Landscape of Exile: Individual and Cultural Alienation in Ritwik Ghatak’s Films

“My days were spent on the banks of the Padma — the days of an unruly and wild child. The people on the passenger boats looked like dwellers from some distant planet. The large merchant ships coming from Patna, Bankipore, Monghyr, carried sailors speaking a strange tongue, with a mixture of dialect in it. I saw the fishermen. In the drizzling rain, a youthful tune would float in the village air, pulling at one’s heartstrings with the sudden gusts of wind. I have rocked in the steamer on the turbulent river after dark, and listened to the rhythmic sounds of the engines, the bells of the sareng, the cry of the boatman measuring the depths. In the autumn, once I sailed off on a boat and lost my way among the tall grasses where snakes hide. The pollen of grass flowers choked me as I tried to pull the boat away.”

– Ritwik Ghatak (‘Arguments/Stories’ ed. by Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Amrit Gangar)

Ghatak’s work serves as a crucial cinematic archive, reflecting not only the historical specificities of the Partition but also the universal human experience of exile and the subsequent psychological disintegration it engenders. His cinematic vision was more directly rooted in the visceral trauma of displacement. His narratives often foreground the struggles for identity and the pervasive sense of rootlessness that afflicts those dislocated from their ancestral lands. In the quote above, Ritwik Ghatak’s words sum up the pieces from his memory of Bengal. He recollects the fragments of his childhood, wondering and absorbing the wilderness, breathing ‘freely’ on the gentle banks of the Padma. These words are not mere nostalgia; the undertones offer a haunting premonition of the Bengal that would emerge after Partition.

The quote unfolds two worlds – one of open waters and wind-swept shores, where the spirit roams unhindered, wandering into wonder and discovery; the other of uncertainty, where the boat is lost, carried away into an unfamiliar expanse of tall grasses, veiled in shadows where snakes lurk unseen. It feels like a nightmare drifting between waking and sleep, sketching the ache of personal grief intertwined with a collective wound – a landscape of exile, fear, and fractured belonging.  His films delve into the individual and cultural alienation experienced by refugees, uprooted by the 1947 partition of Bengal.

As Ghatak himself puts it, “The characters may invest the landscape with their feelings.” The characters are put against the landscape to manifest the dormant inner and the encroaching outer. The landscape in his films appears as an arena for conflict between two worlds. The post-colonial urban realm emerges as a world of trauma, repression, and exploitation, a space where the individual is alienated from material existence and inner consciousness. In contrast stands the world of exile, depicted through pastoral serenity, the embrace of nature, the continuity of tradition, and the warmth of communal belonging. This division crystallises the dialectic of alienation and exile – one bound to the oppressive structures of modernity and social inhibition, the other to rediscovering self and the nostalgic yearning for a lost wholeness.

Meghe Dhaka Tara and the reverberating terrain

Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960) depicts the story of Nita and her family, who have taken refuge in Calcutta after being displaced from East Bengal during the Partition. Gradually, Nita becomes the only breadwinner, sacrificing her own dreams, desires, and well-being to support her family. The film ends with Nita being sent to a sanctuary to take her last breaths in ‘peace’.

The opening scene of the film introduces Nita against a serene landscape. She is seen walking towards Shankar, who is rehearsing amidst nature. The off-centred framing of the scene creates a sense of imbalance and emphasises the encircling presence of nature within the negative space surrounding Nita.

When Nita approaches Shankar in the next shot, the frame utilises deep focus to unfold three planes of action. In the foreground, Nita, her expression affectionate, is seen looking towards Shankar, who’s practising his singing in the middle of the frame. In the background, a train cuts across the frame, which can be interpreted as an interruption to the harmony of that space and the association of the characters.

The train emerged as a powerful visual signifier in post-colonial representations of India, particularly in narratives surrounding the Partition. It embodies the experience of displacement, exile, and separation – a moving symbol of rupture, migration, and the fractured lives left in its wake. Here, the presence of a moving train excludes, yet reminds us of the harsh reality – the Partition, and the socio-economic violence that followed it. Nita exits the frame along with the train, and in the next shot, she enters the real world, which stands for daily struggle.

Later in the film, the arrival of the train twice shatters the intimacy of Nita’s encounters with Sanat; the sight and sound of the train once again rupture their personal and vulnerable moments; it symbolises separation, exile, and displacement, and foreshadows Nita’s final destiny and the tragedy that awaits her.

Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960)

In Meghe Dhaka Tara, Nita is represented as ‘Jagadhatri’, the mother figure, the nurturer and the caregiver, as well as ‘Uma’, the gentle daughter yearning for affection and belonging. Her family’s selfish ambition leads to her initial exploitation and culminates in their final rejection of Nita. This rejection reverberates as the farewell song of Uma to the Himalayas and concludes in her physical as well as metaphorical exile into the hill sanatorium. Though she finds her freedom from the symbolic claustrophobia and confinement of the sanatorium in Nature, her final cry reflects the cry of a fragmented motherland, thus altering personal pain into collective trauma.

Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960)

Subarnarekha: a journey through loss, memory, and broken dreams

The landscapes depicted in Subarnarekha (1965) are a haunting portrayal of dislocated lives, fractured families, and collective trauma. Geographical displacement morphs into an emotional and existential crisis. Here, the terrain of Subarnarekha is a nurturing and protective mother, sheltering the fractured self, but not entirely free of the threats of modernisation and urbanisation. Sita, her voice drifting through a barren landscape, mirrors isolation and severance from her origin. The ever-changing definitions of settlement and migration leave an individual powerless, forced to surrender to forces beyond their control, trapped between the longing for rootedness and the harsh realities of displacement. The characters resettled on the banks of the Subarnarekha recollect their past and the land they have left behind. Contrarily, Sita longs for the comforting landscape of Subarnarekha amidst her splintered and chaotic life in the city. She sings “Aaji dhaner khete roudro chayay” to her son, yearning to go back to the familiar landscape of her past.

Subarnarekha (1965)

The landscape of Subarnarekha becomes a space of both coexistence and conflict – a terrain where memory, tradition, and survival intersect with alienation and despair. Sita and Abhiram wander through the ruins of an abandoned aerodrome, a desolate space that symbolically mirrors the stark inevitability of post-Partition life. Their journey echoes mythological pairs seeking transcendence, yet the barren landscape reflects the disparity, loss, and emptiness of the modern world. In the same space, Sita encounters the ‘Bahuroopi’ dressed as ‘Mahakali’. Ritwik Ghatak masterfully weaves fragments of mythology into the film’s narrative to create a cinematic language where the past haunts the present. Sita, the benevolent one, encounters Mahakali, the malevolent ‘mother’ force. The romantic association between Abhiram and Sita echoes the story of the mythic consorts, Ram and Sita, evoking echoes of devotion, separation, and destiny within a modern context.

Subarnarekha (1965)

The characters exist within the framework of modern society, yet their identities are infused with mythological resonance, revealing a shared cultural memory that underlies and enriches the film’s present narrative. In this collision of identities, Ghatak captures the struggle between idealised tradition and the ruptured consciousness of contemporary existence, revealing how history, cultural inheritance, and trauma shape personal and collective identities.

The binary of modernity and memory is evident from the representation of space. The city is depicted as the land of trauma, collective loss, lumpenisation, and moral anguish – a submission of the present to the shadows of collective trauma and loss haunted by the past. This is documented in Haraprasad’s commentary: “We are formless, without substance.” The contrast between Calcutta and Chatimpur unfolds through Ghatak’s cinematic vision in Subarnarekha – a visual dialogue where the city’s claustrophobic frames stand in sharp contrast to the open, melancholic vastness of Chatimpur. The characters ache in the punishing confinement of the city, while Chatimpur’s vast landscape offers a sense of relief. However, this temporary respite anticipates the return to constraint and fragmentation in the harsh realities of city life.

Subarnarekha (1965)

Komal Gandhar: A melody for the lost homeland

Komal Gandhar (1961) begins with the second act of a play. The actor questions the camera directly: “Why? Why should I leave this lovely country, my river Padma?” A younger man behind him answers, “For survival’s sake. Declare yourself a refugee, as the journalists call you.” In Komal Gandhar, Ghatak captures the quest of the ‘homeless’ for an alternative abode, all the while longing for the homeland of their past.

The film revolves around thematic multilayers: “Anasuya’s divided mind, the divided leadership of the People’s Theatre movement in Bengal, and the pain of divided Bengal,” as Ghatak claimed. It unfolds in spaces with diverse textures and symbolic importance. 1) The city thrives in turmoil and resistance. 2) The stage transcends the world of the present to connect with myth (Anasuya, playing Shakuntala, steps out of her father’s home, leaving for an uncertain destiny). 3) The hills of Kurseong and the riverine banks of the Padma welcome fractured souls and their scattered identities find healing in spaces of refuge and memory.

The characters gather, mourn over their violated past, and find solace in shared memories and camaraderie. Anasuya and Bhrigu share a moment of self-exploration on the banks of the Padma, reminiscing about their lost homeland; the scene reflects the characters’ longing, fear, and helplessness. The vastness only amplifies their isolation and displacement. A railway line that leads nowhere indicates the severance from their erstwhile homeland. It bears the scars of history and the bleakness of a stagnant present. Bhrigu says, “It suddenly occurred to me – the old railway tracks were a sign of union. Today, they have become a sign of separation.”

Komal Gandhar (1961)

Later in the film, the inner turmoil of the characters is woven into the emotions associated with the ‘forbidden land’. This is depicted through the collective chanting of ‘Dohai Ali, Dohai Ali’ as the camera glides over the deserted railway line and stops at a dead-end. The song ‘Akash bhara surjo tara’, featuring Rishi against Kurseong’s serene backdrop, evokes the presence of possibilities amidst despair, acknowledging the larger universal order.

Unlike the other two films of Ghatak’s Partition Trilogy, Komal Gandhar ends with the union of Anasuya and Bhrigu, marking the formation of a new community while recognising their collective trauma.

“Exile is not just geographical but also intellectual and emotional,” said academician and literary critic Edward Said. In Ghatak’s films, it is a consequence of the Partition, false consciousness, and economic displacement. His films transform into a site for exploring critical analysis through alienation and exile. His cinematic techniques draw heavily upon Brechtian theory to investigate and establish discourse. Along with cinematic tools such as editing, sound, and dialogue delivery, the thematic and symbolic use of the landscape in his films serves as a poignant critique of post-colonial nationhood and the enduring psychological impact of the Partition on the human psyche, reflecting a persistent ‘search for identity’ amidst rootlessness. It demonstrates how Ghatak’s cinematic vision transcends mere depiction to craft a deeply empathetic and psychologically resonant landscape of exile.

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