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The summer of 1968. Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Nabendu Ghosh, Utpal Dutt, Tapas Sen and Mrinal Sen had gathered in Indrapuri Studios. A special preview had been organised for a film. Mrinal \u2013 an associate of the other four from those IPTA days at Paradise Cafe \u2013 had just completed for Film Finance Corporation. A 12-year-old \u2013 me \u2013 had tagged on. They watched in complete silence as the Strict Bureaucrat from a metropolis took a break from his Rail Board office in the Kutch Backwaters, went on a wild duck shoot, was charmed by an innocent village belle and pardoned her husband, a corrupt TC. The viewers were engrossed in the pristine landscape, the unspoilt villager, the incorrigible bribe-seeker. And they laughed when the quirky disciplinarian stood before a mirror, stripped, made faces, yelled and danced in joy, feeling liberated from the harness of doing the \u2018right\u2019 thing.<\/p>\n
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Mrinal Sen<\/p><\/div>\n
The scene was straight out of Mrinal\u2019s own life: he\u2019d enacted it in 1951, when he quit as a medical representative in Jhansi. All through the evening at Indrapuri, Mrinal was tense, wondering how the viewers would respond to the Bonophul story he\u2019d wanted to make since 1959. The seasoned group of writers, directors, actors and theatremen were a barometer the director trusted completely. Although he had 8 films behind him, Mrinal was starting from a \u2018zero point\u2019. It was a radical departure for even him \u2013 and Indian viewers had certainly not seen such idyllic outdoors, such visual poetry, such disregard for romantic conventions. No sets, no stars, no songs, no happy endings, the dark comedy thumbed its nose at morality. FFC had agreed to fund it only because the amount was so low. But after the failure of the Oriya Matira Manisha<\/em> (1966) Mrinal was sitting idle, with no Bengali producer willing to back him. He simply HAD to prove himself with this Hindi film.<\/p>\n Little did the man with salt-n-pepper hair, silver sideburns, rumpled kurta and Aligarhi know that the evening\u2019s youngest viewer \u2013 who\u2019d been completely ignored by the grey heads \u2013 could indicate the popular response to Bhuvan Shome. Here was a movie that had thrown traditional narrative to the winds and replaced it with a sweeping vision! It would sweep off its feet an entire generation of filmgoers who had no affection for mainstream affectation, social tragicomedies, or action drama. Unwittingly, Mrinal had ushered the New Wave in\u00a0Indian cinema.<\/p>\n After Miss Gita Shome, who became his wife, this Mr Shome opened a new chapter in Mrinal\u2019s life.<\/p>\n The strict bureaucrat on a wild duck shoot (Bhuvan Shome<\/em>)<\/p><\/div>\n It happened like in a drama. Returning from FTII, in the four hours he had before his flight from Bombay, he was forced by his friend Arun Kaul to sit down and script Bhuvan Shome.<\/em> The meagre budget of Rs 1.5 lakh raised brows in FFC (later renamed NFDC). \u201cWill he scoot with the money,\u201d sceptics wondered. \u201cWhy else is he offering no collateral?\u201d But Mrs Gandhi, who as I&B minister had met Mrinal at FTII, had opined: \u201cAt such a low cost we can give him a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n That wasn\u2019t the end of his woes. When the 9,000 ft film was complete, the accountants hauled up Mrinal. Didn\u2019t he read the contract when he signed on the 34 pages? It stipulated that the film must be 13,000 ft long! As for viewers, Mrinal was convinced none would show up; indeed, fearing it won\u2019t release at all, he\u2019d discuss with Utpal Dutt whether to continue private screenings.<\/p>\n The sophisticated satire\u2019s runaway success not only created cine-history, it created an entire generation of cine-maestros. Among them were Adoor Gopalakrishnan, G Aravindan, Basu Chatterji, Basu Bhattacharya, Shyam Benegal, Girish Kasaravalli, Ketan Mehta, Kundan Shah, Syed Mirza… Perhaps more directors than FTII can claim emerged at a breathless pace \u2013 showing a multifaceted India, and turning NFDC into a \u2018blue chip\u2019 company!