Anilendranath Gangopadhyay, a teacher extraordinaire and Prof Abdus Salam, his Nobel laureate student

Spreading knowledge is not the only duty of a teacher. One still remembers a teacher with immense respect who was kind, helpful and who helped in building character. A teacher becomes an epitome of honesty and morality. India has been home to respected teachers who helped in nation building before and after independence. But with overall decadence in an increasingly materialistic society in past few decades, teaching profession has been tainted by some teachers and students as well.

Today on the eve of Teacher’s day (5^th September) in India, I would like to introduce a forgotten teacher; a teacher who represents a bygone era of plain living and high thinking. Anilendranath Gangopadhyay (1892-1982) was one such teacher. From Calcutta University he finished M.Sc. once in Pure Mathematics and another time in Applied Mathematics in 1915 and 1918 respectively. He joined Sanatan Dharma College in Lahore to teach mathematics. After partition, the college was shifted to Ambala in India and he continued teaching till retirement in 1953. He enjoyed a retired life in Calcutta after 1953. He was a bachelor and he loved his students like his children. Up to this it seems to be a life history of an ordinary man whom we see next door in real life. But there is a grand story in the fag end of his life when his student got Nobel and that story reveals his greatness as a teacher and shows the respect inherent in the perfect student-teacher relationship which, sadly, is fast disappearing from the society.

Professor Abdus Salam, the legendary Pakistani scientist was awarded Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979 for discovering weak forces in nature. This caused much excitement in the Indian subcontinent because he was the first Pakistani to get a Nobel. In 1981, Calcutta University decided to award him Debaprasad Sarbadhikary gold medal in honor of his achievement. Prof Salam simply declined this award on the ground, that his revered mathematics teacher, Anilendranath babu has never been shown any due respect in Calcutta. Anilendranath was his guru under whose tutelage Salam learnt to love mathematics in Pakistan and this sound mathematical training established him later as one of the finest theoretical cum nuclear physicist. If Anil babu is given any award, then only he would be ready to receive the medal, declared Salam. This caught the imaginations of Calcuttans by fire. Calcutta University instituted an eminent teacher award and Anilendranath Gangopadhyay became its first receiver. On the day of award-giving ceremony held in an ailing Anilendranath’s South Calcutta residence in 1981, Abdus Salam was present to see his revered teacher getting his due respect at last. A contented Anil babu died shortly thereafter in 1982.

This real life story shows how great a teacher’s influence can be on the course of a student’s life and how respectful can a world-famous student be for his teacher who may not have achieved any material success at all in life ! This mark of respect for an unknown teacher by a renowned student defying geographical borders and political animosity between India and Pakistan reflects the simplicity, humility and endless admiration present in a student-teacher relationship.

Source: Samsad Bangali Charitabhidhan (Vol.2) Biographical Dictionary by: Anjali Bose. 3^rd edition, pg 13, May 2004. Publisher: Sahitya Samsad, Kolkata. ISBN: 81-86806-99-7 (Vol.2)

Note: This article written by me was first published in The Times Of India, Mumbai edition, Mulund Powai Plus, 2008.

This blog generated quite an interest among netizens beyond borders. Please see the following link to see the response.

http://topsy.com/biswaprasun.blogspot.com/2011/09/anilendranath-gangopadhyay-teacher.html

Juno, 4months 3 weeks 2 days and Kya Kehna

Recently, I watched these 3 movies in a time spanning 2 weeks and amazed to discover how human societies react differently to the same situation of unwanted pregnancy in different parts of the world depending on socio-political circumstances. In fact, I watched the first two in quick succession and the third one came to my mind to compare the situation. Critical acclaim for the first two attracted me - Juno got Oscar for best screenplay in 2008, 4 months 3 weeks got Palme d’Or in 2007 in Cannes film festival. 

Juno was an unexpected hit in the US despite being a small budget film. Juno, ( portrayed brilliantly by Ellen Page), who  is a bubbly young woman , all of 16 ,  has an unwanted pregnancy. Though she wants to terminate it, she changes her mind later to keep the baby and her father and stepmom support her. In fact, when she declares this to her family, her stepmom jumps to take her to a gynecologist readily. Her father arranges for adoption of the baby by a rich childless couple. This seems quite possible and expected in a free country like America. A girl is exercising her choice to give birth to a baby even though it is unwanted and an open society helps her in defending her right to be an unwed mother.

