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A Shout Out for an Unclaimed Beloved
November 2, 2024
| By
Shiladitya Sarkar
Shiladitya Sarkar analyses Tapan Sinha’s journey as a chronicler of his times through the lens of two of his best-loved films: Galpo Holeo Satti and Ek Doctor ki Maut
Debraj Roy, Anil Chatterjee & Tapan Sinha at the shooting of Raja (1975)
Illicit love.
Yes, Tapan Sinha was that affection for decades. It may now seem to many a misplaced homage. Still, his sway on the educated middle-class Kolkata gentry through the years — decades through which I transited in my understanding of life and films — remained an enigmatic pull, rarely confessed among my coffee house visiting friends, but duly appreciated in unguarded moments.
It’s a conundrum, personally.
Tapan Sinha’s oeuvre has, indeed, archival and aesthetic value; the question, though, is how many visit that archive.
Satyajit Ray discussing with Tapan Sinha (Courtesy: Abesh Das, Photograph: Sukumar Roy)
A disconcerting eclipse, since he once did have his spot in the sun despite the highlighted glory of his contemporaries: Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, and Mrinal Sen.
He should have been the fourth arm to form the perfect quartet.
Yet time seemed to have edged him out.
Wrongly.
But why this near oblivion when his oeuvre is perhaps the most eclectic in Indian cinema? Adept at handling classics of literature to contemporary themes, palace intrigues to sports and science, individual sacrifices to collective euphoria — Sinha traversed, with varying degrees of success, a wide range of subjects and themes over his career that few have dared or ventured into.
This broad repertoire perhaps holds the clue to his strengths and weaknesses. Before I focus on his two films for an up-close view, let’s pause to see the signposts and bends in his career that lead to the markers of the two particular films.
Like a restless trapeze artist, Sinha moves between genres and styles. A restive search that sometimes hits the bull’s eye or turns to damp squibs.
His beginning was inglorious.
After a slew of insignificant films, Sinha finally struck a chord with the audience with Kabuliwala (1956), the first of the three films he was to make based on Tagore’s short stories. Kshudhita Pashan (1960) and Atithi (1965) are the other two.
Chhabi Biswas and Oindrilla Thakur in Kabuliwala (Bengali)
Kabuliwala is an eternal favourite amongst the audience. There are dollops of sentiment, but in that quandary, what gets lost is his mastery.
Kabuliwala, like many of Tagore’s stories, lacks a conventional plot structure. To Sinha’s credit, he infuses the story with tension and climax while keeping to the main theme of the film: the tender affection of an Afghan dry-fruit seller and his fatherly bonding with a little girl, a client’s daughter.
From Louhakapat (1957), a neo-realist exposition of life in prison, to Nirjan Saikate (1963), a film about five widows, Sinha’s concerns are social dynamics in their varied forms.
Then a shift with Jatugriha (1964).
The individual takes centre stage.
This film explores the fissures in a marriage that lead to a breakup between two sincere but egoistical individuals who couldn’t overcome their flaws, a failure that singes them individually.
This slant on the individual finds other forms in other voices in his subsequent films, often with tragic-comic overtones and often with a touch of melodrama in films like Hatey Bazarey (1967).
Hatey Bazarey lobby card (Pic: Priya Films)
The romanticism of Hatey Bazarey is replaced by a more critical and analytical gaze in his next batch of films, beginning with Apanjan (1968), and Sagina Mahato (1971).
Despite his well-meaning concerns, such films display Sinha’s inadvertent failure to fuse political concerns with smart storytelling. These films lack the cohesiveness of Ray’s Calcutta Trilogy, the hard-edged political language of Mrinal Sen, or the profound political aesthetics of Ritwik Ghatak.
I say inadvertent, for he had never courted any definitive ideology, aesthetically or politically. His attitude was geared to storytelling, without artifice or agenda. Ray, too, was a compulsive storyteller, but he could infuse his narrative with a layered sociological quotient that harps at forces plotting their machinations and influencing individual choices, at times ironically, as evident in Jana Aranya (1976), or Aranyer Din Ratri (1970).
