My journeys…my explanations and submissions

Journey is more important than the destination.

 There are so many people who have been telling this for centuries. This is perhaps one of the biggest clichés we have grown up to. The only statutory warning in all this is the fact that most clichés are essentially truths. I started my journey close to four decades back. The first decade would have gone in understanding what the hell I am doing in this planet. The next two and a more have gone on to rephrasing and polishing this question. But I am moving. Though immobile on the sofa typing. I am moving in different ways. Circular paths of earth around sun and itself aside, the break-neck speed of the life as it keeps unfolding aside. I keep moving. I keep moving in my journeys. Not now but usually.

 I went off to the hills some fifteen years back. My present company at that point had told me to go to tea gardens and find out how much coconut oil can be sold to the shanties surrounding the gardens. With acute acrophobia and little experience of travelling alone I had embarked on my journey to the forests and the hills of north Bengal. Fifteen years down the line I do not clearly recollect the highlights of the two month sojourn in the hills. I do however remember the journeys. The night travel from Malbazaar to Siliguri in the mini-truck filled with hair oil cartons when I encountered the herd of elephants in the Mahananda sanctuary. The journey back from Darjeeling (a trip undertaken spontaneously without planning or clothes for a wet hill station) with the valley around unfolding in its raw beauty with every turn the jeep took. The jeep with the broken axle, the passengers with silent prayers for survival and fear of untimely death, me with strange comfort with all that and a confidence of reaching the destination and a completely blocked off pair of ears. The hills with stoic obliviousness to all these emotions observing the damaged jeep meandering down the hairpins and the gradients.

There was that journey from Birpara to Siliguri in the day of the bandh. The army jawans with whom I had a gala time chatting away. The bus stop where there were no buses thanks to the bandh. And the jumpy army truck which came out of nowhere to transport me to Siliguri. All it needed was a simple request… then there were those longings and the final excitement of hopping on to the bus in Kolkata’s shahid minar. The journey by night, through Bengal to Siliguri from Kolkata. Last window seat of the bus. No chance of any sleep in the night as the bus powered forward like a cricket ball released from the hands of a Brett lee or shoaib akhtar. Sleepless nights in the jumping buses with sarbhaja, the famous krishnanagar delicacy, for company. Bought at the first stop of the bus at krishnanangar.

What were those journeys for? What was the agenda to be accomplished in Siliguri or Moinaguri or Lataguri or Binnaguri? Guri-land I used to call the place. Gorkhaland posters were a few years away. Guriland was better…less violent. But anyways- what were those rhymes and reasons or so called destinations for those travels I do not remember. I was supposed to submit a report. A report of a study to be conducted during the visits with data collected etc. I never collected any data, never collected any report. I met many people, talked and made friends and then carried on. When I sat down in my institute computer room to type out the report, I finished in one sitting. All of 60 pages. The company was elated with the results. I do not even remember what they were. I remember the friends I made. The stockist at falakata whom I met the day the leopard was killed there. I remember having a simple lunch at his home and hearing of his ambitions and struggle. And his anguish at the death of the leopard. I remember the stockist at mathabhanga and his grievances against the company. Legitimate grievances which the company kept overlooking. I remember watching biwi no1 in the run down theatre in siliguri with a whole host of rickshaw pullers who were having their day off. I remember leaving an underwear every time I stayed in a hotel. And the fact that the siliguri hotel returned me 2 when I visited them for the last time. Cleaned and pressed. And the hotel barababu smiling and telling me “ebar ektu shamlao! Chakri korbe ki korey ebhabe?”(Try and be more careful. how will you continue professionally like this?) I have never been more careful. I have never been careful. Fifteen years somehow got managed. Carelessly.

I played the role of the responsible male and took the job. I kept working for 12 years. I married my love and we tried to build a home. It kept slipping away every time we thought that we had finally settled. Every time we thought now we can settle into a boring rhythm and continue till eternity. The homes broke like an earthen pot hit by a stone. Every time we thought we had arrived at our destination the stations disintegrated. But every time the waves swept away the castles we jumped on and started surfing. I guess we have liked our gypsy existence till now. She is a few thousand miles away checking if academics is her calling. I am here doing nothing much.