<\/p>\n Mrinal Sen’s Bhuvan Shome<\/em> – an Indian Nouvelle Vague experience<\/p><\/div>\n Mrinal loved cinema. The 1923-born may not have grown up eating New Theatres, drinking Bombay Talkies, smoking Hollywood. But once he read \u2018Film\u2019<\/em>, Rudolf Arnheim\u2019s book on aesthetics of cinema, in the Imperial (now National) Library, he sought the company of Ritwik, Salil, Tapas \u2013 who lived films, talked films, dreamt films. Like Satyajit Ray, he was a regular at film society screenings. Long before his peer Ghatak made Nagarik<\/em> (1952), Mrinal had geared up to film Nabendu Ghosh\u2019s dynamic novel, Ajab Nagarer Kahini<\/em> in 1949. When it didn\u2019t materialise, he became a medical representative to keep body and soul together. He quit to join Arora Studios as audio technician, and debuted in the same year as Ray, with Raat Bhore<\/em>. The film featured Uttam Kumar, who\u2019d already set benchmarks in popularity with Suchitra Sen. Yet, two weeks after its release, it was yanked off the theatres. Mrinal would famously \u201cdisown\u201d his debut vehicle.<\/p>\n Manju Dey and Kali Banerjee in Neel Akasher Neechey<\/em> (1958)<\/p><\/div>\n The \u201cWhy?\u201d became evident with every subsequent film. From Neel Akasher Neechey<\/em> (1958) till Aamar Bhuvan<\/em> (2002) Mrinal stayed ahead of his contemporaries by unique handling of avant garde<\/em> subject. He\u2019d digested concepts like existentialism, surrealism, Marxism. He\u2019d blend in the nuances of German expressionism, French Nouvelle Vague and Italian neorealism. He had no use for a linear unfolding. He\u2019d give chronology a go-by as he transgressed barriers of time and space, mixed past and present, shuttled back and forth in stream-of-consciousness manner, to recreate the past for the present.<\/p>\n Much like his scripts, real men and women became protagonists in fictitious storylines even as fantasy melted into reality. Stylised shots, freeze frames, montage-intercuts-fragmented narratives became his autograph. If this led many to deride him as \u2018poor man\u2019s Godard\u2019, it also ended up creating conventions. The open ending, for one. Mrinal wouldn\u2019t provide a finite conclusion like his peers, instead he\u2019d leave the door ajar for the viewer to walk into the plot and come to his own conclusions.<\/p>\n This didn\u2019t remain unique to Mrinal. With him behind the camera Indian cinema changed format, language, tenor.<\/p>\n Mrinal Sen and Ratnottama Sengupta (extreme right) at the Oxford Book Store<\/p><\/div>\n Like Bhuvan Shome, Ek Din Pratidin<\/em> too poked the ribs of middle class morality. One used bribery to laugh at righteousness; another took up working women to shred patriarchal boundaries. Later Khandhar <\/em>and Kharij <\/em>too questioned the attitude and values of PLUs.<\/p>\n Baishey Shravan<\/em> (Pic: mrinalsen.org)<\/p><\/div>\n But what really turned him into a raging bull was Poverty. From Baishey Shravan<\/em> to Amaar Bhuvan<\/em>, Mrinal\u2019s landmarks offer a kaleidoscopic look at deprivation. Baishey Shravan<\/em> (1960) probed how poverty corrupts. Premchand\u2019s Kafan<\/em> became Oka Oori Katha<\/em> (1977) to show indigence destroys the vestiges of humanity. Khandhar<\/em> (1983) built on how destitution robbed people of dignity. Ruthless, grinding, unrelenting, poverty isn\u2019t romanticised or glamorised as in many Bengali classics. That\u2019s why he chose Manik Bandopadhyay, not Bibhuti Bhushan.<\/p>\n He structured Calcutta 71<\/em> over 40 years to talk about \u201cthe country\u2019s most basic ills.\u201d There\u2019s nothing sacred about hunger, Mrinal argued, for it debases, disintegrates, dehumanises. He fumed that \u201cthe fundamental disease\u201d is handed down from generation to generation. India, a 25-year-nation, was a civilisation that suffered millennia of squalor and poverty. How much frustration can build up over such time? If the seething anger bursts its banks, what form would it take?