Yet, Sinha followed his methodology and the trend would continue in Andhar Periye (1973) and Raja (1975), both dealing with disaffected urban youth. But they are no more than cardboard cut-outs, failing to subsume the viewer with any coherent appealing experience, except perhaps in rare flashes like Bancharamer Bagan (1980) — a hilarious social satire about a marginal farmer who outwits three generations of a landlord family and saves his small piece of farmland.
Manoj Mitra Nirmal Kumar and Dipankar Dey in Banchharamer Bagan
The trust in individual heroism or determination finds expression in Adalat O Ekti Meye(1982), spotlighting a single woman’s fight against the system, a theme that he repeats in Atanka (1986), a film depicting the trials and tribulations of a dedicated schoolmaster who, inadvertently, becomes a witness to political murder committed by his former pupil.
In this context, let’s not forget Admi Aur Aurat (1984, a telefilm), which delineates a split personality who finds his redemption through a crisis — a situation he hadn’t accounted for, but when confronted with it reveals a side of his persona that goes against the grain of his hitherto identity.
![Mohua Roychowdhury in Aadmi Aur Aurat [Man and Woman]](https://learningandcreativity.com/silhouette/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/11/Mohua-Roychowdhury-in-Aadmi-Aur-Aurat-Man-and-Woman.jpg)
Mohua Roychowdhury in Aadmi Aur Aurat [Man and Woman]
Or portraying an individual who, with persona and skills, brings forth a change, not in society at large, but in its microscopic form: either ghettoised sub-cultures or the family. Two trends, separate and aligned when viewed in deeper terms, infuse his two best, most loved films, namely Galpo Holeo Satti (1966) and Ek Doctor ki Maut (1991) — both encapsulating the same aesthetic concern of Sinha using the same rubric of individual impact, one within the bounds of a family, the other within scientific communities.
Two different male heroes with two different idiosyncrasies, each determined to outwit the surroundings in which they find themselves.
Tapan Sinha explaining a scene to Shabana Azmi in Ek Doctor ki Maut (Source – Abesh Das, Pic Courtesy – Sukumar Roy)
But there are differences between these two films too. Galpo Holeo Satti is a comic fantasy, allegorical in tone, with subtle satire, all blending in with a clear message of how an individual melds an almost dysfunctional and selfish family into a happy family portrait. In contrast, the scientist in Ek Doctor ki Maut is a Sisyphus-like hero who toils on his dreams, only to be subjected to denial by a corrosive establishment, repeatedly, till a lucky break gives him a second chance. In both cases, there are happy endings, a quick resolution with both heroes leaving the domain for other places, other landscapes.
Another aspect that marks these two films is intensity and pathos. In the comic fantasy, the hero is springy, finding ever-easy solutions with his culinary skills, a dash of sentiment and likeable gestures to win, one by one, all the disparate members of the middle-class family starved of good food, served at the right time and in the right mood.
Tapan Sinha and Rabi Ghosh on the sets of Galpo Holeo Satti
In contrast, Ek Doctor ki Maut is raw, with its hero not having time for fun or fantasy since he is working on hard science, and there is no easy success, for repeated failures are his fate. The lead in Galpo Holeo Satti encounters no resistance as he impinges his will, manner, and style on the family, unlike the scientist in Ek Doctor ki Maut, who just cannot find acceptance despite his research’s proven pedigree.
A science-obsessed country like India, paradoxically, has never really made things easy for scientists. No, it’s not because the nation, fanatical with superstition and religion that has hindered scientists. Rather, it’s the institutions and academic culture that breed nepotism and secrecy and, above all, a fear-psychosis of one getting ahead of the other.
A crab culture like ours will be hell-bent on pulling down anyone who aims to be different. Sinha should be credited for dealing with this theme, a rarity in Indian cinema. Forget the recent buzz about Oppenheimer; in India, we don’t have mainstream or art house cinema venturing into the realm of films themed around science.
Sinha is an exception, and films like Ek Je Chhilo Desh (1976), Ek Doctor ki Maut, and Wheelchair (1994) offer a peep into the way of science.
Ek Doctor ki Maut is based on the real-life story of the scientist Subhash Mukhopadhyay, who committed suicide after his research in in-vitro fertilisation went unrecognised, a story of determination and defeat that inspired the novel by Ramapada Chowdhury. Sinha’s film is a spinoff of this struggle with a focus on curing leprosy, a dreaded disease.
