History is kind to Victors!

Churchill's Secret Wars (2010)

(The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during WW2)
Author: Madhusree Mukerjee

In 1952, Nehru appeared on BBC TV in his first ever TV appearance. He was invited to the UK to partake in the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. As the head of a former colony of the Crown, Nehru was there, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Winston Churchill, gracing the event. By that time, Churchill had descended from his intense contempt for all races except whites. Churchill must have been brimming from ear to ear as India and many other former colonies had consented to stay under the umbrage of the Crown under the title of the Commonwealth. If two hundred years of looting of wealth from India was insufficient, now their subjects have agreed to make their wealth common! 

It is ironic that Nehru and the bulk of the Congress leaders spent crouched in jail all through the most pivotal years before Indian independence, during World War 2. It was the time all the wheeling and dealing of talk of carving the country was in progress. In 1953, barely ten years after the ugly Partition, there was its leader chummy with their brutal colonial masters. Nehru says no offence in the interview when asked about the 18 years he spent behind bars fighting for India's independence. What the interviewer did not mention was the systematic philandering of India's wealth over 200 years, which saw India spiral down from a country which allegedly possessed over 20% of the world's GDP in mid 18th century to become the sixth poorest country in the world when the British left India.

No wonder the current generation of Indians want to re-evaluate and re-write their history, not from the viewpoint of the conquerors but the conquered. As the African proverb goes, "Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter."

The events surrounding the systemic state-sponsored persecution and mass murder are constantly reminded to the world. The word 'Holocaust' is almost synonymous with the killing of six million Jews by Nazis during WW2. The world has not been fed about the repeated famine-related deaths that the Jewel in the Crown of the British Raj had to endure to enrich its colonial masters and his countrymen were well fed.

In 1950, Winston Churchill embarked on a journey to write the history of the perilous times of the 20th century. He wanted to ink his legacy of how he defended his tiny island nation and shouldered the burden of her mighty empire. His six-volume just conveniently forgot to mention Bengal's 1943 famine which engulfed nearly 700,000 lives by modest colonial estimates and up to 5 million, according to village scribes and academics.

It was a heartless inhumane strategy to sacrifice the perceived lesser human race to safeguard and feed the Europeans. When Churchill was repeatedly told about Bengal's humanitarian crises, he blamed the malady squarely on the Indians for breeding like rabbits. 

In reality, it was the British's elaborate plan to impoverish and weaken the Indians. It constituted part of its strategy to defeat the enemies of the Allied Forces. Just as there was the threat of the Japanese from India's eastern borders, the British scorched all the rice fields. The produce, however, was shipped off to feed the Allied soldiers. Then there was the subsequent smuggling, hoarding and spiralling of food prices. Farmers who fed the nation instead died of hunger. There was no plan whatsoever on the part of the British to rectify this. In fact, the efforts by the local British representatives were thwarted by Churchill. To Churchill, it was imperative to feed hungry Europeans than some brown people. In Churchill, rationing of food to the British was unthinkable. At no time during WW2 did the UK have any food shortage. Famine was endemic in India all through the British Raj rule. Approximately 15 million died from 1850 to 1899 in 24 major famines.

Mother Nature had not been to the Bengal region. Before this famine, there was a devastating monsoon. Then there was the heavy taxation. And the British scorched the fields to prevent the Japanese from getting their food supply. Shipments of food supply from the US, Canada and Australia scheduled to arrive in India never made it.

"I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits." -Winston Churchill

Churchill always tries to put the narrative that Hindus are an uncouth race. The enlightened followers of the Abrahamic faith stand to be oppressed in an Independent India if India was a free nation. With the increasing debt accumulated because of WW2 and lopsided trade practices that impoverished the Empire, Britain had let go of its colonies. The India that Britain encountered 200 years previously was submissive and easily conquerable. It was like that no more. Initially, Gandhi and his passive resistance to demanding self-rule worked just fine. It was India's death wish, and the British easily thumped their boots on the resisting freedom fighters. The coup de grâce came as a mutiny of the British Indian Navy after the trial of captured Indian National Army prisoners of war in Delhi.

Jinnah and his band of born-again Muslims decided to play their victim card that people of the Muslim-dominated areas in India would be treated as second-class citizens in an independent India. They started demanding a piece of land to be carved out of India to call their own, a new true blue Islamic country named Pakistan. The British thought it was a jolly good idea too. The rest is history.

This book results from years of meticulous research into many de-classified British documents. It concentrates mainly on Churchill's mishandling of the 1943 Bengal famine and eventual Partition. The author's point is that he intensely disliked the non-white race. His actions indicate that he was stuck in his Victorian mindset. He felt that the white race was superior and it was the white man's burden to civilise and govern over the rest. Churchill's handling of the famine can border on negligence or criminal by today's standard. Despite all these, the world puts Churchill on a pedestal, hailing him as a true statesman and a great leader.  

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No one gives a damn really!

Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Clapped Star, Bengali, 1960)
Screenplay & Direction: Ritwik Ghatak

I saw him brought in earlier in handcuffs and was attended to by my seniors. I noticed that everyone was looking at him with judgemental looks. So as not to embarrass him further, I just immersed myself in work. Still, from the corners of my eye, I did notice that he looked too intelligent to be wearing prison attire and be shoved around like a common criminal.

He must have seen me clerking the patients all through the afternoon, and there I was, still attending to patients at 10pm, as the first frontliner and the most junior of the staff. I must have looked gullible enough for him to quietly signal me to come beside him as I passed him by.

.

So, when he called me, I was curious. He complained he had chest pains that could be a heart attack and needed a certification letter that he had a massive myocardial infarction. I was scratching my head. At most, he could be having some musculoskeletal discomfort. His symptoms and ECG suggested that the possibility of a full-blown cardiac event was remote. I told him, "I will see what I can do", and never went in his direction again.

I later found out he was a senior lawyer charged with a criminal breach of trust suit and was scheduled to appear in courts the following day, hence the delay tactic. And, I was the sucker to be used for his personal intent.

For a long time, I was annoyed by the event. There I was, squeezing my brains trying to sort out the best treatment for the ill patients, and someone out there was one-minded to get me into trouble and sweet talk me for his nefarious intentions. 

As the years went on, I soon realised that nobody actually gives anyone a damn. At the end of the day, it is all about self-sustenance and personal gratification. If I were working through lunch that day because I thought the patients needed more urgent attention than my suppressible hunger, it is no fault of the patients. It was mine for not prioritising and lack of foresightedness. As if these things are predictable? I chose my line of duty. I thought it was my calling, so stop whining. I am just a mere spoke in the wheel of human civilisation. And the direction of the human march is forward, and I am the lubrication to ensure smooth motion. Nobody is worried that the lubricant dries up or gets denatured. It is what it is.

This 1960 Bengali movie reminded me of that event that happened 33 years ago. The film was made by a legendary filmmaker, Ritwik Ghatak, who is often to referred to as the second most influential director to another great Bengali moviemaker, Satyajit Ray. Ghatak's compositions combine neo-realism with a bit of over-dramatisation to portray the society we live in. Many of his films show female empowerment, societal divisions and the effect of the 1947 Partition on the Bengal region.

Khuki's family is a refugee family affected by the Partition. The family is probably from the Bhadralok class of society who benefitted from the British Rule acquiring Western education and 'cultured' behaviour. All that came to nought overnight as they were deprived of homes and possessions after the bloody feud for statehood. So this middle-upper echelon of East Bengal spilt over westwardly for survival.

Khuki's father is an old school teacher who could recite Keats and Shakespeare at the drop of a hat, becomes debilitated after a fall. The responsibility of caring for the family falls on Khuki. She has ambitions of higher education and marriage to the love of her life, Sanat.

Khuki's mother is forever complaining of increasing expenses for the household. The eldest son of the family, Shankar, is only interested in being a world-class singer. Till then, he was not planning to do any other work. A younger brother, Mantu, is a keen sportsman. The youngest, Gita, is a dreamy young girl interested in staying pretty and not in her studies.

Khuki sacrifices all desires for the well being of the family. She surrenders her salary, gives up her comfort and even gives up her man to be married off to her sister. What she gets in return is just more demands and contempt. All the stresses did not augur well for Khuki.

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About Bengal famine.

Churchill's Secret War (2010)
Author: Madhusree Mukerjee

Besides participating in the Boer War and WW1 personally, as a Prime Minister, he spearheaded the Allied Forces in World War 2; Winston Churchill made it his life ambition to destroy India. His handling of the 1943 Bengal famine is equal to genocide. Instead of being responsible colonial masters taking care of their colonies that helped to propel their economies, he chose to blame the shortage solely as the natives' fault for choosing to breed like a rabbit. In his same tone of contempt, he verbalised, "Why isn't Gandhi dead yet?"

At the heights of the Second World War, the British had its hands tied all over the place. It was trying to act as the biggest superpower. In reality, it was bleeding. India was supplying all its credit needs. In essence, on paper, the British bought India's produce with a promise to pay later. And later was after WW2 when Britain was in dire straits and had to let them go.

Britain was also not self-sufficient as far as its food supply was concerned. Churchill had to feed his people throughout the war. He was dependent on the colonies for that - from Australia and the Americas too. The war made it difficult to move the food supply around. The U-boats were supposedly terrorising the Atlantic. In reality, however, there was only one such attack on commercial ships. There was a fear that the Japanese may enter India via Burma, made worse by the support by Bose's Indian National Army.

