Ritwik Ghatak was not interested in the historical details of the Partition but rather in its aftermath. Prof Anindya Sengupta of the department of film studies, Jadavpur University, made the comment as part of his opening remarks in a lecture on Ghatak’s relevance in his birth centenary week.
Bidhannagar Film Society was hosting a three-day screening of Ghatak’s Partition trilogy — Komal Gandhar, Subarnarekha and Meghe Dhaka Tara — from November 3 to 5 at the Aikatan auditorium, in association with Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre and supported by Ritwik Cine Society, to mark the maverick filmmaker’s birth centenary. Sengupta’s lecture on the festival’s last day highlighted Ghatak’s relevance as a timeless storyteller with a focus on his first film Meghe Dhaka Tara, released in 1960.
Sengupta started his talk by dispelling myths. “Practically every aspect of Ghatak’s films was precise. If we study his films, we will find how unique his productions were compared to conventional films. Filmmakers and viewers abroad, who watched his work without any preconceived notion, have described Ghatak as one of the most powerful filmmakers,” he pointed out.
Analysing whether the three films can be called a Partition trilogy, Sengupta pointed out that though there were references to Partition in Komal Gandhar (1961) and Subarnarekha (1962), Meghe Dhaka Tara had no such references. “It shows the aftermath of Partition, which Ghatak was interested in.”
He also delved into the reason why the film had such a deep impact akin to Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali. In the film, the elder brother Shankar is unemployed and dreams of making it as a classical singer, the younger brother wants to be a player while the father is a former school teacher. So the burden of the family is shouldered by the elder daughter Nita, who is trapped by her responsibilities. So her fiancé Sanat ends up marrying her younger sister Gita instead. “This may be the major reason behind the film’s popularity. In our patriarchal social set-up, we adore the self-sacrificing woman,” he said.
Ritwik Ghatak
When Nita is diagnosed with tuberculosis and is shifted to a sanatorium in Shillong, there is a scene where she vomits blood while coughing. A melancholic song on Gouridaan, “Aay lo Uma kole loi”, plays in the background. The song, Sengupta said, dated back to the Sen dynasty, when the kulin pratha in the caste system became dominant and each kulin Brahmin used to marry 20 to 25 girls, aged around eight years. The girl would be transported far from home to her in-laws’. Ritwik, explained Sengupta, was comparing Nita’s journey to the sanatorium to the agony of Gouridaan. “To cover up a social injustice like Gouridaan, girls were worshipped as goddess Uma. A similar injustice was done to Nita who wasted her life shouldering the family burden. When Nita cries out ‘Dada, ami bnachtey chai’, she had possibly realised that she has been exploited.”
Sengupta also refers to a visual metaphor at the start when Nita’s face is raised with a single tree against the horizon in the background forming an arch, resembling the chalchitra behind the goddess. A song of matri vandana plays in the background, sung by Nita’s brother Shankar. “This suggests Nita is the family’s sole shade of support. Gradually it is revealed that Nita (another name of Durga) was born on the day of Jagaddhatri puja. Ghatak viewed his central characters in a distinctive way,” observed Sengupta.
Citing examples of river Padma and the Taj Mahal, Sengupta said refugees to Ghatak meant a kind of alienation from the roots. “Ghatak believed that even without being displaced from home, a person could still become a refugee, because the very concept of the nation changed after the Partition.”
When both countries were spewing venom over Bangladesh, Ritwik was speaking of union in Komal Gandhar. “The romantic union of Bhrigu and Anasuya serves as a yearning for the loss of a united Bengal. Their connection symbolises a hope for kinship that transcends the border,” he said.