Now come to the movie 4 months 3 weeks 2 days. In a country where a dictator reigns supreme, where human rights are thwarted every moment and where abortion is illegal, a young college-going woman aborts the fetus quite matter-of-factly in a hushed up manner and goes back to her routine life as if nothing has happened. No question asked about whom or where is the father, no response known from the young woman about how she felt losing her child. In fact, if one has no choice to exercise regarding right to have an unwanted pregnancy, what kind of feeling one could expect from the unwed mother? Even the strongest of feminists would cringe at the movie. 4 weeks 3 months is shot in Romania portraying a story of illegal abortion during Nicolae Ceausescu’s dictatorial regime. Seeing this movie, one can feel how claustrophobic life was behind the iron curtain.

Now come to India. Kya Kehna portrays Priya (played by Priety Zinta ) as the unwed mother who has this pregnancy arising from a relationship with her boyfriend who refuses to own up to it at first. Priya’s family faces social ostracism at first, but when the bold young lady explains her decision to keep the baby and upholds her right in a tearful speech in a social function, her boyfriend and society starts to realize their fault and come up with support. Made in the year 2000, Kya Kehna was a landmark movie in India where unwed motherhood is still considered a taboo. But the movie does not fail to show that Indian society is changing and getting more open to issues like unwanted pregnancy.

These movies made in past few years reflect the position of women in different societies. In open societies women can enjoy personal freedom and in societies like dictator ruled Romania women are left with no choice.

 Note: This article written by me was first published in Times Of India, Rouge, September,2008

Two anecdotes on Ray

 

These are two anecdotes on Satyajit Ray.

Professor Subodh Chandra Sengupta was a famous professor of English literature of Calcutta’s hallowed institution , the Presidency College. From his autobiography “Te hi no dibasa gota” in Bangla I got this gem. One evening, in the early 1950’s Professor Sengupta was taking a walk in Maidan, Calcutta’s lungs. He met his “Lomba chatro” ( meaning ‘Tall student’ in Bangla ). The ‘Tall student’ said that after learning art from Nandalal Bose of Santiniketan, he was working as an illustrator in D.J.Keimer & Co, an ad agency. Professor Sengupta was visibly upset because he knew his ‘Tall student’ was excellent in English and got highest marks in English in Calcuuta University Intermediate in Science exam. His professedly instinct was that this ‘Tall student’ would have made more contribution to field of English education if joined a college or university. He particularly harbored a secret wish to tutor this ‘Tall student’ to that goal. But alas! This would not happen, because this favourite ‘Tall student’ of his has joined an advertisement firm, which in his opinion was simple waste of a talent. He was a very well-respected professor of English that time and he thought he sampled enough students in life so that his predictions will never prove wrong.

Within a year or two Prof Sengupta was amused and delighted to find himself wrong in at least one of his predictions about the future of his students. In 1956 this ‘Tall student’ of his made a movie called ‘Pather Panchali’ . Shall I have to tell the name of the ‘Tall student’ to cine buffs?

The second story is also about Ray. Not a story…a true event. All of us know by know that Ray had a great eye for details. The dresses, the furnitures of period pieces, the make-up of characters were pursued to the minutest detail making his movies almost flawless with regard to details. Be it Charulata or Ghare Baire or Nayak, the details never missed his eyes. The movie goers used to be baffled too like my grandfather. Dr.Murari Mohan Mukherji, a pioneer in Plastic Surgery in India happened to be my maternal grandfather. I heard this from him. Even in his heydays he used to catch up movies in Calcutta cinema halls during night shows. Most of the times family would accompany him and you have to remember those days there were no mobiles. Being a busy and responsible surgeon he would give the phone number of the cinema hall to the hospital so that in emergency the hospital can call the hall manager. Many a times movie goers in Basusree or Purna or Bijolee or Metro would be annoyed to see a sudden message flashing on silver screen (between the reels) calling a Dr. Murari Mukherji to go to SSKM Hospital since his patient was serious.

