as Muslim refugees?”
Several other myths abound regarding Ghatak, Ghosh continued. Another is that his films are all on Partition. “Take Ajantrik. It deals with a taxi driver in the Chhotanagpur Plateau, whose sole attachment is to his vehicle. Titash Ekti Nadir Nam portrays the life of fishermen on the banks of the Titash. Jukti Takko Aar Goppo is said to be somewhat autobiographical,” he argued.
Ghatak, Ghosh felt, had picked the theme of Partition to make some political and philosophical comments. He may have led an indisciplined life later, but he was a genius at his prime. Urging the audience members to watch Megha Dhaka Tara, he pointed to the scene where Nita leaves home amid a shower and lightning strikes. “Notice how the light flashes on her face and a photograph of her childhood falls from her hand! It needs mathematical precision to create the image. That is not possible for a mad man to achieve. He had to have an organised brain.”
If around the time, Satyajit Ray was telling the story of Apu, “an independent citizen of independent India”, Ghatak, Ghosh pointed out, “was walking in the opposite direction by focusing on flaws in a pretty picture”.
Incidentally, two writers who are placed beside Ghatak in this regard are Saadat Hasan Manto, writer of short stories like Thanda Gosht and Khol Do, dealing with the human cost of Partition, and Manik Bandyopadhyay, who wrote stories like Kushtho Rogir Bou, wife of a leper that society would turn away from in revulsion.
Those who started writing in the 1940s had seen three epochal incidents — a succession of famines, World War II (not directly in Calcutta but through reports in the newspaper and the radio), and the Partition.
“After achieving freedom, people were dreaming, but Ghatak saw the cracks in society. In Meghe Dhaka Tara, Nita’s brother, sister and mother want to look ahead. Her brother calls her stupid and leaves for Bombay. Her mother seeks affluence. Only Nita clings to a photograph of her childhood, just as her father sheds tears remembering the past,” Ghosh said.
It is also not true that Ghatak could not find producers. “In the 1940s, all the main artistes were members of Indian People’s Theatre Association. He wrote the screenplay of Madhumati on request from his friend Bimal Roy. Guru Dutt to Raj Kapoor, they all admired him in Bombay. Rajesh Khanna had asked him to cast him. If he had agreed, there would have been a queue of producers at Ghatak’s door. Shakti Samanta is rumoured to have offered him a blank cheque to make a film under his banner. Kintu na bolata Ritwik nijer jonmogoto adhikar mone korten.”
Ghosh ended on a reflective note, placing Ghatak’s work in the context of today’s world. “Before Partition, the country was at least united against British colonialism. Today the whole focus is on the enemy across the border. You can’t raise issues at home, like poverty, anymore. In such a context, one needs to remember Ghatak’s focus on the cracks,” he said.