<\/p>\n Mrinal hoped that his dialectics on hunger would change people\u2019s perception of poverty. He hoped to stir viewers out of resignation and despair into rage and iconoclasm. He found a mouthpiece in a wizened old man who blurted out into his camera: \u201cLook, the cinema-babus have come in search of the famine. But they don\u2019t see us – we who personify famine.\u201d It shook the director out of smugness, and led to Akaler Sandhaney<\/em>\u00a0becoming an innovative comment on the very art of filmmaking.<\/p>\n Smita Patil and Mrinal Sen during the shooting of Akaler Sandhaney<\/em> (Pic: Indian Express)<\/p><\/div>\n Like a volcano that has spent the fire in its belly, Mrinal mellowed after the collapse of communism. His cutting edge gave way to the gentler approach of Antareen<\/em> and Aamar Bhuvan<\/em>. There\u2019s empathy in them, not cynicism; understanding, not impatience. \u201cI was moved to hear an old man who was being interviewed on a channel at the outbreak of the Gulf war,\u201d Mrinal was talking about his swansong. \u201c\u2018Nooksan hi nooksan,\u2019<\/em> he\u2019d said, \u2018wars In keeping with the mood, its unfolding shunned gimmicks. \u201cEveryone says I must make simpler films,\u201d Mrinal was quoting Tagore, \u201cDo they realise it\u2019s the most difficult thing to achieve?\u201d<\/p>\n Mrinal, clearly, wasn\u2019t rigid like an avowed Marxist. He was concerned with the social life of his characters, so they never became mouthpieces for ideology. Instead they pulsated with their maker\u2019s compassion for human predicament. For Mrinal, a persona in a certain place at a given time in history was a medium of neither story nor ideology but of soul-searching, \u201cto see human beings remain human.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s why the films provide us – Mrinal included – with insight.<\/p>\n Restlessness was the m\u00e9tier of the maestro who likened himself to a traveller climbing mountains. \u201cWith every shot I was growing; with every film the horizon was changing.\u201d\u00a0 Consequently unpredictability became his caller tune. No artist ever repeats his content but with Mrinal, even the form wasn\u2019t static. He broke narrative continuity, he breached away from what others were doing, he viewed critically what he\u2019d himself done. The only thing certain with him was that it\u2019d be a fresh experience \u2013 like it or leave it!<\/p>\n \u201cTime!\u201d he\u2019d say \u2013 time is what decided his subject. Mrinal was never after a story \u2013 ideas were his plot. He tried to catch reality as it walked down the street, ushering \u201can agit-prop style of classicism,\u201d says Girish Kasaravalli.\u00a0 Indeed, Time was Mrinal\u2019s main protagonist. \u201cTime has been sitting on my back, and I always wanted to take a square look at it.\u201d The times he lived through, the changes it wrought, the struggles it forced on lives, the era it heralded – whatever happened in his lifetime formed the core if not the cosmos of his creation. He survived hard times, he looked ahead to changing times, he prayed for peaceful times – all through cinema. That\u2019s why he never turned cynical, never lost his zest for making films, never aged in mind or spirit.<\/p>\n Sreela Majumdar in Ek Din, Pratidin<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n Small wonder, he remained \u201cdangerously young,\u201d as he said when he turned 56, 72, 80… Young in mind, youthful in body too. How else could he smoke away to glory, collect match boxes from all and sundry, shoot and run, reach friends in Latin America, watch films after films, dream of calling \u201cAction!\u201d at 90? How else could he say, \u201cNinety-one years ago, there was an accident: my birth. Another\u2019s waiting to happen: my death.\u201d\u00a0 Mrinal had the courage to accept it graciously. For, in the decades since that summer of 1968, I found his zest for life prompt him to look into the mirror and say, \u201cI am one year younger than what I would be on my next birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n When that wheel of Time stopped on December 30, 2018, Mrinal Sen became Timeless.