Anyway let me not deviate from Ray. Once my grandfather went to see ‘Ashani Sonket’ made by Ray. “Ashani Sonket” or “The distant thunder”, starring Soumitra Chatterji was made after the eponymous novel by Bibhuti Bushan Bandyopadhyay written on the backdrop of Bengal famine during World War II. Ashani Sonket had a character caller ‘Pora Jodu’ (meaning the burnt faced ‘Jodu’….this villainous character raped a young lady in the film by luring her with promise of food in the time of famine). The burnt and scarred face of ‘Pora Jodu’ attracted my grandfather’s attention. Unlike others he was not despising the man. Rather, being a plastic surgeon he thought of doing a cosmetic surgery on this man. After coming back from the hall, he called Soumitra Chatterjee ( he had acquaintances in Tollygunge film industry and few of the heroes and heroines of that time went under his scalpel ). He inquired about the address and status of this ‘Pora Jodu’ with Soumitra Chaterjee and expressed his wish to rectify the scarred face of ‘Pora Jodu’ by surgery. Soumitra Chatterjee started to laugh and cleared my grandpa’s confusion by saying “ Daktar babu, that was not burns you saw; this is  the Ray effect. This character ‘Pora Jodu’ is a result of make-up. Manikda has great eye for details and told his make-up man to make his scarred face a realistic one. Don’t worry; he doesn’t need your surgical intervention.” Knowing this my grandfather was relieved.

These are the two anecdotes I share about Ray. If you want more I have another in store.

Note: This blog written by me was published first in Passionforcinema.com in August,2009.

Amita Malik-The grand old lady of Indian film & media journalism

‘The grand old lady of Indian film & media journalism’, Amita Malik passed away in February, 2009. She was truly the first of her kind in India. Even, I remember Mr.Prannoy Roy decorating her with this epithet when she was invited to comment on future of Indian media journalism in a memorable programme on NDTV three years back. From my Kolkata days, I remember her wonderful film criticism in the revered newspaper, The Statesman. Long before Namrata Joshi, Khalid Mohammed, Anil Grover, Nikhat Kazmi came in the picture, Amita was the one who wrote about movies prolifically. I remember a flowing and flawless article by her on filmmaker Goutam Ghosh’s documentary The Silk Route in The Statesman. Her opinion mattered for Indian filmmakers. Bijoya Ray, widow of the great Satyajit Ray reminisces fondly in her autobiography ‘Amader Kotha’ about the TV interview of Ray and Marlon Brando during infancy of Doordarshan in the early seventies. She commanded much respect from filmmakers, as evident from my interaction with Harisadhan Dasgupta, the first documentary filmmaker of India. Panchthupi, a documentary by Harisadhan for Burmah Shell was shot in a village in Murshidabad district of Bengal where he likened the homecoming of a rural married lady with the events of Durga Puja, a very Bengali tradition. Seeing Panchthupi, Amita Malik, was ecstatic and went on to praise to the extent of comparing it to Pather Panchali in The Statesman. I found Harisadhan glowing whenever he used to refer to Panchthupi’s review by Amita Malik. With her demise, a generation and genre is gone.

Note: This blog written by me was first published in Passionforcinema.com in April,2009.

La vie en rose (2007):Movie review

I recommend  the reader’s a movie ‘La vie en rose’ strongly. I got this movie in my collection when I found that it got 2 Oscars in 2007 – one for the best actress (Marion Cotillard) and another for make-up. I heard a lot of praise for this stunningly beautiful and young French actress but I never watched it due to lack of time. But when I watched it last weekend I was just swept away. How captivating was the portrayal of legendary French singer Edith Piaf’s life story!

Edith Piaf (played beautifully by Marion Cotillard ) was a French singer who catapulted into fame in the first half of twentieth century. Her ballads were crowd-pullers and she was considered the greatest singer of France. She was liked by the elites as well as the masses. She had a humble origin and tormented life. Her short yet disturbed life had enough stories to be made into a stirring movie. Born to an acrobat father and a singer mother, she was raised in a brothel. She started as a street singer in Paris to earn her living and was picked up by Louis Leplee, a night club owner for singing in that club. She became popular and never looked back after she met Raymond Asso, the songwriter who polished her talent. She belted out hits after hits and became darling of the French. She toured Europe and US. But tragedy and sorrow never left her. She was married and divorced. She thought that she found happiness and contentment in the much-married Marcel Cerdan, the French heavyweight World champion boxer. But death of Marcel in a plane crash left her forlorn. And alcohol, drugs, her low-life addiction never did her any good to sober up her life. Though she was a constant embarrassment for her accompanying people, they always tried to put back her life in shape because they were sure of her captivating talent. She died at a young age of forty seven in 1963.