To deprive the invading foes of food supply, stockpiles were moved and even burnt. Restrictions were imposed on the transportation of rice. On top of that, the agricultural yield in 1943 was dismal after a typhoon. Massive famine ensued. Instead of moving grains from other parts of India to fill in for the need, Churchill did just the opposite. Produce from the Punjab region were siphoned to feed the war troops in the Mediterranean. In Churchill's eyes, feeding Indians serving the British army was equivalent to providing for the whole of India. Imports from Australia were detoured to Ceylon. Despite being advised of the situation on the ground, the one-tracked hotheaded imperialist Churchill gave two hoots to the misery of the Bengalis. He kept dragging his feet to send aid. Contribution from American civil societies also did not make it to India.

The final outcome is a devastating famine in the Bengal region estimated to have reached 3 million by some studies. It became a testbed for what deprivation of food could do to Man. It brought out the best and worst of mankind. Mothers killed their children to ease their suffering. Lactating mothers were seen feeding their already dead babies. The mothers themselves were skin and bones. Some families had to sell their teenage girls to brothels to feed the rest. Many young brides kept themselves alive by marrying old widowers for food. It was common for British officers in India to give their supplies to the pleading and dying locals, but this was supposedly illegal. Eyewitnesses of the devastation at the ground are described in gruesome details in this book.

It is ironic that despite all the miseries that were taking, business in Sonaganj, a brothel village established around the time the British established Calcutta as their administrative capital, prospered with many few intakes! Sonaganj laboured through these hard times and remain the biggest brothel complex in the world.

Churchill's subsequent election loss spurred him to write history to put his perspective history as the correct one, one where he would not be painted as the villain. His statement before the House of Common in 1948 summed it all, "For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself."

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After all these years...

Stories by Rabindranath Tagore

Netflix (26 episodes; 2015)

Even though Tagore wrote these stories more than a hundred years ago, it remains fresh and relevant to today. 

Rabindranath lived at a time when India, as well as the rest of the world, was rapidly changing. His motherland, after missing the bus of the Industrial Revolution, thanks to the British East India Company and the British Empire, was doing catch up. Starting with the First Indian Rebellion @ Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, India had awoken. After being plundered by foreign forces repeatedly, it tried to make social and political changes. Many leaders emerged. Some approached them through political means, others through armed hostility and yet some via passive aggression. Tagore infiltrated the minds with his literary work.

This collection of twenty stories in twenty-six episodes cover a range of issues. The stories were authored by Tagore between 1890 and 1941, just before his death. They talk about the mistreatment of young widows, the evil dowry system, caste system, freedom in terms of Independence and free from incumbrances of life and society. Woman empowerment is a recurring theme, and his characters are mostly strong female characters.


Tagore's seminal novel ' Choker Bali' (Dust in the Eye) starts the series. A young widow tries to seduce the man who turned down her marriage as a revenge to her widowhood and the restrictions imposed on her by society. Atithi (Guest) is about a runaway boy who feels trapped, growing up in a restrictive home environment. He grows up in a zamindar's house only to run away again when marriage is proposed upon him with the landlord's daughter. There are just too much to learn from the world than to be exclusively tied down in one place.

It is a joy to see how each story segues into another. There is usually a common place where the path of the characters of one story meet with another, and the camera leads on to the next one.

'Maanbhajan' (Fury Appeased) is about another woman empowerment story. Left by her husband for an actress, the wife, fascinated by the theatre, becomes a famous actress herself in a poetic 'tit-for-tat' move. 

The series also includes a light comedy (Detective and Dhai Aakhar Prem Ka), a delve into the paranormal (Kankal and Monihara), a retelling of Satyajit Ray's 'Charulata' (Nastarinh), loneliness (Waaris), inclusiveness (Kabuliwalla), familial sacrifice (Shasthi), servile loyalty (Wafadaar), on domineering familial hierarchy (Aparchita and Mrinal ki Chitti) and the futility of vengeance (Dalia).

Rabindranath Tagore differed with some of the views held by Gandhi. Even though both fought for freedom, Tagore also wanted escapism from the clutches of unreasonable traditional beliefs. He also had the impression that we should embrace modernity Interestingly, Gandhi, who opposed the introduction of railways into India, used the Indian trains to disseminate all his ideologies to the masses. Both of them also had contrary outlooks of sex and relationships. Whilst Gandhi experimented with sexual abstinence, Tagore was freewriting about domestic issues and intrafamilial problems.

The series was a feast for the eyes. Kudos for the cinematography for bringing out the best in the outdoor camerawork can do. Viewers are transported back to the 1920s pre-Independent pre-Partition Bengal, complete with the serene and tranquil greenery, the props and costumes that befit the era. It is a joy to view the old Victorian-styled buildings and bulky antique furniture. It is highly recommended.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. 

The feminine force unleashed!

Encountering Kali 
(In the margins, at the centre, in the west)
Edited by Rachel F McDermott, & Jeffrey J. Kirpal

To the uninitiated, like the Europeans who arrived on the Indian shores to encounter its natives paying homage to a gory angry looking dark imaged Goddess with weapons of destruction hanging from her multiple arms, wearing a necklace of human scalps, skirt of human limbs and protruding tongue, it must be the image of Devil itself. For the non-believers, it must have appeared like devil worship and a warped sense of divinity of the tribal people. To the natives, however, it is their expression of the embodiment of how the world is to them.

