Tornados of Nostalgia

By Joshy Joseph

The celebrated Bengali is rather infamous for his traffic sense. Or, senselessness, to put it straight. It takes just few minutes in a bus stop or an auto joint . Once a westerner commented:" They don't drive left or right. They drive on whatever is left." Even though there's hardly any space left on either side, the autos blast off their horns as if there's a war breaking out. The result is an interesting juxtapose.

Didi, the Chief Minister of Bengal ,ordered to play Rabindra Sangeet at traffic junctions, bringing face to face the senseless Bengali on road and the sensitive Bengali at heart. At every red signal, the soothing soulful songs elevate the mavericks on road to a serene calmness and the next moment , when the green lights are up he is back to his maverick best. The Crescendo and decrescendo pattern continues at every junction.Rituparno Ghosh's films won't present you this contrasts. He was a Tagorean, top to bottom. He belonged to those few minute's calmness at red signals. He had a couplet of Tagore for all pains, pangs ,feelings, emotions and animal instincts of the Bengali- as if a perfectly tuned accompaniment. In other words, his reactions to the Bengali madness were loaded with good dose of madness too. In that light, red or green,he had done his job- and did it rather well. That of communicating with the contemporary Bengali.

The aura of cultural height, catapulted often by festivals and intellectual discourse of outdated ideas often comes to others through carefully crafted scheming and other machinations. Such strenuous circus is alien to Bengali. Rather it comes so easily to him like a Lara cricketing shot. The reason ? The spirit of Tagore even in his 151st year.

The Super Metro –centric multiplex era signaled the times of Ritu- at least his major creative span.Yet his driving force was the naturalness with which the Bengali endorsed and embraced the poetry of Tagore even without dwelling deep into it or even reading them . Ritu's world and that of Ritwik Ghatak are light years apart. Ghatak never painted the European varnish over the melodrama of Bengali stage and mainstream movies.

If one thought that the so called controlled narrative of the European kind didn't sink into the sensibility of the great maverick Ghatak, that's off the mark. The genius didn't care to wear a cloak of stylized control or look. In fact he was in the drivers seat of that auto rikshaw which let loose itself on the streets of Kolkata. As if a mad maverick was the driver. Readers may please replay the scene of Park Street in "Subarnorekha",the classic of Ghatak. The timeless imprint of an artist still retains its sheen , after so long.

For "Chokher Bali", the heroine Aiswarya Rai was not anywhere near the accepted realms of Bengali sensibility. Still, Ritu , fought hard at the marketplace with this Bengali through the sheer power of his USP - craft and conviction. A remarkably poignant observation by the renowned Bengali English author Amit Chaudhuri presents an interesting view. Ray-Ghatak-Sen trio are seen and worshiped as the last holy trinity of Bengali renaissance, besides their stature as filmmakers. In that light ,Ray had elevated himself to the pantheons of great world Filmmakers when he made Tagore's "Charulatha" ,while Ritu could only achieve some global halo to his "Chokherbali",by Tagore.[ "global artist and globalised artist "-Amit]

Ritu, while the mould he had preferred was of Ray than of Ghatak, by 2010, started confronting the so called traditional values celebrated by the 'Bengali Bhadralok '.

He had made remarkable results in partnership with Aveek Mukhopadhyay on screen, perhaps, I dare to say, more stunning than Ray sometimes . Yet he truly overstepped Ray , was through his bold and brutal exploration of sexuality on screen. He achieved this grand slam with his 2010 film, ' Just Another Love Story', about a homosexual filmmaker. In the Goa film festival of 2010, Ritu had three films . His film"Abohman" was about the story of a middle aged filmmaker, whose affair and sexual overtures with his heroine and the fissures in the family. With this portrayal on screen, Ritu, presents the filmmaker in the story ,wearing a mask. Mask becomes the safest and stablest face. 'In 'Just another story', Ritu tears apart this mask and expresses his other sexuality, which is his true self. The open forum of that year's film festival tried to explore and explain the level of self content in that film. We have plenty of 'Abohman' models around us , but the one in 'Just another love story' was a bunker buster.

Ray's under the arc lights affair with Madhabi Mukherjee was touched upon by his wife Bijoya Ray, in her memoirs,while it was being serialized in DESH. It was considered as the boldest open discourse in Bengali society. Later, it was eliminated in the paperback edition ."Just Another Love Story" arrived into the Bengali society with a stunning bang, and the tremors were so huge that 'Nandan' (state govt: owned theatre) refused to screen it. Vidyarthi Chatterjee ,one of the leading lights of Ghatak school of thought ,started taking serious note of Rituparno Ghosh. That was a paradigm shift.

While all these were happening in the wider world, Ritu was doing a kind of re-engineering of the accepted sensibilities in tastes and languages through his editorship of 'Rabibar Praditidin', the well accepted Sunday edition of 'Pratidin'. Many experiments in postmodern variety were made in this publication and were watched and of course, read with admiring attention. The intelligentsia was led into a confusion with the release of "Chitrangada", Ritu's film based on a Tagore story. Ritu,by then had become the Godfather and presiding deity of homosexuality. Yet, the film failed both artistically and commercially.