All this, so beautifully enacted by Marion! It has to be remembered that Marion Cotillard was only 30 years old when she played the role of Edith Piaf. Marion was brilliant as a young and unsure Edith who comes to stage nervously; and even better as an old, ill and dying Edith. With a wonderful makeup, she transforms into the older Edith and portrays engrossingly the innate insecurities, tantrums, and guilt of a decaying life which held enormous promise and talent. I can say doubtlessly that Cotillard deserves a place in film history similar to Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Merleine Deitrich- the all time great artists.

I was moved by the last scene of this movie. Even a heartless will be. The last scene is a montage of Edith’s lifestory – her moments of glory and pangs of longing for ever-elusive love and happiness with a brilliantly played full-throated song “Je ne regrette rien” meaning “No regrets, no regrets at all” as a backdrop. The French song says

“No, nothing at all,

No, I regret nothing at all,

Not the good times I had,

Not the pain,

It means nothing to me.

It is done, wiped away, erased.

The past interests me not at all.

With my souvenirs I build a fire,

My sadness, my pleasures,

I don’t need them any longer.

The loves are gone, the traumas as well,

Erased forever,

I must start anew”.

What an apt and heart-rending swan-song of a singer who lived and died for music. I may even forget the movie but not this song with such imageries of a wonderful life, lived to the hilt and lost. I am moved whenever I think of this last scene. Overall, this biopic can be of lasting impression for serious film lovers, not only for its acting but also for its music.

Note: This blog written by me first appeared in Passionforcinema.com in April,2009

More anecdotes on Ray

I feel encouraged by reader’s comments to recollect and write more anecdotes on Satyajit Ray.

I still remember Satyajit Ray’s Oscar acceptance speech of 1992 Academy Awards. My generation will; forever!!!  I was studying in Class XI . Satyajit Ray was very ill then. He was admitted to Belle Vue Clinic in Calcutta. The Academy members came to Calcutta to give away the Oscar.  Dilip Basu, a professor of UCLA was instrumental in getting them to Calcutta. Inside the hospital room Ray received the Oscar from his wife Bijoya Ray’s hands (I refer to ‘Amader Kotha’- an autobiography published in Bangla by Ananda Publishers, for this information). After receiving the Oscar in the reclining hospital bed Ray gave a memorable speech recorded by the Academy cameraman. That speech of 4.5 minutes was shown in the Oscars ceremony in March 1992 after a brief montage (of Ray classics) and introduction by none other than Audrey Hepburn. There was a standing ovation after Ray’s recorded speech. The speech not only moved the audience present there, but also Billy Wilder, a very famous Hollywood filmmaker of Double Indemnity and Sunset boulevard fame. Ray in his speech said that he learnt a lot from Hollywood and directors like Billy Wlider, John Ford, Hitchcock influenced him a lot. He said that being deeply touched by Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard he wrote to Billy Wilder in appreciation in the late 1940’s. But Billy Wilder never replied. Ray wrote to Deanna Durbin too at the same time. She never replied also. Well! The speech ended with a thunderous applause and standing ovation in Dorothy Chandler auditorium. Surely the Americans liked the fondness and appreciations of all things Hollywood by a person from distant shores. But the story does not end here. Few days after this Oscar acceptance speech, Ray household got an Air mail from USA. The sender was Billy Wilder. He apologized profusely for not replying to Ray much, much earlier and wished him good luck and speedy recovery. This news published in Calcutta dailies like Ananda Bazaar Patrika and The Telegraph gave us a real thrill.

Another one I remember about Ray. Once while showing Mahanagar in some European film festival a film critic noticed that the movie ends with the camera panning to the open sky of Calcutta and focus on a streetlight having two bulbs- one was alight, another not. In this very moment the couples (Anil Chatterji as husband and Madhavi Mukherji, the wife) who have lost jobs are hopeful that they will get job soon and this city will never forego them. The critic showered praises on Ray for showing the half-lit streetlight to display the contradicting emotions of hope and hopelessness, anxiety and apprehension of the jobless couple. Ray simply said that he never wanted to mean anything by that last shot. The Calcutta streetlights, many of the time, due to lackadaisical nature of municipal maintenance used to have one bulb functional and another fused to give that half-lit appearance. It was mere coincidence that he got one when he panned the camera. Needless to say audience was amused.