There is a certain charm in the thought of complete destruction of stability. Taking out all the ropes from the tent. I guess it was that charm which made me throw that stone in the earthen pot of my work life at a time my wife was finalising her plans to move abroad. I chucked my job. And decided to find out what’s more. When I suddenly decided to take this decision my entire social system- colleagues, friends and relatives, family (excluding wife and father) were shocked. Some thought I was quitting as I was not getting along with my new boss. With whom I was getting along famously. Some thought I had 2-3 job options which I was not disclosing. They never could believe that I was leaving my job simply because I wanted to experience other things in life. Soon extremely funny rumours about my reasons for quitting and the jobs which I had started coming to my ears. Some of my team members were also indulging in the ripe gossip… I sat back and enjoyed it all. Savoured it all. Some of the people whom I knew gave me the discourse of quitters vs. fighters. I listened to them. Initially I tried telling them that working for a living is more about earning money and less about fighting for any cause. Then I stopped. It was not fair to take away a person’s sense of bravado from what he does for most of his life. Most of my near ones were petrified of the uncertainty which ensued my decision.  I was confused as I could not understand the concept of certainty in life. The concept of “settling down”.

What is the destination in life? Job, family and multiple properties? The moneyed executive with a cushy job has arrived? Is that the thought? I know one of the most organised executives with all the money in the world and “job and life security” fall dead in a second from a clot in his brain which he would not even have come to realise at the time of his passing. Multiple properties in Europe and India, business etc. etc….all it took was a clot to move to his brain to do him in even as he was having his dinner after a dance party. So where is the security and certainty people talk about? Perhaps they know. I do not. Something I am missing. For me that executive, where he is the destination. That last airport from where the flight takes off and the trip to this world has ended. That’s the destination. For all of us. Death.

The funniest thing is that none of us know where and how it will come. Just that it will. Anytime. Some of us plan thinking it is going to come at a certain age and time. They take refuge in statistics not understanding that all statistics are approximations with huge deviations. Some plan as if it is coming immediately. And they can fight it. Take all the pills and precautions. Lead a “safe” life in a “safe” place. I am not sure where I fit in. I cannot say that I do not think of death. I think of it all the time. Just cannot accept the fact that I have to go on living planning for it. Not preparing myself but planning. Planning to leave behind wealth, planning to die in a costly hospital…and all the while postponing what is flowing by today, this moment. Life. The journey.

For now I am trying to rebuild my feel for the road and the journey. Trying to get back the old habits of walking out of the house with a bag and some money and no destination in plan. What lies in the future? The next bend of the road? I am not sure. I cannot be. As they say- I want to cross the bridges when I come to them.

In the last few months I have seen and experienced things which I cherish more than all my achievements in the past 12 years of service. I have marvelled at the ruins of the Angkor in Siem Reap. I have chatted with a little girl in Cambodia on her life. It started on an evening when she was angry with me as she thought I assumed she did not know English. I have been led by a little boy and his friends into the forests of Siem Reap into ruins which the tourists do not go to see. I have cried like a baby in the killing fields of Phnom Penh at the loss which one country went through at the hands of a son of their soil. While the world watched with disinterest. I have discussed passionately with a taxi driver on the guitaring style of Mark Knofler and how rock music has to power to change the world. That was Paro, Bhutan. And then there was the other taxi driver with whom I kept snapping the beautiful landscape on the way to Thimpu from Phuentshilling. Both armed with our cameras and the passion to capture the beauty of the mountains. I enjoyed the halfway expedition up to the Taksheng monastery all alone. While coming down for the fear of ice ahead I was happy. Happy that I made it halfway up a climb. I never imagined I would go trekking when I was lying in bed with a broken spine a year back. I spent 2 hours in night in absolute isolation in an airport in paro with not even a fly in site in that huge place. In 4 degree below zero. I managed to be the topic of laughter for bunch of Tibetan girls who were for some reason very amused that a tall strange Indian fellow has walked into their momo joint and is actually eating their staple food with their staple superhot pepper.

