A peek into 1960s West Bengal...

Arohan (Ascent, Hindi; 1983)
Director: Shyam Benegal

imdb.com/title/tt0083575/

This movie serves as an eye-opener on the political changes in West Bengal. After the East India Company handed over administration of its prized colony to the British Crown in 1858, following the Sepoy Rebellion (also known as the First War of Independence), Calcutta was designated as the Capital of India. The crown built many learning institutions to help the natives aid in the British Raj administration. 

The British realised their mistake in 1905 when Lord Curzon partitioned the region of Bengal into two parts, the West and East, which later became the basis of the Partition of India. The erudite society was also very argumentative and resistant to the colonial government. 

This combative demeanour continued with their son of the soil, Subhash Chandra Bose, who was unceremoniously forced to resign from the Chair of the Indian Congress party. His militant, perhaps left-leaning approach to seeking self-rule was in tune with Gandhi's, as well as the British and the INC's approaches to independence. 

The post-British era saw the leftist movement remain active, particularly through academia and among disgruntled workers. The period from 1967 onwards was seen as the Communist 'golden era'. CPI-M took a stronghold on the running of the State. From 1977 through 2011, the CPI-M Left Front ruled the State. To be honest, in the first ten years, it achieved notable success in land distribution, agriculture, universal education, poverty reduction, and societal restructuring. Slowly, nepotism and misrule crept in. They were highly successful in deterring foreign investors and were primarily responsible for the relocation of many multinational industries and factories. Bengal's loss was another state's gain, e.g. Tamil Nadu. In 2011, Trinamool Congress defeated the Left Front with the support of rural Bengal.

The movie highlights the cruel transition period in rural Bengal circa late 1960s, where the poor sharecroppers are caught between the greedy landlords and the Naxalite movement. The initial arrangement was for the sharecroppers to pay a portion of their harvest as rent to the landowners. Hard times hit the sharecroppers, and they approached the landlords for loans. The illiterate peasants are cheated through one-sided agreements that they cannot read. They are instead employed as wage-earning workers. The younger ones among them head to the city, but go astray after being cheated blind.

The sharecroppers are also harassed by the Naxalite movement, which encourages them to rebel against the landlords. Amidst all this, there is the most violence, upheavals, and unending court trials that never see the light of day. The story is told in a melodramatic manner. In the parallel cinema of India, the movie portrays the plight of a poor farmer and his extended family during these trying times. It depicts the cruel turn of events for family members who migrated to the bright lights of Calcutta, only to face worse living conditions and disastrous outcomes. In the leading role, Om Puri won a National Award for his part.

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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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Go with the flow?

Subarnarekha (Bengali, 1965)
Story and Direction: Ritwik Ghatak

The world, they say, constantly evolves. Every civilisation has its norms and social mores that it holds close to its heart for its society to follow. Depending on how strongly one community sticks to its belief, sometimes death may seem the most appropriate punishment meted to shirkers. 

The older generation thought they had seen it all. They know who is good and what brings destruction in the end. The young ones from all ages inherently have that rebel streak in them. They refuse to see eye-to-eye with their elders, no matter how well the latter proved themselves to be. This must be Nature's natural way to help the human race explore all avenues and choose the best way to propel forward.

It is no easy task to hang on to old traditions and values when the world is evolving, and it appears to be left behind. Even though we can see that their ways are decadent but why is everyone following them? Are we missing something?

This must be how the elders of Bharat must have felt when the East Indian Company was making inroads into India. With all the rich traditions and knowledge readily in their motherland, they cannot understand why the younger ones were fascinated with the self-defeating culture of the West.

'Subarnarekha' constitutes Ritwik Ghatak's third offering of the trilogy involving refugees during the Partition of Bengal in 1947. Ishvar Chakraborty leaves East Bengal with his sister Sita. Ishvar hangs around the refugee camp with nothing much to do. He takes in a young refugee boy, Abhiram, whose mother is taken away by zamindars. 

A chance meeting with an old friend brought him a job elsewhere. Despite being labelled as a deserter, he jumps up on the opportunity for seeking greener pasture and leaving the rest. Ishvar's boss is a traditionalist, believing in caste and creed.

