Black and white ray

When there was the forest

Nature has unique ways of reaching out to our deepest corners. I remember a trip to the forest with my first team. That was more than 10 years back. It is a trip that none of us will ever forget. an affair of only 3 days which clings on to our consciousness even today after so many seasons have gone by. And every now and then all of us have that urge. That wish, to relive the experiences of those three days. In fact we had three more trips with the same team subsequently. I have travelled out with most of my subsequent teams. However that experience was never matched.

A complete description of the trip will take a full blog in itself. let’s just say that in a continuous indulgence in camaraderie, alcohol in all forms, marijuana, simpleton villagers, the beauty of nature and more importantly indulging in the process of self-discovery as a team (without knowing about it) for three days we ended up experiencing something unique and rare. Something which could perhaps happen only once in our lives. Because once one had experienced such a process of self-discovery the same cannot be repeated again.

Gautam Ghose made Abar Aranya. He should never have. Perhaps he never had an experience like ours. The experience of the characters in ADR could never be replicated or surpassed.

Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest- ADR) is a movie which will remain in our senses for years to come. Often passed off as "a coming of age" or "boys to men" men movie by critics of this country who are more often than not nothing but imbeciles, this movie is one which actually talks about self-discovery. Four young men from the urban Kolkata- men who were the youth of that age. Men full of urban confidence. And men who learnt a thing or two about themselves, about love, life, and the world at large.

There was Ashim the suave urban well to do executive with the car, the Ashim who sneaks indulgence in female company while his self-consciousness in that same company holds him back. There was Sanjoy- the most unlikely labor executive one can find. Hari the cricketer who thinks more through his genitilia than brain. And walks around with this sense of male bravado and chauvinism which gets punctured all so easily. The jester in the group- Shekhar is the most balanced and practical of all. But also the least interesting beyond a point.

Then there are the women. Three of them. The sharp wise and yet vulnerable Aparna whose independence of thought and sharpness defeats the vanity and sense of intellectual superiority which Ashim has. Sanjoy gets attracted to Jaya who is perhaps much more than what she seems to be. And the cricketer Hari gets his carnal uprising from the santhal girl Dhuli. Played by Simi in black. maaan! I would do anything for such a santhal girl! Bomb all the intellectuality and the cerebralism in the world....

And finally the forest. Vast dispassionate and distant in one moment and the all-embracing all-encompassing reality in the next. I have always believed that humanity comes close to itself in front of the grandness of nature. Ray has always shared this belief. The scene of realization of loss in Apur Sansar when Apu lets go of his manuscript in the mountains. So many of the scenes from kanchen jungha. But most definitively in ADR. The premise of the film rests on the forest. The story would not have held had the forest not been there. Yes- like many other films the forest does not become a character. But it is there constantly in the background giving the canvas for the lead characters to paint their own stories. The stories of these characters intertwining and colliding to teach each other change each other and make each other realize the entity within themselves. All the while the forest looks on.

There is a certain point in which one shifts from being a boy to being a man. I believe it happens in a moment. The realization is instant. After that flex point has gone we all keep revisiting our boyhood by indulging in similar activities and creating similar atmosphere in our lives. However deep inside we know that life has moved on. This film in many ways is about that moment for the four friends. Yes that way it is a "coming of age" movie. But it is so different from the genre! It is actually a study of the human condition in that stage of the life. Not a narration of events like most other "coming of age" cinema. The real win of the movie however lies in the sheer effortlessness of the achievement. The film manages to shed as much light on the human condition as most, without seeming to even try.

There are many times when this movie keeps coming back to haunt me, the four friends, the women, they all represent those moments which I have left by the road in my life so far. Those moments where things could have been and did not. So many moments lost. But so many gained... if keeps coming back to me to remind me of a different time, a different me. It is when the man looks back at the boy and smiles that indulgent smile of knowing it. ADR is one of the most personal films for me.

Bad company

There was a movie made in the early seventies- 71 to be accurate. And the scenes of the movie keep haunting me today more than four decades later. Ray movies seldom shock. They always haunt. Subtle insights and messages which get hooked to our consciousness keep following us for long after we have seen the movie. Even today I keep thinking of Barun Chanda's Shyamal and his reactions during his interactions with the labor officer. The visible discomfort and yet the dependence. The relation between the suave and sophisticated genteel and the slimy, scheming and dirty. An intercourse of mutual convenience where no partner is there for the love or enjoyment, but for a different need. Also the reflection on the fakeness of the upper middleclass morality. One deft stroke from the artist and a picture so vibrant and so clear. Many of his contemporaries who criticized him for not taking up social real issues needed to note. The difference between the cinema of ray and others was perhaps the difference between art and propaganda. In a few scenes brilliantly underplayed to perfection by Barun chanda, the fakeness and spinelessness of bourgeois was communicated with a hint of a smile without any loud sloganism.

Shyamal, the perfect man of the seventies. Shyamal- someone with whom I can relate to a lot. Shyamal the man who was once someone else. An idealist student. Shyamal who now looks back to those days with superficial humor. Humor of a man at unease. A man who has chosen the easy way out. A man who keeps telling the world that he has no regrets while deep inside he is not so sure. But then it does not matter. The pay is good. The flat in Shakespeare sarani even better. With a trophy wife who is more glamorous than she is intelligent the circle is complete. That is Shyamal the perfect man. Tutul comes in. Tutul the ravishing, seductive and yet so imperfect alter-ego. Tutul whose passion reminds Shyamal of what he once was?