Ray is still watched and admired in America. It has to be remembered that it was due to Merchant-Ivory Productions’ active effort that classics like Pather Panchali were digitally re-mastered and restored. Very recently I found (from an article in Outlook) that David Packard of the Hewlett-Packard (HP) fame is an ardent admirer of the master. He arranged a special show of Ray movies in Pasadena , California as an “antidote of pessimism” shown in  ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. Long live Ray.

Note: This blog written by me first appeared in Passionforcinema.com in August,2009

Remembering Harisadhan Dasgupta – a forgotten filmmaker

       

Hospitals are not the best of places to meet interesting people and forge friendly bonds with a person four times your age. Yet it was in a hospital room that I met Harisadhan Dasgupta – the doyen of documentary filmmaking in India. He is much in news these days due to  reasons other than his filmmaking career-his wife Sonali’s affair with Rossellini and a recent book “Under her spell” by Dileep Padgaonkar in 2008, the ex-editor in chief of times of India.

 Anyway, let us go back to summer of 1993. I was badly injured in a motorcycle accident and admitted in Woodburn block of SSKM Hospital, Kolkata. I shared the room with Harisadhan, whom I later started calling Hari dadu ( Dadu means Grandpa in Bengali to the uninitiated ). He was in his late sixties, quite infirm and desolate with loneliness and despair. I was eighteen and injured bad enough to be bedridden and operated into with no hope of recovery in six months. But the plight of illness did not stop me to get connected to him. Being a budding film buff with firm belief that European movies were far better than Hollywood counterparts though Hollywood could not be denied because of its worldwide presence, in no time, we were chatting on movies, music and what not. Suddenly he asked me the name of Eugene O’Neal’s daughter married to Chaplin. As I said “Oona”, Hari dadu exclaimed “Now I have no doubt about your love for films.” And who knew those animated discussions would soon turn into a friendship- quite unusual between two men with half a century age gap. Yet we were friends discussing anything and everything under the sun. I used to talk about my friends, family, ambition, career, music, books…..and he used to listen to them intently and advise me on my career plans.

He used to tell about his past life, his movies, his celebrity acquaintances and his American experiences. His father,Dr.Biraj Mohon Dasgupta, was a renowned protozologist-the second Indian to become a director of School of Tropical Medicine, Calcutta. They had a sprawling mansion at Southern Avenue in Calcutta. His father wanted him to be a physicist and sent him to England during the Second World War to for higher studies. But his creative urge propelled him to University of Southern California where he learned filmmaking. He assisted Irving Pitchell in one of his films. In late forties and fifties, after returning to Calcutta, he started making documentary films like Tata Steel, Konark, A day in the life of a cigarette ( for ITC). And he was started to be called as “Hari S” by his friends as a result of his penchant for everything American.

Because of his skills, he was Jean Renoir’s natural choice in Calcutta to assist him in directing The River just after independence of India. And his documentary film Tata Steel was a classic with script by Satyajit Ray, camerawork by Claude Renoir and music by none other than Pandit Ravishankar. He was a founder of Calcutta film society movement. He used to earn well by making documentaries since most of them were financed by profit making business houses. At that time he had developed a rift with Satyajit ray regarding making a movie out of Rabindra Nath Tagore’s novel - Ghare Baire. He paid Rs.20000, a princely sum those days on account of royalty to Visva Bharati. But the movie did not happen since no decent producer could be found in Calcutta. But the loss of money on his side caused a permanent rift between them which nobody bridged in future life. Even Satyajit Ray wrote about this in ‘My days with Apu’, a Penguin book. Anyway, in his long and eventful career, he made many documentaries for Films Division and private organizations and two popular feature films in Bangla- Eki onge eto roop ( Too many faces of eve, starred by Soumitro Chatterjee & Madhavi Mukherjee) and Kamal lata ( starred by Uttam Kumar & Suchitra Sen). Eki onge Eto Roop got a prize in Edinburgh film festival.

One night he was quite depressed. I inquired. He asked me “Can I tell you something adult ?”. Upon my affirmation, he started telling me his traumatic married life, how his wife Sonali eloped with the world famous Italian filmmaker Roberto Rossellini with his one year old son to Rome leaving behind his elder son Raja. That was an international scandal and for his honor I refrain from divulging any details as it may hurt many still alive.

