The birth centenary year of the film-maker of unique brilliance, Ritwik Ghatak, is imbued with a strange irony. The year is being celebrated in different ways, with a focus on his films. He made eight feature films and 10 documentary films, but his work was misunderstood and neglected in his own time. His first film, Nagarik, was completed in 1952, yet it was released only in 1977, a year after Ghatak’s death. Had it been shown in its own time, it could have been seen as heralding a new kind of cinema in Bengal. His other films were made from 1958 to 1974. They reflected his anger and agony at Partition — the three films, Meghe Dhaka Tara, Komal Gandhar and Subarnarekha are known as the Partition trilogy. But it was more than the physical and material aspects of Partition that concerned him. Most of the films went far deeper, powerfully exploring the themes of loss, radical uncertainty, disenfranchisement, uprooting, homelessness, dissolution of identity and a sense of emptiness in the mind. These were placed against sweeping, epic landscapes and fragile homes in many films.

Ironically, this is the year of Special Intensive Revision in West Bengal. It has aroused similar uncertainties, fears of disenfranchisement and homelessness. These have culminated in suicides; reports of deletions from the electoral roll in Bihar have not helped matters. Ghatak’s films were located in Bengal, yet their themes were universal. In that sense, it is not SIR alone, but immigrant and fleeing populations the world over mirror the same concerns today. Where is home? How is it to be established that one particular place is home? Is there any escape from a fundamental instability? Ghatak’s questions can be repeated today in the wake of SIR. The fear of losing home, in the broadest sense of the term, is primal. SIR has awakened this primal fear.

From Nagarik onwards, Ghatak’s characters are often being uprooted from their homes and are searching for new ones. In Bari Theke Paliye, the headmaster’s naughty son runs away from home but returns after many adventures. In Meghe Dhaka Tara, Nita is the only earning member of her family and nurtures her home. Yet she has to leave this shelter when she falls ill. Subarnarekha repeatedly refers to the dream of a new home, yet when asked where he lives towards the beginning of the film, the main character, Iswar, replies that he lives nowhere. This is after Partition when he has lost everything. The emptiness this implies seems reflected in the arid landscape near the river, Subarnarekha, where he tries to build a new life. But that too is destroyed by tragedy and he has to leave home again. Ghatak appears to be so contemporary it seems that if he knew about SIR he would have portrayed the deep disturbance it is causing. Art and life could not have been closer.