People and experiences fill up the journey. Every person adds a bit to our lives. Like that fellow trekker in phalut who told us that beautiful story. He narrated an incident where he and a few of his friends had gone to a village in deep mountains in uttarakhand. With no plan and no bookings and more importantly no place to stay in sight they were in a soup. They went to a local store which was one of the last shops open. When they asked the owner for some hotel around he smiled and replied in the negative. Then the owner took them to his own house. He and his wife cooked for them, left their bedroom for them. Next day when the boys were duly shocked by this unexpected warmth the shopkeeper said- “son look at these hills. When you are coming into the hills with every turn you will see two hills separating out to give you the view of what lies ahead. They are like the curtains which are pulled to show you the view of life. We who live besides the hills live with all our curtains opened up. When you would be returning look back. You will see the hills closing the curtains. You have come to the mountains. Use this opportunity to open your hearts and minds. That’s why the saints and seekers come here to pray…” that was a shopkeeper in a village speaking. Strangely we were narrating the boy a very similar experience we had in Hille a mountain forest village where we had gone without any plan and any preparation. Where a local villager took us in cooked for us and left his only bedroom for us and slept in the kitchen with his wife. Ten years on this memory stays on. A Sikkimese couple who does not understand a word of Hindi or Bengali playing host to a bunch of Bengali guys (who don’t understand a word of Sikkimese) though they have never met ever in life and perhaps will never met after that night.

What was our destination that time? There was none. It was a round trek around the Darjeeling district over the hills. Perhaps that made the journey even more magical. There was the glorious Kanchenjunga sunrise. The view of Everest. All that was great. There was Arjun Singh the guide with killer stench in his feet, who was there for another group, who all but left them and shifted with us. There was the magical Srikhola river. There was the chicken cooked unknowingly with bhut jalokia which almost killed us… As the years have passed the destination of that journey receded to the back ground and these experiences and their memories took over. It was always that way. The tourist points in Montreal were great. Niagara was amazing. But the one close to my heart was the long chat which I had with a dear colleague and senior in Dubai airport. And how there while discussing our favourite cities I discovered that he had managed to fall in love with Kolkata. When he had come in and when I saw him last he simply hated her guts.

They say the rolling stone gathers no moss. In a way that’s good. Moss is slippery. It slips away. The feel of the different soils and the landscape which the rolling stone manages to gather in its being can never be realised by that stagnant rock.

I do not travel because of some romanticised vision of travel. There are times travelling is an agony. There are times I long for the warmth and comfort of home. like this last time I was in two minds whether to move on, on my unplanned journey to Bhutan or just go back home. But more often than not with a lot of reluctance the drug of travel takes over. Yes drug. It is like some drug which makes me move in that direction without me being able to do anything about it. Most of the times I do it reluctantly.  Like that time in Battambang when I was secretly cursing my friend for bringing me to the hill which I had to climb. Though he had offered to ditch the idea. I kept climbing with all the pain and kept cursing him. But I guess that is the case with most people. People of much bigger achievements and abilities. . I am talking explorers, mountaineers, voyagers….all of them. They always have this dual fight which is going on inside. The fight between the rolling stone and the rock. The only difference between them and the worldly wise is that for the latter there is no fight. The decision is taken. The window closed. There is that temptation of opening that window at times. But more often than not they consider it a sin to do the same.

Perhaps they are right. Perhaps we are sent out to this world to do those things which we are supposed to do. Duties which we are supposed to perform. Perhaps one day I will realise that. Perhaps one day I will find my calling. Perhaps one day I will write another blog where I will talk about finding the destination being the most important objective in life. Perhaps I will tell that death is not really the destination. There are things other than that we need to do which are important. Multiple apartments that we need to buy, investments we need to make to secure our future. Or like some of the others- how we need to reach out and work for humanity and dedicate our lives on that. Yes. There are many reasons for leading a settled life.

But I am yet to find my calling. For me I am a creature of lower spiritual knowledge. Unlike others who know their destiny I am not sure about it. I am still searching. in Cambodia, in Bhutan, in Italy, in Phalut, in a village in Taaki, in the Santhal Parganas, in Gujarat, in Kashmir, in the floating markets of Bangkok, in the coffee shop by the river in battambang, in front of the light house in gopalpur, in the wild forests of mutati, chapramari, corbett, serenghetti. The entire globe is waiting for my search. The bus is waiting to drive off. The window seat is waiting to show me the myriad worlds, the small people in the small hotels are waiting to spring their surprises. The thousands of years of humanity is waiting to unravel itself I front of me. The millions of years of the planet is waiting g to show me its hidden marvels. the wildebeests of Africa beckon, the lamas in ladhak are getting impatient, the schoolboy in Kerala is getting late in his boat to give me a lift, the wine in Bordeaux will get spoilt waiting for me to go crush the grapes…it’s almost every moment in a dream the world around keeps screaming out to me to come and join in. Mr Stevenson smiles and recites

Ever again in a wink of an eye

Painted stations whistle by.