The scar this incident left was hard to be hidden. Though he raised his son Raja with his family’s help, and led a ‘clean’ life without getting any more scandal and media attention, sometimes his reflections on himself showed the deep despair he harboured within. But he was courageous enough to continue making films even after this debacle. In fact his memorable documentaries like Panchthupi (for Burmah Shell), Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and Baba Alauddin Khan were made after this scandal. Panchthupi was shot in a village in Murshidabad district of Bengal where he likened the homecoming of a rural married lady with the events of Durga Puja, a very Bengali tradition. Seeing Panchthupi, Amita Malik, noted film critic of The Statesman was ecstatic and went on to praise to the extent of comparing it to Pather Panchali. But sometimes I felt he was a pioneer who never read the sign of time. In the Naxal movement ridden turbulent 70’s when Satyajit Ray was making socially relevant Pratidwandi or Mrinal Sen, Kolkata 71, he was contented with a romantic Uttam-Suchitra starrer Kamal Lata, the last episode of the Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Srikanto series of novels.

Tragedy and sorrow never left Harisadhan. He lost his younger brother Bulu Dasgupta, a talented cameraman during shooting of Panchthupi by lightning strike while taking a shot of thunderstorm in an open field. “Keno chokher jole bhijie dile na sukno dhulo joto (o lord , why did not I soak the dust of your path by my tears?)” was his favorite Tagore song that always consoled him. I remember him singing this song tearfully quite often. Due to Sonali’s departure and ensuing scandal, his brother Bulu’s death, he used to think of filmmaking having an ominous influence on him in later part of his life and tried to keep his son Raja away from films. But as luck would have it, Raja Dasgupta went on to become an independent filmmaker and his grandson, Birsa has also joined filmmaking bearing the legacy of his grandfather. When Raja Dasgupta made his first documentary on the Santhal leader Birsa Munda during his college days, he told me, he was secretly happy though he expressed disapproval publicly. How could he say no when he himself devoted his life to movies? And many of the noted filmmakers like Gautam Ghosh, Buddhadev Dasgupta, K.Bikram Singh were helped by him in their budding years. He helped Bangladeshi filmmaker Zahir Raihan a lot during Muktijuddho in 1971. I remember Goutam Ghosh fondly, coming to meet him almost everyday.

My stay was going to end as I was operated on and released. But my association with Hari dadu continued through letters, which I have kept as fond remembrance. Then he was released from hospital. He visited our house at Bhabanipore once. He gave me a long list of ‘must watch’ movies which I still cherish. He was in high sprits then and was planning for a movie again. He wrote a script of a feature film which he showed me once, but a rank bohemian that he was, he did not stay back in Kolkata. He went to Santiniketan. We exchanged letters but slowly his reply trickled off. I became engaged with my college life, movies and friends. One day in September, 1996, all the leading dailies of Kolkata reported his death in an obscure village near Santiniketan, Bengal. His silent departure reminded me of a sentence “We carved not a line and we raised not a stone but we left him alone with his glory”; from an old poem “The burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna”.

Note: This blog written by me first appeared in Passionforcinema.com in May,2009

Meghe Dhaka Tara, a Nobel laureate and Me

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This is about my correspondence with Professor Roald Hoffman, a Nobel laureate regarding Ritwik Ghatak’s Meghe Dhaka Tara. Roald Hoffman got Nobel in chemistry in 1981 for Woodward-Hoffman rules in organic spectroscopy. Apart from his expertise in academics he writes plays and poetry. He visited Calcutta in 1999 to deliver a lecture in Indian Association for Cultivation of Science. After his lecture he watched Meghe Dhaka Tara in Jadavpur University film club. I did not attend his lecture. I came to know all these from Anandabazar Patrika, a Bengali daily. I got a little inquisitive not because of a foreigner’s interest in Ghatak’s films but because of his appreciation of this melancholic movie in view of his troubled past. His father was killed by the Nazis in Poland and he fled to USA with his mother from a concentration camp at the tender age of eleven. Later on he had a peaceful life and an illustrious career (He got a Nobel). But I always had this question. Why did this man like and praise Meghe Dhaka Tara, a sad movie on the sadder events of sacrifice and exploitation of a Bengali refugee girl (Nita, portrayed brilliantly by Supriya Chaudhuri) in the aftermath of partition? Did his history of difficulties under the Nazis made him become touched by the sufferings of a Bengali girl in a movie whose backdrop is culturally much different from his?

