Fugitive pieces, Moonlight Sonata & Pather Panchali

15 years ago I first heard Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata…..the slow adagio sostuneto is an all time romantic tune on earth…yet I did not like it for its romanticism…but its brooding sadness….a slow ache of un explained nostalgia that it always evoked….The bars stayed with me. I never knew why….recently after I saw ‘Fugitive Pieces’ (2007, directed by Jeremy Podeswa based on a eponymous novel by Canadian writer Anne Micheals) in IIT Bombay film club, a movie about Jacob Beer a holocaust survivor trying to coming to terms with his own loss I rediscovered the haunting melody of Beethoven….I realized why they say Beethoven is a timeless classic. Jacob’s sister used to play piano and Jacob remembers moonlight sonata from his past when they were a happy family of four until the Nazis hounded them in Poland, killed his parents in front of his own eyes and abducted his sister. Jacob survived miraculously with the kind help of a Greek archeologist. But the trauma that incident left behind is difficult to hide. He grows up in Canada, becomes a successful teacher and writer but never away from his past. He is consumed with the obsession of finding holocaust stories and writing them…..his wife Alexi deserts him once she gets to know from his diary how the shameless vitality of her is a distraction for Jacob’s endless pursuit of the past. In these moments and others when Jacob’s sister comes back in his dreams and memories I could identify with Jacob’s sense of loss. Though my history of difficulties are far more different and culturally irrelevant to Jacob’s yet the universal sense of loss evoked in me that unexplained nostalgia for my lost possessions, time , opportunities and losing on life as a whole. These feelings of loss occur in every society. When Jacob remembers her sister and moonlight sonata comes in the backdrop, I identify him with young Apu remembering his dead sister Durga from Ray classic Pather Panchali…..you got to see it to know my feelings…..

Uttam Kumar's dedication

Uttam Kumar did some forgettable Hindi movies in sixties and seventies like Chotisi Mulakat, Shakti Samanta’s Amanush.

But he used to reign supreme in Bengali screen. No one till date enjoyed his popularity or charisma. He might have been the last star to be mobbed on the streets of Calcutta. Even the great Ray thought none other than Uttam Kumar for his ‘Nayak’. When Uttam Kumar died Calcutta came out on streets; (I was only six years old; I remember his cortege being taken through Lansdowne Road where our maternal uncles stayed and I accompanied my grandfather to Uttam Kumar’s Sradh (last rites) ceremony!).

Anyway let me not deviate from his professional dedication. I am recounting a story that I heard from my maternal grandfather Dr. Murari Mohan Mukherjee, a pioneer plastic surgeon.  Bengali screen legend Uttam Kumar was known to him. Every Bengali knows that Uttam Kumar starred in a famous movie ‘Agneeswar’ made in the seventies. But not everyone knows that the character he played is actually a shadow of an erstwhile legendary surgeon Dr.Panchanan Chatterjee. In honor of his memory Association of Surgeons of India still holds a Panchanan Chatterjee memorial oration which is a coveted and prestigious one among the surgeons. Agneeswar was written by Banaphool a.k.a. Dr.Balai Chand Mukhopadhyay, a native of Bhagalpur and a senior to my grandpa in Medical College, Calcutta. Banaphool told my grandpa that he wrote Agneeswar with their medical college teacher Dr. Panchanan Chaterjee in mind. If you see the film you will note the central character Dr.Agneeswar Mukherjee was a small-town doctor, upright and acerbic, who defied the British rulers, helped the freedom fighters and wrote revolutionary literature as well. A Rabindrasangeet ‘Tobu Mone rekho’ sung by Sumitra Sen and a Dwijendrageeti ‘ Dhana dhanyo pushpo bhora’ sung by Hemant Kumar are still popular. When Uttam Kumar got to know from my grandfather that Agneeswar is a shadow of Dr.Panchanan Chatterjee he came into our house to learn the mannerisms of Dr.Chatterjee from my grandfather since he was Panchanan Chatterjee’s favorite student. You will notice the unmistakable leaning gait with hands folded on back, the specific way of looking over the spectacle glasses and the pithy, barbed talking of Uttam Kumar …. All reminiscent of Dr.Panchanan Chatterjee on whom the novel and the movie are based on. After watching the movie in Purna Cinema Hall in South Calcutta, my grandfather commented “As if I saw our revered teacher walking and talking on screen!” …such realistic was Uttam Kumar’s rendition.