Life is whistling by. I keep looking out of the window for those painted stations. And everything else I can lay my eyes upon.

Yes for me journey is not important. It is the only way of living. While I am not travelling I am resting and preparing for the nest one. Because as I said- I am yet to find my calling, my destination. And I pray that I can be in my journey gear till the end.

Random and Biased observations in a cafe in Darjeeling (13/01/13)…from diary

Spending time doing nothing inside a cafe after ages. Refreshing. A typical corpo-yuppy family walks in. Nothing wrong in that obviously. Just that a visibly bore, self-absorbed husband and an all too keen wife and loud kids… a bit too painfully familiar site. A bit unwelcome for me here in the mountains. Suddenly all the chairs in the cafe pulled out- the other new visitors have no place to sit. Again- nothing wrong with that. Just reminds of the over-crowded food courts in the endless and thankless malls. Nothing wrong in the whole attitude of the kids- who start demanding and communicating their choice of the food for the whole cafe to hear. In response the men in the group show their “men-ness” by ordering around the staff in a self-help restaurant. I am counting the seconds before they start off on the lack of work culture in the hills…..YES! One guy mentions! My sense of refreshment is all but gone.

A man in front of me seems far removed from all this. He is an artist and has converted an old notebook into a sketchbook. He is busy putting life in the lifeless paper by the interweaving tapestry of lines to come up with a visual representation of the beautiful view outside the windows. Old, yellow paper. Pages meant for ruthless black-white words getting decorated and coming back to life. Long after its death. Is everyone that lucky? I don’t know. In the meanwhile the artist continues his work. Oblivious of the world around. He is recording the scenery of the hills outside the windows in his sketch-notebook. I am not so lucky with my skill sets. I depend on the written words. I belong to the city. The cacophony of loud small talk and complaints draw me more than the silent beauty of the hills outside. He keeps sketching without bothering about the 5-6 kids and their parents who belong to India- ethnic India but choose to continue their cacophony in English. The noisy self-absorbed group keeps disturbing my thought chain and keeps telling me that in more ways than one I am yet to become lifeless.

English divided us in more ways than we could think of. Today the haloed members of the upper echelons of the society have to necessarily desert their mother-tongue and speak in English. To prove and announce to whoever is listening- that they belong to the upper echelons of the society. People who have proof in the Facebook of their globe-trotting escapades. Proof that they have arrived in those upper echelons. In fact today mother-tongue has become English as mothers and fathers wag their tongues only to the English language….

In another table three oriental ladies are drinking tea. One of them has a camera. She is clicking away. And all the while they are chatting away in their “mother tongue”, which by the way is not English, thankfully. They would be from a country which has not been colonized by any European nation. Their mothers still speak the language of the soil- the mother tongue. And the mothers of their kids will also do the same.

Behind me a couple is meditating in front of their laptops. Some deep research going on i guess. I sneaked away a few photos of the lady. I know it is not right. But i cannot help it. She has a beautiful face. Even more beautiful eye-brows.

the lady with beautiful eye-brows

Somewhat in response to the sudden jump in the noise levels in the cafe and the ensuing cacophony thanks to the group from the haloed upper-echelons the DJ fellow changed the song on the pipe-music system. Mohit chauhan is pleading:

Jo bhi mein kehna chahun

Barbaad karen alfaaz mere….

But are they listening? the alfaaz keeps shooting off the over-busy tongues and tearing down upon the rest of the patrons like a rain of poisonous arrows. How the coffee is not as good as in Costa…how Wengers makes better pastries…(Gimme a Break!!!)… how Langkawi actually is more beautiful…..

