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.