Riverine Stories: Titas and Ritwik Ghatak’s Cinematic Departure

If we were to discover a magical atlas we could perhaps spot a place named Nijhum Dwip, located in the midst of the sea in South Asia, entrenched in a delta-scape, situated at the edge of the landmass of Bangladesh. If we could keep moving upstream we would find more magical places such as Manpura, rivers like Meghna and Madhumati, and would plummet into a massive water force called Padma, which in its upper course is called Ganga / Ganges (in India), and by other names across Northern India – until we find a small stream at the foothills of the gigantic Himalayas, and begin another journey. But, there is no way one would walk by these rivers, through the politically contingent terrains, without losing their way in the meandering waterways and in the tributaries and distributaries. Moreover, if we were to go downstream, we would find another island, named Cheduba, in the midst of the infinite sea, which is part of Myanmar. Likewise, the upstream movement via Myanmar’s Irrawaddy river would take us to Tibet and to another part of the Himalayas, and to yet another contested region.

Such journeys, from the sea to upstream or from a river to downstream, across the endangered Delta regions of India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, pushes us to reimagine a possible ‘scape’, encompassing vast and impossible geographies of South Asia and SouthEast Asia, through varied routes and courses – those which do not break at the border checkpoints or move in any singular direction. However, such places – comprising rivers, marshy lands, swamps, forests, hills and non-human lives – are historically contingent, marked by multiple geographical conditions (such as Ring of Fire) and economic-political histories (like Opium trade).

The Delta and riverine landscape which remap Indo-Bangladesh borders

Writing about the Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen’s ‘critical dictionary of SouthEast Asia’ (2012), Ashish Rajadhyaksha (2018) suggests that:

If the western model of empires works towards a centre and borders, and can be visualized from above, … enabling a centralized, mappable, structure of power – here emerges another idea of empire, of an unmappable, decentralized, ground-level view of river-ways and water-flows ‘seeking power through a control of choke-points’. The first model radiates inwards, creating a centralized tendency, while the second moves outwards with a navigation related to things like ‘cosmology’, to ‘magic/shamans’ ….

Taking a cue from Rajadhyaksha, I argue that rivers function as a force which push us beyond boundaries, and urge us to reimagine geographies beyond political maps. As we commemorate Ritwik Ghatak (1925-1976) and his exceptional cinematic journey, in his centenary year, I ask: Do Ghatak’s films hold a mirror to theories of geography, physical maps, natural habitats, and consequently, to the subject of ‘decoloniality’? For instance, if we consider Aimé Césaire’s classic work The Tempest (1969), and Frantz Fanon’s landmark writings such as Black Skin, White Masks (1952), can we find that ‘decolonializing’ figure, face, voice, and a (cinematic) language through Ghatak’s films? Needless to say, it is harder to ‘go back’ to a decolonized future in South Asian contexts than, for example, as in the case of the Americas, because of our political present. So, I ask again: Do rivers enable us to understand stories and histories of decolonization? Can the riverine landscapes of South Asia, and SouthEast Asia, lead us to parallel historiography?

I argue that Ritwik Ghatak’s films become one of the ways of exploring the contested lands and complex riverine stories, those which are not limited to the celebrated director’s oeuvre, and are beyond narratives of nations and narrations. While readings of Ghatak’s films have, largely, focused on their political purpose, partition narratives and stories of displacement, more critical studies have put the accent on their formal experimentation, emotive quality, uncovering of (personal) history, philosophical meaning and elucidation of epic melodrama and mourning (Ashish Rajadhyaksha 1982, Bhaskar Sarkar 2009, Manishita Dass 2017, Moinak Biswas 2021), as well as on the questions of the political, people, and praxis (Madhuja Mukherjee 2011).

As we explore matters of shifting and affective geographies, and focus on the idea of ‘place’, we delve into places of dwelling (Priya Jaikumar 2019) and other spaces: Places of arrival, departure, movement and thoroughfare, imagined and cinematic places, liminal and evolving places, places of struggle and action (Sanghita Sen 2020). Thinking outside the existing grids, I explore the ways in which water bodies and humans, soil and skin, trees and beings are interwoven with the modernising world(s). (Madhuja Mukherjee 2019, Moinak Biswas 2023).

I enquire: can we envision a new way of looking at ‘place’, and find newer critical lenses to understand histories of landmasses and waterbodies, across the regions? Can we find a critical method of analysing place and spatiality in cinema? Can the river routes be imagined as a methodological arc? Does a new approach enable a critical study of the stories of trees, rivers, moist lands, humans and non-human life?

The shape-shifting River Titas

Let me discuss one of the early sequences of Ghatak’s Titas Ekti Nadir Naam (1973) in which young Basanti is perched on a boat that is parked on the river bank. She looks into nothingness, and waits for Kishore and Subal, who have gone fishing. In the next shot, as Ramprasad-Jyatha (Uncle) remembers his beloved (deceased) daughter, Durga, the camera gets closer to the river. Ramprasad laments: “This is how life is. Now, we have everything, then we lose everything. …here, Titas is flowing by, maybe tomorrow it will dry up. Maybe, the drop of water that is put in your mouth before you die shall be gone…”.