In the afternoon during my visit to the zoo i stopped beside the cage of the langurs. There was a family of langurs inside the papa, the mama and the kiddo. The papa and the mama langur holding the kiddo in tight embrace from both sides. I stopped stunned with the beauty of the site. The beauty of the love that emanated from the three langurs protecting each other in the biting cold with nothing other than themselves for help. And then one of the “upper-echelon” families charged in. “Oh baby! gimme a snap! Oh baby gimme a snap! sweet baby, come to mama!…..”Beta you should call like this…pyaar se ..”

the langur family

What is there in this newly liberalised educated urban population who think they know everything that is to be known about everything and they have a birth-right to think of any place as their drawing-room I don’t know. The Facebook reeks of so much of this filth. The city watering holes no less. But i thought the hills in sub-zero temperatures will be spared. No such luck. Even at -4deg Tiger Hill at dawn there was that Ipad aunty who kept screaming and brandishing her ipad in front of my face to “take the picture”. The fact that I was actually running to the hills to breathe away from this crowd now looks like a sad irony. But thats it. No more complaining. Off I go from Glenarys, to return at a quieter time. The Mall and the bylanes of Darjeeling awaits me. Move over Jo BHi Mein… time to sing

Resham Phiriri Resham phiririii

Udera Jaun Ko Dandai Ma Bhanjyang Resham Phiririii !!!

http://dhakatopi.com/nepali-songs-music/191_2421/Classical/Resham-Firiri

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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.

The Ray Years (Part One)

Build up

The issue on serious cinema is that it is serious. A penchant for serious cinema is hardly developed in the prime of youth especially during the teenage. My teenage cinema obsession started with soft porn in the shady allies of Kolkata. That was the natural instinct of the youth growing up in a non-internet era and without the resources to watch VCDs at home.

I always thought and still think that porn is therapeutic. And preventive. Especially for people not that close to companionship of other sexes. A lot of sexual crime perhaps could have been prevented if everyone subscribed to this view. But anyways at the age of 14-15 I was not thinking much. There was a lot more to do than think.

The shady seats in the broken halls in the shady corners of the city were the most sought after places for rowdy school-boys like me. On display used to be non-English European movies which were high on skin content. Sometime porn clips were inserted into otherwise clean movies. With police looking the other way in return for some tips the soft porn industry in the city was booming. And our sex education was happening on an accelerated albeit twisted route.

Somewhere in the middle of all this I never realized how the structure of good cinema had crept into my being. Through the window or a hidden corner somewhere. I started having judgments and started to understand my choices and preferences of the kind of cinema I wanted to watch. I remember an incident where I had a heated argument on the triangular freak show called Sayan when someone claimed that it was a more “mature" love-story than dil hai ki manta nahin. Both were bollywood potboilers. But one was a freak show which people today will laugh at. The other was a lift from one of the most engaging love-stories of all times. The very fact that I had a point of view was surprising. The fact that it was a year or 2 after watching Maine pyar kiya 7 times was shocking.

The east European cinema in the garb of soft porn had helped....

Something happened....

(Ray’s death and implications)

Something happened....

My life in bliss of academics, experimentation with dark elements and porn cinema was going along well enough as my higher secondary exams approached. A broken relationship and some bizarre experiences had shaken a bit of my equilibrium of existence. But overall it was a healthy existence in isolation with life rolling on towards the finite direction of engineering/medical entrance and college admissions. The HS exams went on as expected. And then something happened....

They say that when a big event happens the repercussions of the same is experienced by so many small common people which never gets noticed or accounted for. When Ray was holding his Oscar and communicating through the screen in the Oscar night I was sitting in front of TV with the realization of the hugeness of this person dawning on me for the first time. Till then he was this person who was a big filmmaker as per people around and everyone used to go gaga over his movies. I loved his Feluda and the GooGaBaBa series more. Had not seen much else.

Then this whole Oscar thing (Oscars till then was the biggest thing in movies for me) really gave me the perspective.

Ray died shortly after this. By then my exams were over. And for the first time I was free in life without any homework or any assignment to complete. The initial days of continuous TV watching exposed me to the world of ray with a 24/7 coverage of him, his life and his work. Kolkata and Bengal was like a melting pot flowing over with emotion in losing their last horseman of the famed Bengali renaissance. The last flag bearer of the great modern cultural upsurge for which Bengal was known for. And here I was sitting in front of the TV absorbing all of it and realizing how big the man was.

In the coming weeks my life was all about ray's interviews, others talking about ray and most importantly the cinema of ray. While I ran around and started collecting every piece of document available on the man in magazines, newspapers and subsequently books, the most things which hit me about him was his cinema. DD Kolkata screened each and every piece of cinema which ray had made. Every day at 5pm. every day at 5pm my world around stopped. My world inside the world of ray came alive for those few hours. The world of apu, the world of Feluda, the world of arati, the world of bishwambhar roy, the world of paresh babu.....and so many others...