The world is a cruel place. Man's survival is paved with the daily struggle against the elements of Nature and is a constant combat against various atrocities. It is not easy, but life has to go on. Civilised people in India had apparently realised these long ago, even before the spread of Brahmanic and Vedic teachings. The forces of Nature are believed to be feminine in origin. The same mother with the maternal instincts to cuddle is the same one that shows wrath when she is not pleased. The same mother, despite her anger, would not bear to see a hungry child cry. Hence, her bosomy posture with an angry looking stance. The rage within Devi is also to combat negative forces in the world.

The Devi, Sakthi, the generic name for this female divinity, assumes many roles. In the form of a loving wife and kind mother, she is Parvathi, the consort of Lord Shiva. When the situation warrants, she would assume the role of Durga, the fearsome tiger-riding Goddess. Certain quarters insist that it is from the female energies indeed that the Trimurti, the union of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva (the creator, protector and destroyer respectively) arise. In fact, She is Brahman, the ultimate force that spins the Universe.

Kali is said to be the concept that resides in the female psyche. It is the dominant force which climaxes when a situation warrants for her to be to protect her loved ones. When a wounded animal is cornered for the last kill, it will garner all its last remaining strength to fight back, most voraciously and in an unstoppable manner. That is Kali. It is said in a Purana that this force was invoked when a demon (asura) obtained a boon from Brahma which promised indestructibility by any living man. Kali, with the help of Shiva, was so intoxicated with the victory over this demon and the gore of his blood that She went on a rampage. The carnage went on. She was on a killing spree that no one could stop. Shiva was called in to stop his 'wife'. Shiva laid amongst the corpse. Only when Kali realised that She was stepping on Shiva, she relented whilst biting her tongue. That is the persona of an embarrassed lady, extruding her tongue and gently biting it!

While some would look at Kali as the current state of the world, hostile and unforgiving, there is still some humanity in the form of comfort and security from this towering figure. Others would associate Her with the left-handed Tantric practices. These are habits considered deviant from the mainstream, the use of sexual energies of the unsanctioned kind, intoxicants and abnormal behaviours. In the realistic world, these negative forces still make up the equilibrium of the world that we live in.

Dakshineswar stance

The belief in the feminine forces of Nature predates Brahmanic and Vedantic teachings. It was a way then to appease the forces with blood sacrifice. Some quarters assert that it is a perverted practice. When the seemingly humane practices of avoiding animal sacrifices came forth, Kali worship became marginalised. It was taken to areas considered to be at the fringe of civilisation, Bengal, South India and the mountainous areas of India. When sea transportation became a trendy thing, Kali worship was re-introduced to the world, at least to the Western world through Calcutta and sea-ports of the South.

To the marginalised societies, Kali gives them hope and redemption. To the Tamils who were persecuted during the Sri Lanka's systemic genocide, She shone a light on them despite all the adversities. Like Her, behind the epitome of destruction, there was a glimmer of love and maternal cuddle to the hungry and the tortured ones. Oracles who invoked the spirit of Kali gave them closure to their missing or lost loved ones. Kali was not expected to change or be blamed for the situation they were caught in but rather remained a beacon of hope to the downtrodden.

These tuft of faith was also given to the indentured labourers who crossed oceans for survival. Kali worship is still widespread in South East Asia, the Caribbean Islands and the spread of islands over the Indian Ocean.

As the world became 'civilised' and inhumane blood offerings became a taboo in the eyes of non-tribal people, there was an attempt to classify Kali worship as 'low-caste' or subversive. The practitioners of younger religions like Jain, Buddhism and Brahmanic brand of faith, viewed it as the devotion of the low-caste, natives and the dark-skinned South Indian coolies, especially so in places they were brought in as labourers.

It is interesting to note how the word 'thug' made it into the English Language. It was just about the time when Indian raised arms against their colonial masters just after the 1857 Sepoy Revolution. The wanted terrorists (freedom fighters) ran into the Vindhya mountains to escape persecution and found solace in Devi Thuggee (a manifestation of Kali) temples. Soon these troublemakers were labelled as thugs. Of course, for the hunted they just yearned for an abode of hope in their patron Goddess to focus on their next move.

From Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Psychoanalysts do not want to be left out in the interpretation of what Kali means to the world. The female gender has always been said to passive and irrational, at least in the eyes of the West. The community expected the male counterpart to take charge of the situation to maintain order. Feminity has a wild, aggressive side which is kept under a calm demeanour that they seem to exhibit. When the situation demands or the time is ripe, the explosive magma of physical energies, sexual prowess and rage just spew out. Another critic suggested that perhaps the West is a male-dominated society with their phallic projections penetrating the weaker natives. To see a powerful feminine force with pent-up energies was unacceptable. Hence, the denigration of Goddess Kali in the mainstream media and by the celluloid industry. Take for example the depiction of Kali in 'Help!' (1966) and 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' (1984). For believers of Kali as their guardian, the whole persona of this Goddess is just Mimesis, imitation of real life in art form - a dialectical, double-edged, complex play of mimesis and imagery! Kali is Mother India against foreign oppressors (Ferringhi). I suppose, for the colonists, it is reverse mimesis. Many Indian Independence fighters like Bose and Aurobindo used this dark avenging ferocious icon to rise to the occasion, whereas Gandhi must have used the subtler subdued form of Kali when he opted for passive resistance.

This towering matriarchal role of Goddess Kali in our daily lives cannot be overstated. As the unifying force Nature is feminine, it has to assume different roles in combating different situations. The message here is that an angry mother, no matter how angry she is, would still feed her crying child. We have to understand that the narrations are that of people from vast areas with their own perception of the Divine. Therefore, the knowledge may have been lost in transit or in translation. The idea is that all our attributes are divine and our ability to converse, mobilise, protect and think is a blessing to cherish. These are remembered on certain days, like Navarathri.

In the modern era, after being oppressed for millenniums, the female gender is out with a bang. Their dormant powers have suddenly been unleashed. The fairer sex is out with a vengeance. They are now slowly but surely making their presence felt in all fields including some that were considered too physically or intellectually demanding for what used to be called the 'fairer' sex.

Another blast from the past, again?

Parineeta (2005)
May be the Indians are very sentimental people. They like to reenact events of the past and reminisce it again and again. This, is quite evident in this film. More of these later.
This love story was penned by a contemporary of Ravindranath Tagore, Bengal's another favourite son, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay in 1914. It made its entry into the Indian silver screen in 1953 through its namesake acted out by Ashok Kumar and Meena Kumari. It boasts of being a classic with memorable dialogues.
Like in most romantic dramas, especially an Indian one, it revolves around what appears like a love triangle but within the confines of Indians' one man one woman tradition! A woman or a man who have accepted the other as life partner stays like that till death do them apart, may be in not so dramatic way.
It is a story of a the main characters Sekhar (Saif Ali Khan) and Lalita (Vidya Balan, debutant) growing together as neighbours and close friends. Lalita's name here is made to sound Anglicised, Lolita, to keep it fresh and mysterious to keep with times, perhaps to lure the sex crazed Indian public to the theatres as the name Lolita gained notoriety through Stanley Kubrik's 1962 film! Lolita also sounds Bengali, as Calcutta is the location of the movie.
Sekhar is the son to a ruthless industrialist. Lalita is an orphan who grew up with her uncle in the house next door. The uncle, in dire straits, mortgaged the house cheap to Sekhar's house. Sekhar's father tries all his tricks to take over the neighbour's property to build a hotel there. That is the root of the crisis in the movie. Sekhar and Lalita's love life came to an abrupt halt when a deep pocketed relative from UK, Giresh, (Sanjay Dutt) bails them out.
In frustration, Sekhar's father bad mouths Lalita and cajoles Sekhar to marry a fellow industrialist friend's daughter. Sekhar thinks Giresh is doing all that to woo Lalita.
In the end, all turns out well.
The thing about living in the past, reminiscing the glorious past...
Even though the present generation have left the pre-Independence and have embraced head long into the future, I cannot help but imagine that this film is romanticising the past. The music score is reminiscent of 1942 Love Story. There are a few scenes that remind me of Satyjit Ray's 'Charulatha'. If I am not wrong, a song from that movie is also in the song list. Rekha makes a cameo appearance as a cabaret singer in a sing that sounds strangely familiar!
Of course, no movie shot in Calcutta is complete without Howrah Bridge and the submerging of the diety during Durga Pooja!

To be or not to be uncle!

Agatuk (Stranger; Bengali, 1991)
Director: Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray, like Hitchcock, must be one of those who never made a bad movie. This is evident in his swan song, which morphed a simple story of a stranger coming into a household into a philosophical discourse on religion, man and civilisation. And attention-grabbing one, at that!

It is a display of simple storytelling with an array of traditional music and tribal dances minus the skilful special effects gadgetry and unrelated pointless visualisation of the human anatomy.
The story mocks the modern society, which is perceived to be suspicious of others and is selfish itself.

Anila and Sudhindra Bose are a middle-class couple with a preteen son, Satyaki. One day, Anila receives a letter from a long lost uncle who left the country some 35 years earlier. He announces his stop-over in Calcutta before leaving off to Australia. Being a gracious guest, he stated in his letter that his host was not obliged to receive him but hoped that they would in keeping with Indian tradition.

This created a suspicion in the mind of the husband. Anila was elated to receive him as he had left when she was only 2 years old.

The uncle, Manomohan Mitra, finally arrives. He turned out to be quite a cheerful and a knowledgeable chap who had spent time in many parts of the world, affluent and backwards, in cities and with tribes.