Ramprasad’s prophetic words become even more meaningful later, towards the end of the film, when river Titas dries up, changes its course, and in-fighting rips apart the community, homes, lives, and the deep sense of belonging. An uncharted and unknown landscape emerges due to river silting, which transforms peoples, livelihoods, and modes of living. Basanti (Rosy Samad), now consumed by many tragedies and hardships, crawls across the barren land – for a drop of water. We ask again: What stories do the dead and drifting rivers tell us about geo-politics? How do geographies, and the sharing of land, rivers, water, and natural resources, impact political histories?  Ghatak, for instance, alerts us about socio-economic changes and the withering of the social fabric of life due to ecological mutations; moreover, I suggest that his cinematic language and the camera work (of Baby Islam) unravels a more complex history.

Clockwise 1 to 4: Basanti and the inseparable ties between landscape and people

In another instance, as Kishore (Prabir Mitra) returns with his newly wedded wife (Rajar Jhi,  played by Kabori Choudhury), she is abducted from the belly of the boat, and Kishore, overtaken by shock and grief, loses his senses. In this intense scene, in the moment of boundless loss, Kishore visualizes his bride – a face, hair, skin — embedded in the river, ravelled with a riverine history. Kishore says: “Found her… in the darkness”. Ghatak, appearing in this scene as a character, remarks: “Kishore, has gone mad”. This shot dissolves into a long shot of the river – one of the most recognizable shots of film. In the background, a boat gradually becomes visible, and something – perhaps a block of wood – is seen floating near the bank. Cut to a mid-shot of Rajar Jhi in the waters, while the boat-men approach her. This is followed by a close-shot of her face, still marked by chandan, and her hair left loose – they appear like ropes braided with deep waters. The strands of her hair are covered with the soft soil, they become indistinguishable from each other.

Clockwise 1 to 4: Rajar Jhi; her face is marked by chandan and her hair left loose – they appear like ropes braided with deep waters

In the latter scenes, after Rajar Jhi arrives at Kishore’s village with her son, Basanti welcomes her and invites her into the community. As the story proceeds, a world beyond the Anthropocene begins to unfold, and the fierce entanglement between man, woman, child, water and land is narrated through a unique cinematic language. So, in the scene in which Rajar Jhi guides Kishore, now called ‘Pagol’, to bathe in the river during Holi festivity, the divide between humans and their environs begin to dissolve. In the scene by the river, the camera is placed on the bank, and land and river become frames within the frame. As Holi celebrations continue, Rajar Jhi, Kishore, and others enter the frame. As people disapprovingly witness an intimate scene between a mystifying woman and a madman, a cut brings the camera further closer to the river. As Basanti looks at them – the couple are seen in knee-deep waters. Cut to a shot of Kishore applying abir on her face, however, such an evocative gesture is consumed by the water and the skies, and the characters are placed at the lower half of the frame while natural habitat envelops the scene.

Later, Kishore lifts her, carries her to the side where boats are parked, kisses her on the chest; and thereafter, he is (almost) beaten to death by the villagers. The bodies of Kishore and Rajar Jhi lie on the muddy ground, like tree trunks. Even in their most affecting and emotive moments, they appear ‘non-human’, and skin, cloth, and soil remain interlaced. As Kishore regains his senses for a while, he cries for water, and Rajar Jhi, suffering from pain and grief, crawls and twirls, like an animal or a reptile, to reach for the water. She soaks her anchal in Titas’ water, scrambles back, and forces out drops of water (from the cloth), and puts it in Kishore’s mouth.

Clockwise 1 to 4: In their most affecting and emotive moments they appear ‘non-human’, and skin, cloth, and soil remain interlaced

I, however, wish to draw attention to the shot of her hand clutching soil as she drags herself back, and the ways in which it mirrors the shots in which she touches Kishore’s body and Kishore touches her face. As Kishore whispers “Bou” (wife) and dies, she twists and turns, reeling in physical pain, anguish and longing, and moves toward the water. In the next shot, we see Rajar Jhi – her body covered in sari, soil and earthly matters – rolling into the water like a ‘non-human’, which is followed by a close-shot of her face streaked with water droplets, and her hair melting away and merging into the ripples. The scene becomes both a celebration of union and an intense moment of mourning for the inevitable separation. In life and death, thus, humans and Titas remain interlocked.

Clockwise 1 to 4: . The hand, the face and her hair: In life and death, humans and Titas remain interlocked

In the subsequent scenes, heavy rains engulf the frames. Shot extensively in real rain, and by placing the camera in a boat, the distinction between water, soil, and atmosphere is erased. The rain does not seem to happen outside, we – the characters and the viewers – are immersed in rain. Therefore, at the point their son, Ananta, stands in midst of the water, the camera too is placed in the water, so to speak. This technique generates a point-of-view (POV) that is from the river’s side or figuratively, that of the river which appears to be looking back at the land and the trees. As Ananta brings food for the departed soul, he sees his mother, Rajar Jhi, now reappearing as a Goddess, enmeshed in a big Banyan tree. Her arm appears like a branch, emphasizing further the entanglements of man, woman, water, soil, skin, and other material things. In life and death, they remain inseparable.