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI find Calcutta an intimidating, even infernal city, unredeemed and probably doomed…\u201d said the Prologue of Padatik<\/em>. Yet he eulogised the same city as \u201cMy El Dorado\u201d<\/em> (1989).<\/p>\n Mrinal Sen, always, was a contemporary citizen of Calcutta. Yes, Calcutta \u2013 he never reconciled to the Banglafied \u2018Kolkata\u2019. Calcutta was the city he came to study in, that\u2019s where he found love, where he rose to the pinnacle of success. The crowded north Calcutta houses and narrow lanes, the small flat at Deshapriya Park that also sheltered actor Anup Kumar; the Beltala flat he and Gita made their home once Kunal went abroad to study, the Paddapukur apartment his son had arranged for his \u2018Bondhu\u2019 (that\u2019s what Kunal called Mrinal), Bhowanipore, Ballygunge, Tollygunge,… Mrinal was familiar with the profile, the psychology, the problems that raced through the alleys of the \u2018big city\u2019. That\u2019s why he could map its history-geography-sociology.<\/p>\n Mrinal Sen directing Ranjit Mallick and Shekhar Chatterjee in Interview<\/em>. The Market scene was shot at Lake Market in South Calcutta. (Pic: mrinalsen.org)<\/p><\/div>\n The Calcutta trilogy – Interview<\/em> (1971), Calcutta 71<\/em> (1972), Padatik<\/em> (1973) \u2013 overtly explored the civil unrest in his El Dorado. Calcutta 71<\/em> alone could have served to document the city\u2019s woes down the decades as it lost its premier position in the Raj, bore the brunt of partition, became home to refugees, spawned Naxalites. But there was no full stop in Mrinal\u2019s love for Calcutta. In film after film he\u2019d captured the turmoil that made the city captivating to a creative artist. Akaler Sandhaney, Parashuram, Kharij, Ek Din Pratidin, Chaalchitra, Ekdin Achanak, Mahaprithibi<\/em>… collectively, they chronicled Kolkata\u2019s evolving mindscape.<\/p>\n The process had started long before the Calcutta series. Neel Akasher Neechey<\/em> focused on its humanism that forged a bonding between a Chinese pheriwala and an ordinary housewife. Punashcha<\/em> (1962) explored the problems that arose when a wife went to work. Akash Kusum<\/em> cast a stern look at the essential Bengali who desired corporate lifestyle but fibbed rather than work to attain it. For Mrinal, the city that became his home away from Faridpur was more than an inspiration, it was a protagonist. He could dip his brush into its potholes, its smog, its overcrowded buses, and paint its class difference, failed dreams, unflagging aspirations.<\/p>\n Mrinal\u2019s ouevre easily classify themselves, then, as<\/p>\n 1) Overtly Political<\/strong> \u2013 comprising Interview, Calcutta 71, Padatik, Chorus, Mrigaya, Mahaprithibi<\/em>.<\/p>\n 2) The Enemy Within:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Ek Din Pratidin<\/em>, where a daughter doesn\u2019t return from work one night, opened the chapter where Mrinal shredded middle class morality to locate the failings within domestic relationships and the rhythm of the everyday in his own society. Chaalchitra<\/em> and Kharij<\/em> followed as the script rotated the spotlight on the various members of the cosmos called family.<\/p>\n The Enemy Within: Ek Din Pratidin<\/em>, where a daughter doesn\u2019t return from work one night<\/p><\/div>\n 3) The Absence Trilogy of Ek Din Pratidin, Ekdin Achanak<\/em> and Kharij<\/em>, revolving around a household where the servant boy is found dead, probed the soul-searching that ensues when a person under the same roof goes missing, either temporarily or irrevocably, for reasons \u201cnot known\u201d even to their creator.<\/p>\n But, with all his love for the city, Mrinal was disturbed by the growing trend of urban films. \u201cIt means increasingly our thinkers are turning their gaze away from the village-based masses,\u201d he lamented. \u201cWith the rise of technology we\u2019re in a global village. Most films today have an urban setting. The cities have the same characteristics. Rural setting gives us an insight into the countries too,\u201d he had gleaned from his experience as part of juries.