The seemingly simple man with big ideas again cast doubt on his credibility. A great man with no wealth to show off? And not married after all these years? Is he loafer who would stick with them like a leech? The suspense was killing them. Sudhindra politely peeks into his passport to verify his true identity. It corresponds, but then Mitra himself created an element of doubt. Mitra questioned him how he could believe the passport when it was so easy to fake a passport with modern technology.

A friend, Ranjan, a comedian by profession, tries to tease out more information on his intentions. It develops into an intelligent banter. A city is said to have progressed with its tall skyscrapers and modern infrastructure, but then there are the rickshaw pullers in Calcutta and the homeless in New York. So, where is the progress? Ranjan suggested that perhaps Bengalis are engaged in too much of chit-chatting (Adda). To this, Mitra replied that the Greeks, who believed that a healthy body makes a healthy mind, had gymnasiums where discussions of highest intellect happened there. It later produced great thinkers like Socrates and Plato. So, Adda was not bad, provided it was used for positive reasons.

Then Anila remembered that Mitra's inheritance was not given to him during her grandfather's demise as Mitra was not contactable. Was he there to make trouble and kick a fuss? These were the dilemmas spinning around the couples' minds. Only the son, the simple-minded boy and his friends think he is genuine.

At Alto Mira

Sudhindra engages a lawyer friend, Sengupta, to ascertain whether the stranger in his house is genuine. Another exciting discourse develops. Mitra, after being exposed to the splendour of ancient civilisation, via the picture of cave wall painting of bison of the cave of Alto Mira, decided to see the world. With his princely gift, he worked, saved money, got a degree in Anthropology, stayed with Native American tribes and learnt many secrets of life. The supposed civilisation in a city is an illusion. The sight of people injecting poisons into their veins or destroying a whole nation with a press of a button is anything but civil. The ancient civilisation also had technology in learning to farm, build, weave, music, culture and others. They also discuss cannibalism and promiscuity. Mitra holds wedlock as something very sacred. This, I feel, is the best dialogue of the movie.
At the end of the movie, Mitra actually gets his due inheritance but gives it to the Boses before leaving for Australia virtually embarrassing them.

Man has evolved to become self-centred, egoistic, suspicious of each other and have lost the common courtesy to help each other. The seed of doubt sows suspicion, and soon every action seems to strengthen our suspicion as our mind wants to see it. The so-called 'civilised' urban society considered them 'advanced' at the epitome of human capabilities and achievements. They look down upon the indigenous or tribal people. Their lack of technological know-how is frowned upon. They forget that the higher man climbs the stepladder of industrialisation, the more they become consumers rather than innovators. 

They emphasise their priorities on worldly wealth-related values rather than the old noble values that our forefather so adamantly tried to impress. Humane intra-species and inter-species courtesy is lost. Suspicion creeps in. We forget that we were actually one species which were quite innovative and managed to survive in the wilderness all these years.
Imagine a day some 500 years ago... We are cooped away in the confines of our nearest hills and forests, beyond that spelt danger. Sea was unpredictable. After 12 hours of natural light, it was pitch black wilderness. We used our ingenuity to learn things from the stars, the moon, the sun and their positions at different times to give us a sense of time, season and space to help our crops, food and survival. The native tribes still use the knowledge from nature to this day. Who says they are backward? Their priorities may be different, but they are here on the same journey with us...

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The meaning of life?

Shakha Prosakha (Branches of the Tree, Bengali; 1990)
Story, Screenplay, Direction: Satyajit Ray

This is one of Ray's swan song. It is a layered tale questioning the meaning of life, intergenerational priorities and the pressure of growing up to live up to peoples' expectations.

Ananda Majumdar is a 70-year-old retired industrialist who raised the rank and files from a worker to the position of partner in a big company, honoured by the town for his philanthropy work. He is highly respected by the community, and his biography had just been written.

He is a widower with 4 sons. He lives with his senile father of 90 years old and his second son with had a head injury during his university days and had to discontinue his studies. The second son, Proshanto (Soumitra Chatterjee in his subdued supportive role, in most of Ray's movies he is the leading actor), is living in his own world oblivious of the surroundings, talking only occasionally, somewhat coherently, sometimes abusively and spending most of his time in solitude and listening music.

Ananda is afflicted with myocardial infarction during a ceremony honouring his 70th birthday. Reluctantly, the three working sons, come home to roost to fulfil filial piety. 

The eldest, Probodh, is doing well in life. The third, Probir, is also doing well but is a chronic smoker and a gambler. The fourth son, Protap, is single was employed in a high post for 10 years till recently, as the family later found out.

The main crux of the story is how the three siblings, 2 wives and Probodh's young son mingle with each other. The two topics of conversation include the 90-year-old grandfather wasted present meaningless life which is childlike and is clueless about his surroundings. He needs constant supervision, feeding and dressing. They also lament the misfortune that had struck Proshanto, who was the brightest of them all.