Ritu had undergone a change in his persona outside too. The curly heads, trousers and shirts started giving way to the 'Salwar Kameez' and 'Duppatta' styled attire . This was a bold, unapologetic statement about his being and his engagement with the wider world. Doing so,he achieved a sort of glory, so rarely occurs in film world. Ritu became the star among stars and star among the directors. Read this again, it eclipsed the very presence of celebrated directors like Budhadev Dasgupta, Gautam Ghosh and Aparna Sen.

After the death of Uttam Kumar, Bengali film world never had a trend setter character who made the cash registers ring non stop till Ritu came . If one thinks for a moment that all that were the result of Ritu's marketing gimmicks, let us not forget that the Aparna Sens, the Budhhas, the Gautam Ghoshs are no strangers to the marketing gimmicks.

While he was basking in the enviable glory of the sparkling strikes which dug deep holes in the Bengali veil of social pretension, Ritu made subtle yet substantial interventions in the written word and in the visual experience of moviegoers. That was powered by insightful inspirations from his Tagorean sensibility. These strides have launched him into an orbit of stardom- in fact, assured his place in the glitter to which he was already making strong waves through his narrative style.After Uttam Kumar, the vacant slot in the Bengali mind was slowly becoming Rituparno's, as the minimum guarantee bet in the Box Office. By this forceful entry and enthronement, Ritu made the other so called local high priests,insignificant. Ritu became the stand alone star without compare in words and visuals of the contemporary Bengal. So defining was the pathway he had traveled from the starting point of his first film,"Unnise April".

Ritu was always the front runner in public discourse of unpleasant truths. Before his departure from our midst, the interview he gave to ABP is poignant in its superb observation. That, the three detectives of Ray's acclaimed 'Feluda" series were all men, and it could really be interesting to look at that world without women. Since the comment was made by Ritu, what left unsaid was gleefully glossed over by the public. In fact they enjoyed doing the 'fill in the blanks".

This was a new experience. Ritu could so beautifully and insightfully present the shockers with a kind of Tagorean introspection. Cut to a popular TV show hosted by Ritu entitled , "Ebom Rituparno'. One episode brought him face to face with the one time star of Bengali films and the current 'mother roles" specialist, Supriya Chaudhuri. Like the famed 'Uttam- Suchtra' pair, 'Uttam-Supriya' combination too remained at the top of the Bengali gossip factory. The pointers to Supriya made the expected impact- Supriya boldly opened up that Uttamda was always after her , even during her menstrual periods !The channel celebrated the interview, with repeat telecasts. Ritu knew the Bengali holiness and its dark trenches so well ,that he could present the dichotomy with a performance of smart' JUGALBANDI'. In fact he alone could do that.

Though Ritu was an acclaimed author of nostalgia on screen, his efforts like 'Sab Charito Kalponik' ,were simple counterfeits of creative escape in the name of nostalgia. A series of anecdotes and sex scenes which spur up like commercial breaks, this film made me wonder, whether is this the one the Bengali society has taken to the high planes. That led me to another shocker. In fact a stunner in the Goa festival, " Abohman" sent my stumps cartwheeling. I was clean bowled by the film, while celebrated critics were swearing by 'Just another love story'.The controlled and subtle storyteller, Ritu has arrived in full bloom.But when he started setting his eyes on the other sexuality and nostalgia , his creative expression found only a discordant note , albeit, a tricky one- who reduced the traffic signal auto driver into an ideology than a creative metaphor. These have made him taste refreshingly different failures.The weighty Tagorean verses at traffic junction all of a sudden gives in to the cacophony of ho
nking noise at the sight of green ............Let me go personal here. I had done a film on a make-up artist of Imphal,Tom Sharma,named " Making the face". Tom is a homosexual. On screen, he narrated the episode of getting drunk and vomiting at the wedding reception of his former partner. While we were watching it on screen, Tom was suggestively pinching me, as if to communicate something. The national award for the best family welfare film of that year was won by" Making the face".I made a complementing observation of Ritu's 'Just another love story" in 'Imphal Free Press'. I had sent Ritu a copy of this article. In Ritu's film, the male character, puts a pillow on the backseat of the car for his former partner's pregnant wife, while leaving her off .I compared this with the pinches of Tom Sharma . Ritu, as a response so loaded, became silent and wanted to see the film.

Once Ritu was watching the great M.F. Hussain's "Three Cities' and the great painter was describing in detail, the film, to Ritu. His response was , like my character Tom Sharma, was a pinch on Hussain by telling him- " Hussain saab, please don't disturb me., let me watch your film".

Living a life , loving and squabbling, Ritu too left. Perhaps, all too soon.

After reading through all the Bengali newspapers of May 31st, 2013, Vidyarthi Chatterjee called me on the phone, "CARNIVAL OF HYPOCRISY ", was his comment. The same Bengali who shied away from accepting Ritu's different takes , made his death, an occasion to celebrate his assumed glory. The designs of Ritu's striking attires of jewels were made into advertisements with equally striking message- Come, buy one !

(Translated by Mathew Peter from Malayalam)