A few years later I had the fortune of watching a movie which was about a boy and an old man losing themselves in the joys of cinema in a rundown theatre somewhere in Italy. For me those days the 5pm appointments with the television were no less. It was that time of day everyday where life ahead of me was unfolding. Regardless of what profession I chose it was getting firmly cemented somewhere inside my being that cinema was going to be playing a very critical role in my life. As I had said in the beginning- when big events happen the repercussions travel far beyond the imagination of those events and people.

* * *

I am not here to write an autobiography. So I will end my indulgence into personal history here and now. I thought it was important to mention the impact which the person whose cinema I want to talk about had on my life and how. So that that and now we continue.

It’s funny. Who am I to talk about cinema of ray? Why should I have the audacity of actually writing about one of the greatest film makers the world has seen? Do I know or appreciate cinema better than him or even close to him? The answer to all these questions and doubts is obviously negative. after months of uncertainty and lack of clarity I have reconciled to the fact as mentioned in an earlier post- I write as a fan, a dreamy kid whose wonder world of fairy tales is woven around in the world of 35mm. ray for me has been and will always be the life-starter. In many ways I started living after ray happened. He happened through his death. Ironic...

 

Cinema of ray

The last few movies of ray talked about a world from which beauty was getting alienated. Shakha proshakha was about the disjointed family, ganashatru on Ibsen’s enemy of the people, and the final bow of the great man- Agantuk all dealt with the theme of social alienation. However the man started with a completely different approach to the world.

* * *

 

The trilogy

Pather panchali was not the first film which I saw of ray. In fact it was also not the first of the apu trilogy which I saw. Yet, when I ended up seeing pather panchali I was both shaken and stirred like the martini in the hand of Mr. Bond. After having seen many complicated "intelligent" forms of story-telling on screen the sheer straight-forwardness of ray in telling the original story of human-kind was enlightening. The characters in pather panchali could have been nova rich for all we cared. The story was really not about their struggle or their poverty. The story more was about the fact that life in any condition has its share of laughter, joy, sorrow, love and hatred. And that it ends. And that the same is not in our hands. And there is no point over-dramatizing the various facets of our lives.

Just like the scene where sarbajaya reveals durga's death to harihar and pierces our heart without the use of a single dialogue, in the same way durga and apu's discovery of the train for the first time brings out an unexpected thrill without any hi-tech complex plot-point. And the fact is that is the way life goes. A train of simple events which take a lifetime to complete. Before we make our passing. Dignity comes from accepting the same and making the best that we have. The beautiful trilogy of apu talks about a simple life of a simple man with simple dreams. And yet it makes such an engaging story.

The most endearing quality of Bibhutibhushan's literature has been his celebration of the common man heroism. The common place thrill. His description of his first night in the jungle in aranyak was magical as it was like a kid seeing a fairytale for the first time. Bibhutibhusan throughout has been that kid. Discovering gems in everyday life. Gems of happiness, sadness, hatred love and so many other tapestries of human emotions and experiences.

There has been a section of critics who have criticized PP and other Ray films for show of poverty. They have thereby shown their ignorance and stupidity. For all anyone cares the characters of the trilogy could have been from middle or upper-middleclass, the reality of their lives would not have changed much. The story of apu was anything but poverty. It was the story of little nuggets of courage and heroism in adversity. And as I said- the fact the life keeps flowing in its own pace and direction and we humans just play our roles.

My favorite of the trilogy is aparajito. It is the least celebrated work in the trilogy, but it affected me the most. Perhaps because of the age I saw it. Aparajito was apu's adolescence and journey into adulthood. The boy who loses his sister as a kid and his father before he can grow up. the boy who has the courage to move to the big city and then the boy who is torn between his urge to move on in life and his love and longing for his mother who has no strength left to go along. The final scene of the movie is liberating as well as devastating. The young soul torn between his need to grieve the loss of the last and the closest of his family and the realization that he is finally free. The cruelness of our options in life plays out in matter of fact simplicity and hypnotizes us into reflection of our own world and our choices.

Till date aparijito remains the ultimate growing up film for me. Urges of youth, the heartbreak of age all are too real and yet so serene.