<\/p>\n \u201cSen?! He wants us to believe he makes political films, when all he\u2019s doing is films about politics,\u201d hardened critics said of Mrinal. \u201cHe\u2019s not committed to revolutionary cinema, nor is he idolising radicals,\u201d extremists added. \u201cAfter all, he must get government to fund him,\u201d some were plain uncharitable.<\/p>\n Politics and cinema don\u2019t go hand in hand for Indians, many would say. Cinema, before Independence, could be nationalistic but only to the extent the Imperialist rulers won\u2019t take offence. In the post-Independence era, people were fired by idealism, new dreams, hopes. So, even if they weren\u2019t escapist fare, Awara-Do Bigha Zamin-Pyaasa<\/em> entertained. Mrinal, though coming from a family that hosted Netaji, was a Marxist who didn\u2019t share the Nehruvian dreams. And still, it was Nehru\u2019s daughter who gave the iconoclast a new lease of life in cinema when she sanctioned Bhuvan Shome<\/em>.<\/p>\n However, when Calcutta \u2013 Bengal in general \u2013 underwent the massive churning of Naxalite movement, Mrinal\u00a0 made the overtly political Interview, Padatik, Chorus. Mrigaya<\/em> too was a veiled critic of the existing order, while Mahaprithibi<\/em> took stock of the changes that set in with the crumbling of the Iron Curtain. \u201cWhen capitalism and George Bush are tearing apart the world, it is time for direct, even strident political cinema,\u201d he said. \u201cIt can\u2019t change the world but perhaps it can give us a little hope.\u201d<\/p>\n Mithun Chakraborty in his debut film Mrigaya<\/em> with Mamata Shankar (Pic: mrinalsen.org)<\/p><\/div>\n When unsparing critics said Mrinal focuses only on economic exploitation, never political repression, Mrinal got agitated. \u201cNot political? Aami ki subversive cinema korbo<\/em>?\u201d Did the savage scribes expect him to make subversive films?!<\/p>\n Political, for him, was synonymous with raising the consciousness of the viewer. He was keen to transform cinema from a mode of entertainment to one that provokes introspection. Films, he hoped, would be a forum for discussion and documentation. True, despite his closeness to the Left, he didn\u2019t make films to restructure any political outfit, but \u201cself criticism is important, it is constructive, no one – neither leaders nor the filmmaker – is above reproach,\u201d he taught us.<\/p>\n Censorship? It\u2019s Wise.<\/strong><\/p>\n Why did the government finance Mrinal Sen, shower Kamals on him, crown him with a Phalke? Was it their way of ensuring he expended his anger in films rather than in turning radical? Mrinal best answered it by citing a European festival run by some politically dedicated filmmakers and critics but funded by the exchequer. \u201cThe organisers don\u2019t mind that the sophisticated political systems have built in tolerance within the system. Without that, censorship would have made it difficult to make the kind of films we\u2019re making.\u201d<\/p>\n Censors have in recent years \u201cbecome wiser,\u201d he said, perhaps in jest, when he learnt I was nominated to CBFC\u2019s Advisory Panel. His did not think censorship prevents analysis of society. \u201cInstead, it forces you to check and re-check your inspiration and your articulation.\u201d Further, he clarified, \u201cYou cannot go on making clandestine films and showing them to people. Filmmaking is a capital-intensive operation; and its purpose is defeated if you can\u2019t show it to people.\u201d<\/p>\n At Vigyan Bhavan or at Siri Fort; on a red carpet at Palais du Festival<\/em> or on the steps of Nandan – whatever Mrinal spoke on Cinema could become a text book for filmmakers and a policy document for the government.