I did not know. And I forgot this news item for a while. Why shouldn’t I?  I come from a family of Calcutta who never faced any pain of displacement after partition of India in 1947. Our ancestors were residents of Calcutta over the past century. So as a high school student when I watched this movie I was not impressed. I loathed the melancholy of suffering of Nita, the female protagonist who took charge of a refugee Bengali family almost single-handedly and sacrificed her whole life. She died of TB at the end when everyone of that helpless family got to their feet with her help.

But with a downturn of our family fortune and neglect we lost our prime ancestral property in Calcutta. Financial conditions went down gradually. We were forced to settle down in a suburb of Calcutta, away from the usual dazzle of city life that we enjoyed for long. I had to take charge of everything. My shoulders became heavy with duty. I could not even look after my career properly. The restructuring of my family came with my sacrifice. And with this loss and displacement from own piece of land I understood the greatness of Ghatak’s Meghe Dhaka Tara. When you don’t lose, you don’t suffer and if you don’t suffer you never identify yourself with the sufferings of others.

I left Calcutta to break away from the melancholy. I could not look after my career earlier. My peers got much ahead of me. Even my younger cousins and juniors went ahead and overtook me. After 2 jobs- one as a lecturer in a college and another in R&D of a biotech company I came back to Ph.D. in IIT Bombay which I wanted to do much, much earlier. I joined PhD at an age of 32 ! I am optimistic; things have changed and I am fighting back. After a successful PhD  I relocated to Hyderabad to join an IT company. Then I joined St Xavier's College Mumbai and did well for myself. I understood one fact : There is no point in glorifying suffering.

But now whenever I see this film I am touched with Nita’s sorrow. I understand how much pain she must have gone through. And I identify with her character more than before. I consider Ghatak’s Meghe Dhaka Tara as one of the greatest films ever made. I sob uncontrollably when I see Nita and her brother singing that Tagore song “Je rate mor duar guli bhanglo jhor e (The night my doors were broken by storm)”.

I shared these feelings on Meghe Dhaka Tara with Prof Hoffman through email. These days with internet and email you can do things which were unthinkable and impossible a decade ago. I know it is a bit strange to write a letter to an unknown person, that also to a Nobel laureate. I was hesitant to write initially, but then I felt if I do not share my feeling and get to know about his opinion on this film I would be unhappy.

And to my surprise he replied! He wrote …………..

Subject: Re: a letter on Ritwik Ghatak's Meghe Dhaka Tara
From:    "Roald Hoffmann" ......
Date:    Tue, May 19, 2009 5:45 am
To:      biswaprasun@iitb.ac.in

Hello, Biswa,
        It is remarkable that you remember that visit. Debashis Mukherjee introduced me to Ritwik Gathak's films, and I have viewed them since with pleasure. For a long time it was impossible to get them shown publicly in the US because of some complicated family struggle on the rights. But now DVDs are available; I have a ste of 5 or 6.
        You are right that among Western cinematophiles he was overshadowed by Satyajit
Ray, and I think unjustly so. Fashion makes these things happen, it's unfair. I have always liked the blend of social justice and depth of personal feeling that characterizes his films.  And you have undergone a great degree of personal suffering, that has allowed you to come in contact with the emotions Gathak so beautifully has his actors express.
        My own history of difficulties was in my childhood, and the cultural setting very
different. But emotions of loss are universal. I don't think it is because of his expression of suffering that I liked and like Gathak; I can't really say why...
        I have been editing an English translation of selected poems of Joy Goswami. It
does not differ from what came out in Calcutta as "Part Autobiography", but I have written a different introduction, and I think gotten the translators to improve their work. Getting it published here, my goal, is very difficult.
        I wish you well in your PhD studies, it has been a long road for you.
Cordially yours,
Roald

This letter is my treasured possession. Not everyday you get a letter from a Nobel laureate. Though it is quite personal and I shared a little bit of my life-story with the film-lover blog readers, I thought of doing this just to let you know how powerful the language of a movie can be so as to cut across the barriers of language or society.

Thank you readers.

Note: This blog written by me first came out in Passionforcinema.com in April,2010.