Then there was the next promotion and the small slip up which could blow up into something so big. Then came the compromise. And the final departure. The final dip into the murkiness of the corporate. The hated IR fellow suddenly becomes the partner of convenience. Immoral harm caused to poor factory-workers to cover up managerial misses. The completion of the act of conversion of Shyamal the ethical idealist into Shyamal the successful corporate citizen comes about. In almost a matter of fact manner. Tutul the alter-ego is there. She understands. But then how does it matter?

The legendary staircase scene in the end of the movie is a sharp reminder to all of us of our potential lives. The deed done, promotion secured, Shyamal walks into the apartment complex. The Shyamal whose last strand with the original self has been detached. The electricity of the apartment is down. The lift is not working. Shyamal has to walk up to his apartment on the seventh floor. It’s a long climb. Every step takes away a bit of his energy. This tiring life in the race where every milestone takes away a part of our being. And yet we keep running in the race. We have given it the apt name of "rat race". But we keep forgetting that the rats who are running are us.

Seemabadha remains one of my favourite movies. It talks about my class, my people. It talks about what I am today and what my peers are. It was made 41 years back. Every time I make a new compromise the facial expressions of Shyamal flashes by. When he finally walks into the house only to remember that the fan will not work. Seemabadha means limited. The English name of the movie was company limited. Perhaps it actually shows how the company limited us as humans...

The naughty wife

Every day we are inundated with the films on extramarital affairs. The heroines and the heroes keep engaging and questioning the boundaries of modern middleclass morality. for most film directors this becomes a premise for skin show- still a sure shot way for selling a product even after the internet porn psunami.be it Diane lane in unfaithful or mallika sherawat, skin sells. There has been artsy stuff too- and many of them around this topic.

When ray made Charulata- the story of a wife developing interest in her brother-in-law, the contemporary expectation would have been another sound melodrama. The hints on the relationship in the novel were very subtle and readers and critics of the time chose to almost ignore the same especially given that cheating is a bad word and attributing it to a Tagore creation was almost a taboo. Ray’s Charulata (from Nashtaneer by Tagore) made those hints a little less subtle and more direct. So even though they remained only hints, the populist newspaper critics of the time did not take very kindly to the movie. They also went on to say that most of the movie's first part was almost Greek to the viewer as there is hardly any dialogue or words exchanged. And that Charu looked more like a nymph burning in her desire than a lonely housewife looking for company. The critics were obviously not very pleased.

The fact was that the critics were simply not ready for the kind of cinema ray was making. And ray was not ready for taking the garbage they were throwing. I have firmly believed that criticism needs to be objective and topical. However most films critics that I look around rarely do that. There is a dire need to be clear in your head when you are critiquing art. Like I can say that a certain character in a movie has confusing behavior and hence I suspect that the characterization is weak. But I cannot say that the story has weak characterization without qualifying my statement. Unfortunately most critics (I strongly believe critics are wannabe artists who have this wet dream of being a great artist) lose their objectivity while criticizing.

Ray had written an article defending his movie. It was also an article where he brought out how a director converts a written story/novel into a film script and then a movie. Many times we keep hearing people say "not as good as the novel". Well comparing a film to a novel itself is height of stupidity. Novel is a written text. There the writer can write a thousand pages to describe one character. In a film how do you communicate a "character"? There is huge scope of visual imagery in a book- in the head of a reader. We imagine how a certain character will look like because in a book as there we are free to imagine. In a movie there is no such scope for the viewer. Similar handicaps exist in describing situations. I can describe the site of an old western gun battle in 10 pages. But the film gets 1-2 seconds to present the same to the viewer. Ray was the first person to talk about this. And to share his methods of dealing with these handicaps. Ever since, this article has become one of the film making bibles of our times, the world over. Do read it if you are interested in cinema.

History has agreed again and again that Charulata was one the most accomplished films of ray. More than the content, more than the performances, more than anything else, perhaps the biggest achievement of Charulata was that it played a significant role in developing the grammar of film making. More specifically, the grammar of literature to cinema. my attraction and need of watching the movie multiple times over the years was exactly this- learning the craft of film making- the craft and language of making a piece of literature into film. Frankly this work has not been the one that I have related to very closely on an emotional level. However I like thousands of other film enthusiasts have learned so much. Small moments which taught a lot.

The famous looking glass scene. The effortless communication of a situation where someone creative, intelligent and playfully young is forced into a life in a void. The looking glass became such a potent communicator. The character which the glass caught, the mild amusements and interest in variety. The single moment when her husband Bhupati informs her of the arrival of Amal- Charu who was observing Bhupati through the glasses takes it away in one jerk and simultaneously the camera does a sudden zoom out. The significance of impact of this news to Charu is communicated. Unlike the writer the film director did not have or need to use pages of back ground narration to communicate this?

400 blows, battleship Potemkin, breathless... in my view Charulata belongs up there along with these classics. Classics which in more way than one the way cinema is being made in today's time.