<\/p>\n In the concluding lines of his convocation address at FTII, Mrinal had spelt out his credo: \u201cRemember, when you touch your multifaceted medium, you touch man. As you serve your medium, you serve your conscience too. And as you walk into the world, you take chances or play safe. By taking chances you achieve or perish. Or, playing safe, you just survive. The choice is yours. Till the time you choose, I wish you all a very tough time.\u201d<\/p>\n For the high priest of a \u2018tough cinema\u2019, Mrinal was not against technology nor against the market. Cinema, he knew, was a product of technology, and so he took \u201crespectful note of its progress in directors like Spielberg.\u201d But technology isn\u2019t an end in itself, only a means to the end \u2013 cinema, the incorrigible humanist would caution. Technological advances have enriched the language of cinema but don\u2019t overdo it, for ultimately \u201cCinema has more head and heart.\u201d Technically smart but aesthetically not was, then, \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n As for the market, he believed that filmmakers are always competing with the market. \u201cEvery one of us wants to reach a bigger audience and so, even serious filmmakers want to go to Cannes – it would get them a bigger audience. Only because we fail, we say, \u2018We don\u2019t care if people don\u2019t see our work.\u2019 Every time my film fails to get an audience, I collapse.\u201d But then, he was the first to think in terms of combining the pockets of discriminating viewers spread worldwide. \u201cIf you can reach them, you can get your money back if not to buy a villa on the Riviera…,\u201d he\u2019d chuckled (after Mahaprithibi<\/em> became his biggest \u2018disaster\u2019 film).<\/p>\n Victor Banerjee and Aparna Sen in Mahaprithibi<\/em> (Pic: mrinalsen.org)<\/p><\/div>\n This, however, didn\u2019t translate into condoning mediocrity just because a film had garnered BO success. In fact he squirmed if even a minister judged films with the yardstick\u00a0of money. \u201cHow much of India is reflected by money-earners?\u201d he demanded. \u201cOur industry may be the largest but does it provide a high sense of satisfaction?\u201d he questioned. So he advised the government, \u201cBy all means support the money-earning sector, but don\u2019t wash your hands off the \u2018development\u2019 work. There\u2019s need to develop film literacy since that\u2019s the forerunner of quality viewing. And when the language of every art, from music and painting to dance and theatre has changed, the language of cinema must be revitalised,\u201d he urged after four decades of making, teaching, judging films.<\/p>\n Creativity, courage and confidence are the prerequisites of quality cinema, Mrinal firmly believed. \u201cAnd these are in short supply today, perhaps due to socio-political situation.\u201d The one lament he couldn\u2019t live down was his inability to make a film in the last decade of his life. Tears would escape his otherwise composed self when his physical frailty was unequal to match his intellectual vigour. But perhaps there was another reason why he didn\u2019t feel inspired to call the shots once more: the decline in the quality of films – not in festival circuit, nor in Bengal or India but worldwide… \u201cWith changing reality, perceptions are changing faster than in the past. But we\u2019re scared to look at reality – maybe that\u2019s why cinema today lacks vitality,\u201d he lamented.<\/p>\n Khandhar<\/em> \u201cis directed with masterly understatement by Sen. The dialogue is sparse, and the space between the sentences pregnant with longing and disappointment. The environment not only reflects the failure of the old mother\u2019s life, it is also integrated into mise-en-scene<\/em> with no trace of ostentatiousness. The Ruins is depressing, yet to experience and to feel it is a rare delight.