![Pankaj Kapur & Shabana Azmi in EK DOCTOR KI MAUT [Death of A Doctor]](https://learningandcreativity.com/silhouette/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/10/Pankaj-Kapur-Shabana-Azmi-in-EK-DOCTOR-KI-MAUT-Death-of-A-Doctor-400x320.jpg)
Pankaj Kapur & Shabana Azmi in Ek Doctor ki Maut [Death of A Doctor]
They are a couple in the film, bonded by dependence and love — a trajectory, despite its heart-tugging moments — that is off the beaten track. The wife is the giver, at times a reluctant supporter of the mad obsession of her scientist husband.
The opening sequence is sedate, as it should be since a scientist’s lab is a zone of quietude. The shots of lab animals and a slow-moving transit that zooms in on a monkey confirm the hero isn’t a physicist or a chemist. The lab is unadorned, lacking the chic of a modern lab. It suits the man in focus. The microscope he peers into is a gift from his sacrificing wife, a wife he loves but can’t embrace in the manner a lady would want to in the depths of night. Busy as he is, we learn through his many intensive and at times cruel interfaces with his wife, a wife who had foregone the desire for a child to align with his dreams.
His labour hadn’t yet earned him kudos, but she trusts it will – a mere medical doctor in a hospital at day whose night-time pursuit is to eradicate leprosy, a dream that contrasts with the easy and settled life of his dear friend, also a doctor, who earns mammon with a guilt-ridden heart when he contrasts his own life with the trials of his friend’s.
Irrfan Khan and Pankaj Kapur in Ek Doctor ki Maut (Picture Courtesy – Shoma A Chatterji)
Beyond this little support group, there are two others. An old kindred spirit, a benign teacher, and a spirited journalist.
The latter, a role essayed by the young and gawky Irrfan Khan, sets the cat amongst the pigeons with his report that Doctor Roy has found a way to cure leprosy, although the doctor is still fine-tuning his research.
From here on, the same old stories settle in.
A winner is an anathema among bad losers or amongst the gentry that thrives on mediocrity. So, they gang up against the foul-mouthed scientist, one who disobeys them with a Sisyphus-like stance.
His victimisation is predictable.
The process of cancelling the doctor out lacks any nuanced plotline. It is a straight showcase of one versus the other — often a repeated flaw of Sinha’s.
The defeated has his winning moment when, fortuitously, he gets co-opted in the big brain-drain process. After the harrowing drama, the last shot of an air plane tearing through the clouds doesn’t leave much room for a cathartic experience.
Despite the flawed performances of the others (the doctor’s successful friend, played by another Bollywood actor, with predictable acting and gestures, or the lead gynaecologist, played by Basanta Chowdhury, is barely palatable) the leads were engaging enough for the viewers. The film, in the end, raises serious questions about commitment to one’s vocation without support, the role of an open-ended scientific community’s role in pushing for the unvoiced and the crumbling effects of denial, and the reasons that goad a dreamer to reach out for greener pastures.
Rabi Ghosh and others in Galpo Holeo Satti (Source – Abesh Das, Pic Courtesy – Sukumar Roy)
Galpo Holeo Satti doesn’t flag off with the stillness or foreboding of Ek Doctor ki Maut. The conflict is palpable within the rubric of a family, and food is a cause of crisis.
It’s not that cooking expertise isn’t available in the family. All the brothers, except one, an artist trying to find his métier with film music, are married. So is the lone nephew—a seemingly brash individual who supports modern trends (including the absence of music in European films by directors, whose names he pronounces with comic inflection), yet finds himself confused when advised by his advertising boss to employ shockumentary to lure possible consumers towards a product.
Enter Dhananjay.
A cook who upends the selfish, anger-ridden family dynamics, not just with his culinary skills but also with his attentiveness to the little needs of every member, gestures that, over time, endear him to the family.
He reserves his special bond for the old patriarch and his granddaughter Krishna and is quite adept at managing a rendezvous for her with a local boy with whom she is in love. He also infuses the family with a simple but essential purpose: work is worship, and life shouldn’t be expended fruitlessly.
An air of calmness descends on the family as they now have wholesome food daily; the additional fritters and snacks induce a placid, happy mood.