Senior had always believed in 2 principles in life - Work is life, and earning money should be honest. Probodh and Probir had an argument on their respective lives where their earned money is nothing but healthy; Probodh who under-declared his earnings to evade tax to enjoy a comfortable life and Probir who gambled excessively at the races. The brothers discover that Protap had given up his well paying as he could not stomach the corruption that was that his superiors were indulged in.

He had now joined a theatre group and thinks he would do just well. He had found a girl and matrimony was in the pipeline. At least some of them agree that life in the present day was different than that of their father's time. Corruption and unhealthy money were inevitable.

After a week of fellowship and with the father improving, health-wise, the three brothers and the entourage leaves back home.

The grandson wishes the grandfather farewell and inadvertently mentioned to him that his father and uncle were acquiring unhealthy money, leaving Ananda quite devastated. The entourage leaves, leaving the three people whose lives are no longer in the rat race as the others to rough it out in the old house in their own world! 

Sherlock strikes again!

Joi Baba Felunath (The Elephant God, 1978; Bengal)

Satyajit Ray's Sherlock Holmes of the East strikes again! This time around, he (Feluda, who was seen in Sonar Kella; Soumitra Chatterjee), Jatayu (the writer) and cousin/assistant Topshe are summoned during their vacation in the holy city of Benares to investigate the missing Ganesha statue.

 
This simple case becomes complicated as the people get killed, everyone in the household becomes a suspect, and Feluda and friends are threatened by a local businessman who is also a no-good antique treasure merchant. Along the way comes a sage, Machlibaba, named so as he allegedly swam from Calcutta to Benares and gives fish scales as blessed tokens!

I sense a sense of cynicism on the part of the director. Even the meanest villains have pictures of Gods decorating their walls, even when he has a gun pointed at Feluda!

He is trying to depict the fakeness of the holy men and the supposedly holy people of Benares!

When it comes to religion...

Ganashatru (Enemy of The People; 1989)

Director: Satyajit Ray

When it comes to obligations to God and religion, somehow man forgets all the common courtesy towards fellow mankind and has no qualms in creating anarchy, the exact opposite thing that religion is trying to propagate - Peace on Earth!

No amount of rhetoric will change what had allegedly been carved on stone by divine forces. When one argues using scientific arguments to save mankind, he is accused of mocking religion and is being a non-believer. People forget that believing in God is different from believing in a religion!

Dr Ashoke Gupta noticed that many of his hospital and private patients have been down with infectious hepatitis. He suspects that this could be due to a leakage in the sewage pipe. He fears that many devotees to the nearby may also be infected as they are usually given to drink holy water which is from the same source.

Dr Gupta (Soumitra Chatterjee) puts forward this proposal to his brother, Nishit, an industrialist and a trustee in the local temple. Nishit is an influential figure in the small town that they live in. He was also instrumental in securing Dr Gupta's job. Nishit opposes the good doctor's intention to get his proof published in the local newspaper to alert the general public. He even had laboratory results to prove his claim.

As the town economy thrived on pilgrims to the temple, the panic was terrible for business! 

The temple chief reassures that the tulsi leave and other additives, together with divine intervention, had reassured the safety of devotees for time immemorial in the Hindu culture.

After much deliberation, Dr Gupta brings his article to the local press for publication. Here, it is met with a lot of resistance. Due to pressures from the temple and local municipality, the Editor declines. He cites fear of poor public ratings of his newspaper as his reason for his refusal even when Dr argues that the papers had a moral duty to alert a potential catastrophe.

After meeting a cul-de-sac, Dr Gupta arranges for a public forum. Getting a hall was no easy task; the industrialists were too powerful to intercept. Finally, when a meeting was set, it was sabotaged by Nishit,  the temple trustee and the Editor. They managed to convince the general public that the doctor was an atheist and was a danger to the practice of their sacred religion. A mob ensued.

The loving doctor who, all this while, had been a saviour to many in his 26 years of service becomes public enemy No. 1!

His daughter, a teacher in the local school, is dismissed after pressure from students'  parents. The doctor is dismissed from the hospital, and even the landlord wants to evict him.

In the midst of all that, Dr Gupta gets a new lease of life when his daughter's boyfriend, a person in the art circle, reiterates that his friends in the theatre scene were fully behind him. The Editor's assistant, who had resigned after the debacle, promised to get his interview and article published in a more prominent newspaper in Calcutta. Dr Gupta is relieved knowing that he is not alone. An entertaining drama.