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 – The International Film Guide<\/em><\/p>\n Khandhar<\/em> was screened at Cannes 2010, in the Classics section that encourages restoration. Reliance Media Works had restored \u2018The Ruins\u2019<\/em> by removing dust, dirt and scratches frame by frame. How many more of Mrinal\u2019s films need restoration? His debut film Raat Bhore<\/em> (1955) Punascha<\/em> (1961), Abosheshe<\/em> (1963), Oka Uri Katha<\/em> (1977) are all destroyed. Akaler Sandhaney<\/em> was in bad shape. \u201cLast year Cannes authorities wanted to hold a mini-retrospective of the Calcutta trilogy but found the negatives in very bad shape,\u201d Mrinal said then, adding:\u00a0 \u201cAlmost all my films are in very bad condition as they were not preserved properly.\u201d<\/p>\n Pankaj Kapoor and Shabana Azmi in Khandhar<\/em> (Pic: NCPA on Facebook<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n Reacting to the reports, PM Manmohan Singh had asked I&B ministry to restore the classics. So 17 films were taken up for restoration at Pune\u2019s National Archives, among them Interview, Calcutta 71<\/em> and Chorus<\/em>. Sai Prasad of Prasad Laboratories restored them, \u201cbut it\u2019s a highly expensive and time consuming process,\u201d Mrinal knew. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a global crisis,\u201d he said to this writer, travelling down memory lane to the year cinema turned 100.<\/p>\n Mrinal Sen (Pic: IMDb)<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cIn its plenary session in Paris, UNESCO had launched an appeal to safeguard the great treasures of human skill and creativity,\u201d recalled Mrinal, who was among the dozen practitioners of world cinema, invited to represent India. \u201cTo make a beginning, the UNESCO chief Dr Federico Mayor had touched on 100 years of cinema history and declared that \u2018emerging as it does from painting, theatre, music, literature and photography, the art invented in 1895 is the custodian of the memory of the 20th century.\u201d<\/p>\n However, Mrinal was disturbed by the \u201cshocking stories UNESCO collected about the systematic decay and possible threats of damages done to sound tracks and images.\u201d He was happy that the Ford Foundation had contributed a huge sum to restore some of Ray\u2019s films. On his part, he tried to raise funds for \u201cat least a few films of mine which are in terrible condition.\u201d His last wish was, \u201cBoth regional and Central governments should join hands for such restorations.\u201d<\/p>\n Time, and political changes, ensured it remained unfulfilled.<\/p>\n In 1952, when the first International Film Festival of India – IFFI – was held in Calcutta, a 29-year-old medical representative scheduled his days thus: In the years to come, Mrinal himself was to be a favourite guest of IFFI – of film festivals the world over, really. Festivals, he believed, \u201ccreate awareness about good cinema across the world.\u201d He would, then, be present as a director whose entry became a talking point, or as a member of its jury. On at least one occasion, as chairman of IFFI jury, he faced criticism for awarding a \u2018sentimental narrative\u2019. Others had described the jury\u2019s decision to award two films as \u2018politicising the award\u2019. Did the man who\u2019d himself brought home so many trophies compromise his position? Unwilling to break the vow of secrecy taken along with his team members, Mrinal had chosen to speak instead of competition in cinema, and of festivals.<\/p>\n \u201cNo festival in the world can give non-controversial verdict on competition films,\u201d Mrinal told this writer that afternoon. Reason? It\u2019s not possible to have a standard that\u2019d be common for all the films from Asia itself. \u201cBhutan might enter the lone film made there. Thailand and Israel both make limited number of films but can\u2019t be clubbed because their concerns are so different. Iran is working against severe political constraints; China and Japan make some of the most significant and spectacular films, while India churns out the largest number…\u201d<\/p>\n Simi Garewal and Dhritiman Chatterjee in Padatik<\/em> (Pic: mrinalsen.org)<\/p><\/div>\n Mrinal served on the jury at Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Moscow, Delhi, Tokyo, Teheran, Tunis, Karlovy Vary, Oberhausen… \u201cEverywhere one has to come to a respectable unanimity,\u201d he realised. \u201cPartly, because good and bad are subjective. Partly, because not too many good films are being made for the number of festivals being held in a year. There\u2019s a proliferation of festivals! India itself has so many. The competition sections are exclusive, and the big festivals grab the good films. They don\u2019t allow even one private screening before theirs. Under these circumstances, if 50 percent are good, one must consider it a good harvest.