Years go on. Abhiram is sent to a boarding school, graduates and become a casual writer. Sita grows up pretty, is musically inclined and falls for Abhiram. Ishvar, by now, is a general manager and is earmarked to be a partner in the foundry he is working. When Sita and Abhiram bring up the idea of marrying, the boss brings up the question of Abhiram's caste. The young ones elope, starting from scratch and scraping the barrel. Ishvar turns out broken and spirals down the ladder of decadence. The end is devastating as both Abhiram and Sita die, and their son goes under the care of his uncle, Ishvar, to stay in his abode by the banks of River Subarnarekha.

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What is the definition of 'normal'?

Paromitar Ek Din ( A day of Paromitar, Bengali; 2000)
Direction: Aparna Sen

Society has defined what is normal and what is not. It has decided social mores on how to behave and what is appropriate. It has set arbitrary levels of what is expected of a family. It determines how it should be portrayed to the world. It is all a facade, a smokescreen, the foundation that is laid on unfinished brickwork to give a final smooth concealing the imperfections beneath. 

The community expects a family to be of certain expectations and to behave in a specific manner to be one of them. Human beings, being social animals, clamour to belong to a group of certain similarities that they go to great extents to showcase what the rest accepts as normality. 

So, despite being trapped in a loveless marriage, we are expected to labour it through, hoping that love will conquer it all. We want to be proud of offspring, immerse in their joys and growing old, aspiring to have brought them up as perfect adults for the generation next. Despite the social etiquette, we sometimes find connections in people of the opposite sex whom we are not supposed to be intimate. We sometimes bond with people who are no longer related by society-sanctioned unions or blood or because of circumstance. Maybe because of unexplainable celestial attachments, we still find platonic relationships with the very people tabooed by society. Life is a maze with all its intricacies and no perfect answers. We make our solutions as we go on.

The story of Paromitar is unveiled as she attends her mother-in-law's (or rather her ex-husband's mother) funeral. Paromitar is now remarried and is currently pregnant with her second child. She entered the house seven years previously as a young bride. Her life turned murky after she delivered a child who was diagnosed to have cerebral palsy. Caring for the handicapped child proved too stressful for Paromitar and her husband. Their relationship grew apart. The mother-in-law also had an empty marriage. Together, they found commonality in each other and develop a strong bond. They discovered that both of them have left a joyful life in their 'previous lives' to fulfil their roles as spouses. The child dies, and Paromitar meets another man and leaves her husband.

Also in the background is the mother-in-law's old flame who showed up at the doorstep ever so regularly to chat. We soon discover that the meeting was not merely platonic.

After Paromitar's departure, the mother-in-law becomes sick, needing constant care. Breaking all conventions, Paromitar had returned to the household to care for her before her death.

Aberrations from the norm are common in families. Even though we would like the ocean of life to be smooth, we occasionally encounter high waves and inclement weather. That, in essence, is the meaning of life - to deal with the problems and the unexpected tragedy that are hurled upon us periodically. That is normal. Every family has its own quirks and skeletons up in their closets.

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Order in chaos!

Durga Sohay (Bengali, 2017)

One cannot take Durga worship out of Bengali culture. In this thriller and family drama, much like the externally angry feminine power that paradoxically nurtures the worlds, in the ten days of Durga Pooja, a negative character appears in a family, blends with the family and through love and attention, changes her perspective of life for the better.

It tells the tale of an extended family which lives under one roof. An ailing widowed father who had just been discharged from a hospital for a heart attack stays with two sons, their wives and a grandson. On the surface, they all look like a big happy upper-middle-class family. The two sons run a successful jewellery started by the father. Brewing beneath is animosity between brothers and sister-in-laws. A maid is recruited to care for the father on the first day of the pooja.

Over the few days as the prayers progress, we realise that people with different demeanours, some seeming bad hearted and the kind ones, all come together with the sole purpose to be blessed by the deity. In their minds, what they are doing is perfectly reasonable. Even with ill feelings upon their servants and air of superiority over the less well to do, they feel they deserve the blessings of the Almighty.

Human beings sometimes commit crimes out of desperation to sustain their lives or by circumstance. The question is whether showing compassion and empathy can actually send a potential criminal to regret his actions and turn over a new leave. Are punitive actions necessary to create remorse or are they exercises in futility? Incarceration and capital punishments have shown to reduce crime rates, anyway.