A great thinking poet

Rabindranath Tagore (Documentary, 1961)
Written, narrated, directed: Satyajit Ray
It is said that Ray is related to Tagore. The Tagores were initially from the Banerjee clan but over time they became to be called Thakur as they were Brahmins and headed the society. Thakur became Tagore. Born in a wealthy family in Bengal, he was born with a silver spoon as the thirteenth child to a 45year old mother. He did not really shine in his childhood and even in adulthood, he did not complete his tertiary education.
Gradually wisdom came to him in his late twenties and the turning point came when there was tragedy in his family - 3 deaths in family; his wife, his daughter and his son.
His fame spread worldwide when his poem 'Gitanjali' was praised by Yeats which made Tagore the first non-European recipient of Nobel prize for Literature. He was also knighted by the Queen which he renounced after 1919 English massacre of Indians in Punjab.
Rabindranath's influence went beyond poetry. He had intellectual discourse with scientists and thinkers. He worked at the ground level to improve the well being of the Indian poor. His songs were patriotic in nature to stir the nationalistic spirit in the pre-Independence India. He established centres for learning of Indian arts.
His compositions made part of the national anthem of India, Bangladesh and even Sri Lanka.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore

Sonar Kella

Sonar Kella (Bengali, Golden Fortress; 1974)
Director: Satyajit Ray

This colour film deviates from his Ray's usual fare as this is more of a children feature film which involved thriller, suspense, adventure, comedy of errors and mystic rather than his typical social messages. It also looks like a feature film made to show the splendour and beauty of Rajasthan as well.
It starts with the startled parents whose tween son, Mukhul, who keeps on waking up every night to draw and describe a particular golden castle that he grew up in and vividly describes of treasures and precious stones.

The parents' concern becomes the talk of the town, articles in the newspaper and the interest of 2 small times crooks (Burman and Bose) when the mention of treasures come in the limelight.
A parapsychologist, Dr Hajra, interested in the boy's case volunteers to take Mukul to Jaipur to locate the said castle (even though nobody actually knows the exact the location). He was hoping that Mukul would, after looking at the correct fortress and the secret of his past life can be revealed.

The bumbling crooks tried to kidnap Mukul but ended up with a wrong boy with the same name.

After discovering that his son's life may be in danger, Mukul's father hires a private investigator, Feluda to protect his son who had already left for Jaipur. Feluda has an assistant, his nephew, Tapshe, a teenager who accompanies him on his adventure.

The crooks, realising their goof, managed to catch up with Dr Hajra and Mukul. They managed to dupe the good doctor and push him off a cliff and Burman switched role as 'Dr Hajra'. Bose masquerade as a travelling globetrotter.

Feluda meets up with the impostors and looks for the castle unsuspectingly. Meanwhile, the impostors are trying to get the investigators off their backs. The real Dr Hajra survives the fall and follows all of them in disguise, confusing the situation further. At the end of the day, all turn up well; the crooks caught, the truth discovered and Mukul's father in a past life was a gem cutter, not one who hid treasures!

The dialogue is quite witty in its own way. The movie, on the whole, did not really stand out from his other great films.

Men-made famine 1943

Asani Sanket (Distant Thunder; 1973; Bengali)

Director: Satyajit Ray

In 1971, George Harrison and friends including Ravi Shankar, did a mammoth concert to garner support to feed people affected by a civil war as well as a cyclone in 1970.

In 1943, 5 million people from the Bengali subcontinent died due to its most significant man-made famine. This story essentially is about this. It is not a docu-drama about the devastating effects of or the hopelessness of the calamity but rather a saga about human emotions and reactions to adversity.

Gangacharan Chakravarthy (Soumitra Chatterjee, a regular star in many of Ray's films) is a poor Brahmin who stays in the shack by the edge of a village. He gets on with life with his loving young wife, Ananga, teaching in a village school, treating villagers' ailments and performing religious rituals in return for villagers' respect and food supply. Ganga is respected for his intellect and his high caste.

The sight of flying planes seem to fascinate the simple-minded villagers, but a neighbouring villager warns of the imminent rise of the price of rice because of a looming war. Feeding the fighting Army seems to be the priority of the Government of the day. Slowly we see that as the price of rice increases and the supplies becoming scarce, the mild-mannered nature of villagers gradually changes. Somehow, Ananga still gets a little respect due to his caste.

Life becomes more difficult. Even at a time when hunger is still not satisfied, somehow man's flame for carnal pleasure remains not fizzled. The scariest looking bloke in the village who has a partially burnt face, working in a kiln and shunned by everyone has bargaining power as he has managed to smuggle a large pile of rice stock. 

Ganga has to start working to supplement income. Her friend, a married woman, Chutki, succumbs to scarface's sexual advances for exchange for food.

All her long-held believes about monogamy and chastity go down the drain as hunger builds up.

Even though people from lower caste are dying, the general public shun them. Ganga, the healing touch in him, decides to give a proper cremation for her. The movie ends with the shadow of a group of famine-stricken neighbouring villagers walks towards the Ganga household. Ganga laments that he has another 10 mouths to feed. His wife corrects him by saying '11' whilst rubbing her belly!

The more you watch Ray's movie, the more you appreciate Kurosawa's words - One who has seen the films of Satyajit Ray has lived on earth and has not seen the moon and the stars! How true... sheer pleasure!

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