In time, the hitherto warring brothers start exhibiting fellowship, even towards the unrecognised talent of the fourth brother, a struggler finding his foothold in film music.
Middle-class bonhomie. Picture perfect.
Throughout this transition, the old patriarch steadfastly guards the jewellery box of his diseased wife, treasures that everyone in the family covets.
Dhananjay teams up with a gang of local thieves to cart it away — a ploy to ensure Krishna’s lover retrieves it, thus easing his entry into Krishna’s life.
And then, Dhananjay goes missing, never to return.
I sometimes wonder if Tapan Sinha himself wanted to be like Dhananjay for his audiences.
Hemant Kumar, Dr Bali, Vyjayantimala, Tapan Sinha and Ashit Chowdhury
His batch of films gives the impression of an obsessive chronicler of his times, hoping to tilt the axis of consciousness through his cache of middle-class portraits that hem the turbulent decades of his creative journey.
In the end, there is a latent documentation streak in his aesthetics.
More than form, more than attempting to give his audience an immersive experience, he, with his instinct as a chronicler, attempts to capture the flux of time without the lens of any ideology, political or otherwise.
Sinha stands tall for his defiance in keeping himself aloof in an age where following, mimicking, and copying is a craft. Unperturbed by the magnitude of Satyajit Ray’s success, the myth about Ghatak, or the belligerent politics of Mrinal Sen, he remained true to his craft.
His way with films won hearts. Despite being mainstream, he stood tall among commercially successful debris. And yes, he also remained, for some, surely, an illicit love arrayed against those who slapped — or used to, once — coffee house tables, arguing for and against many fêted film auteurs, blissfully forgetting that Tapan Sinha was just around the corner.
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Shiladitya Sarkar is a painter and writer based in Mumbai. He has exhibited in UK, USA, Hongkong, West Indies, Singapore and in various parts of India. He has written two books: Thirst of a minstrel and Abstract Reality and the novel Clayfaces. He writes on Art and Culture in various magazines including Art India.
All Posts of Shiladitya Sarkar
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Related Posts:
Ethics and Moral Lessons in Tapan Sinha’s Apanjan
The Cinema of Tapan Sinha — Literary Synthesis and Cinematic Demarcation
The Impossibility of Love: Three Films of Tapan Sinha
The City, Crime and Middle Class Vulnerability in Tapan Sinha’s Films
Tapan Sinha@100 – Curtain Raiser
The Healing Touch: Doctors in Tapan Sinha’s Films
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“‘A Shout Out for an Unclaimed Beloved’ by Shiladitya Sarkar is a critical appraisal of Tapan Sinha’s films in the past. The essay has been well written by examining religiously most of Tapan Sinha’s work over four decades, which would help to understand his creativity.
The narrative would attract those who, for reasons unknown, tried to ignore Tapan Sinha’s contribution to the film industry in India and Bengal in particular.
In the beginning, he expresses that “a disconcerting eclipse [occurred], since he once did have his spot in the sun despite the highlighted glory of his contemporaries: Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, and Mrinal Sen.”
He echoed the voice of many, and at last, what the publication of Calcutta Film Society expressed were similar views, perhaps to correct the stand taken by few who positioned themselves to decide the value of Tapan Sinha’s creative work besides the work of so many directors who had done commendable work. However, regarding Sinha, it was difficult to place him outside the arena of the trio, though they were successful in not creating a quartet.
The author has analyzed carefully and expressed: “He should have been the fourth arm to form the perfect quartet.”
But finally, he concluded by his conviction and assessment that puts Sinha’s work as profound, as if a seeker created film after films without bothering about critics’ assessments and also by remaining independent of any ideology or political belief. He explains:
“More than form, more than attempting to give his audience an immersive experience, he, with his instinct as a chronicler, attempts to capture the flux of time without the lens of any ideology, political or otherwise. Sinha stands tall for his defiance in keeping himself aloof in an age where following, mimicking, and copying is a craft. Unperturbed by the magnitude of Satyajit Ray’s success, the myth about Ghatak, or the belligerent politics of Mrinal Sen, he remained true to his craft. His way with films won hearts…”
I am happy that the author could analyze and put forth his views clearly about films by Tapan Sinha and his positioning as a creative director.