Clockwise 1 to 5: The tapestry of rain, and riverine POV in Titas

Such interweaving, however, reminds us of the problematic geopolitical histories because rivers existed before political maps, and they don’t stop at borders – even when they shift courses, rhythms and change names. For instance, Titas, located in Comilla, Bangladesh, as per political maps, travels from Tripura, India, and merges with Meghna in Bangladesh. Surma-Meghna thereafter meets Padma, the mythical river flowing through Chandpur, Bangladesh, and eventually Padma meets Madhumati, the longest river in Bangladesh. I ask: What rivers carry? One suggests, rivers carry in the depth their bellies desire, despair, stories of displacement, a life line and a life force, accounts of labour and material objects. They also carry people, bodies, and dead bodies; they carry the stench of blood, historical waste and a bloody history. The bear malady and lost chronicles of thousand years’ deprivation.

Tanvir Mokammel’s Nadir Naam Madhumati (1996), for instance, tells a complex story of political impasse and indecision, which is relevant to contemporary Bangladesh. The film becomes compelling not simply because it narrates how Motaleb Molla sides with the Pakistani forces during Bangladesh liberation war (1971), and in what way Bacchu, his son, joins the guerilla army, rather, it becomes meaningful because of the manner in which river Madhumati is imagined, and the ways in which scenes of the river carrying the dead are visualized. The red overtones, which smear a blood-like tint on the river, soil, and skies, are further heightened as Mokammel includes grim black and white documentary footage of the liberation war. As vultures feed the dead, the river becomes a silent carrier of loss and yearning.

Ghatak had also written the story of Bimal Roy’s Madhumati (1958). Madhumati, often described as part gothic-horror / part melodrama that uses themes of reincarnation and revenge, is rarely discussed as a seminal work of either Roy or Ghatak. I, nonetheless, despite the broader popular framework of the film, read it as an enunciation of memory, a story of remembering and retelling. For instance, in the film, Madhumati (Vyjayanthimala) is an elusive adivasi figure who eventually vanishes, and then returns as Madhavi. As the adivasis fight for ‘jal, jungle, jameen’, in the climax, Madhavi is set up as Madhumati’s ghost by Anand (Dilip Kumar), to trick the despotic landowner Ugra Narain (Pran).  Encountering the ghost, as Ugra Narain confesses to rape and murder, the police arrive and arrest him, and Madhavi / Madhumati fades out to prove that it was indeed a ghost (from the past) that had returned to claim justice.

The story has other layers and complications, but that aside, the question I pose is: Why is the film called Madhumati? How does memory operate within Ghatak’s oeuvre? I argue that rivers carry secret histories of violence and exploitation. A river carries fragmentary accounts, and they evoke longer, byzantine, chronicles which connect precolonial geographies to contemporary geopolitics. They become a process of decolonization as they flow from one country to the other, or from one historical time to another, and even as they change shapes, they are reborn as embodiments of history. As evident in Ghatak’s Komal Gandhar (1961), and pertinent in the Pakistani Urdu-Bangla film, Jago Hua Savera (dir. A. J. Kardar, 1959), they become witnesses to the knotted stories that flow by. A river collects a collective sense of loss and longing; it mourns, it travels, it invokes memories and stories which cannot be recalled and narrated otherwise.

Bibliography:

Biswas, Moinak. “Limits of Representation.” Philosophy East and West 71.1 (2021): 151-172.

Biswas, Moinak. “That Which Flows.” Frontiers of South Asian Culture, Nation, Trans-nation and Beyond. Patra, Parichay, and Amitendu Bhattacharya, eds., pp. 83-92. Taylor & Francis, 2023.

Dass, Manishita. “Unsettling images: cinematic theatricality in the cinema of Ritwik Ghatak.” Screen 58.1 (2017): 82-89.

Jaikumar, Priya. Where histories reside: India as filmed space. Duke University Press, 2019.

Mukherjee, Madhuja. “The story of Arri: Imagined landscapes, emergent technologies and Bengali cinema.” Journal of the Moving Image 10 (2011): 61-80.

Mukherjee, Madhuja. “Text, Speech, Idiom: Landscape, Language and the Meandering Flow of River Films”. Forms of Sovereignty: Art, Cinema, and Popular Culture, Working Paper 3 LSE/UC Berkeley Bangladesh Summit, 2019.

Rajadhyaksha, Ashish. Ritwik Ghatak: A return to the epic. Bombay: Screen Unit, 1982.

Rajadhyaksha, Ashish. “How to Navigate the Jungle”. Ho Tzu Nyen: One or Several Works, Sam Shiyi Qian, ed., pp. 82-101. Shanghai: Ming Contemporary Art Museum, 2018.

Sarkar, Bhaskar. Mourning the nation: Indian cinema in the wake of partition. Duke University Press, 2020.

Sen, Sanghita. “Ghatak in the shadows: Films that struggled.” Shadow Cinema: The Historical and Production Contexts of Unmade Films, James Fenwick, James, Kieran Foster, and David eds, pp 109-126. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2020.

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