An enjoyable flick showing a quintessential Bengali celebration, their traditions, music and Indian family values.

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!

Power with the People!

Hirok Rajar Deshe (Kingdom of Diamonds, Bengali, 1980)
Director: Satyajit Ray

You will be wondering how a tale set in the medieval times of stories of kings, magic and two main characters who are not exactly the best matches in the box going to impress you. Well, that is the magic of Ray. He even composed the music score and songs for this one.
This film is actually the sequel of Ray's 1969 offering 'Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne' where two village idiots were given magical powers by angry demons who could not stand their croaking!
10 years after that episode, they are comfortably living off their common father-in-law, the King of Shundi. The problem is that they are too comfortable that they are bored. Just then, the King summons them to sing at the courts of Hirok Rajar to honour him on his anniversary at the throne.
To the outsider, Hirok Rakar's kingdom is rich with diamonds. It is all a charade as the the farmers who tow the plough has no food to eat and the diamond miners are too poor to buy stuff.

Baghdad 2003

The King, a tyrant, is surrounded by yeomen,  corrupt 'yesmen' ministers and astrologer who tells him what he wants to hear. A mad scientist is ready with his brain washing machine to 'correct' wayward citizens. The King decrees that all books be burnt and schools closed indefinitely as they were breeding grounds for dissidents.

Hungary 1956

The only school in the land with the sole teacher, Udayan Pandit (Soumitra Chaterjee, again) becomes the enemy of the state and is on the run.

Down with the King!

By chance, he meets the duo (Goopy and Bagha) who were on foot to the palace. With their magical powers and the force of the people, they outwit the regime and manage to use the brain washing machine on the King himself. The movie ends the symbolic destruction of giant statue of the King. This vision is exactly what was seen after the fall of Saddam and the fall of Stalin during the 1956 Hungarian workers' uprising.

Of freedom and emancipation...

Ghare-Baire (Bengali, Home and the World; 1984)
Director: Satyajit Ray

This is a Rabindranath Tagore's 1905 story set at a time when Bengal was divided into two by Lord Curzon. This was the time of the uprising of the Indians against their colonial masters with the shouts of 'Vande Mataram'. The Mussalmans who have been living in peace all this while with the Hindus suddenly feel that their status is threatened. It is also a time of the emancipation of women, especially in the elite circles of Calcutta.

Against this background, Bimla is married off to a wealthy nobleman without even seeing his face. She and her widowed sister in law were confined to the inner courtyard, never seen outdoors. Bimala's husband (Nikhilesh, Victor Banerjee) is a modern man, may be considered as a pacifist or mild-mannered by some, encourages his wife to learn the British way of life. He had a private English tutor (Jennifer Kendal) to teach etiquette, read, write and play the piano.

Along comes a debonair politician, Sandip (Soumitra Chatterjee), a vocal participant of the Swadeshi self-rule and burn British products movement. Sandip was Nikhil's childhood friend and was offered a place to stay. For the first time in her married life, Bimla is brought out of the inner courtyard to be introduced to the visitor. Sandip is impressed with the mature, sophisticated woman in Bimla and the charm of Sandip fascinated Bimla. After all, Bimla had not seen and been with any other man. They almost fall for each other.

Meanwhile, Sandip is active in his boycott and burn British product and admonishes Nikhil for his display and usage of foreign product. Furthermore, he deals with poor Mussalmans who deal with foreign products. 

Opponents of Swadeshi argues that merchants of foreign goods are indeed poor, and by boycotting them, they lose their source of income. Furthermore, they were cheaper than local products. They suggest that the boycotting should be left to the well-to-do!
Bimla and others soon realise that the apparently nationalistic leaders are not what they appear to be. There is talk of them murdering to achieve their agenda. The money that they seem to garner maybe for themselves!

After a small storm in their marriage, Nikhil and Bimla's marriage is reinforced. Sandip is politely told to leave.

N.B. An exciting footnote noted in the course of a conversation between Nikhil and Bimla...
Our society used to be proud of their powerful women, Draupadi in Mahabarata with her 5 husbands, Sita and many more. Somewhere along the way, they became docile. Was it because of the Moslems with their culture?