\u201d<\/p>\n And still he considered festivals a must for Kolkata and other centres. \u201cCinema, though it requires interaction with the other arts, is dependent on technology. That\u2019s why its language is constantly evolving. To understand this one must constantly see the latest in cinema.\u201d This is imperative for the serious just as for the mainstream filmmaker, he maintained.<\/p>\n That could be why Mrinal was critical of the media coverage given to guests at any festival. A festival, he\u2019d say, can\u2019t be measured by the star presence, \u201cit should be judged by the films it screens and the turnout for the films of seasoned directors. How many do that?\u201d<\/p>\n Ray, Sen, Ghatak: each with his individual strength ruled, and will continue to rule, the world\u2019s perception of Indian cinema. But what was the equation between the contemporaries? Ray, accoladed at the very outset for his \u201chuman document\u201d, came to be identified as a universalist. Ghatak, actually torn apart from his biological twin by the dawn of Partition, remained its most vocal critic. And Sen? He advocated what he admired most in\u00a0Chaplin \u2013 his humanism.<\/p>\n Ray and Sen had many well-publicised differences. But between them they breached the classical mould that existed in Indian cinema, and gave it a modern, progressive face. Ray, perhaps because of the overarching personality, his literary family background, or his own education in the arts at Santiniketan, had started with an advantage. Sen, born in Faridpur, coming to Calcutta to study science, estranged from his own father, grew in stature with every film he made. Ray\u2019s years in D J Keemer equipped him to think visually. Sen, as medical representative, became adept at selling ideas. Ray, especially in his early years, mined his content from literature, wrote detailed scripts, sketched out his sets and camera placements. Sen would start off with a treatment, seldom a finished script, and keep improvising.<\/p>\nMr Shome<\/h2>\n
![\"Bhuvan](\"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/05\/Bhuvan-Shome.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/06\/Mrinal-Sens-Bhuvan-Shome-an-Indian-Nouvelle-Vague-experience.jpg\")
His Genesis<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/01\/Neel_Akasher_Neechey.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/01\/mrinal-sen-and-ratnottama-sengupta.jpg\")
His Chaalchitra<\/h2>\n
![\"Baishey](\"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/01\/baishe1f.jpg\")
![\"Smita](\"https:\/\/images.indianexpress.com\/2018\/05\/celeb-spotted41.jpg\")
<\/a>
\nspell only losses.\u2019 Loss of life, earnings, relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\nDay In, Day Out<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\nCalcutta, not Kolkata<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nPolitical Cinema<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n\u2018When You Touch the Medium…\u2019<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nRestore The Ruins<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\nOur Festivals, Their Festivals<\/h2>\n
\n10 am to 12 noon – Calling on doctors
\n3 pm – Purna \/ Open City<\/em> (Rome) Dir: Roberto Rosselini
\n6 pm – Menoka \/ Jour de Fete<\/em> (France) Dir: Jacques Tati
\n9 pm – Lighthouse \/ Miracle in Milan<\/em> (Italy) Dir: Vittorio De Sica
\nSmall wonder Mrinal Sen didn\u2019t sell medicines for long.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nRay & I: Poles Apart?<\/h2>\n