Part One.
Back with the children of the Jhamtse Gatsal Children's Community. After my trip to Arunachal Pradesh last year I was not sure when I would visit the children's community again.(See ' Far Away Land' in my previous posts) But I was invited once gain to visit the community this time in November.A much colder time of the year.So I was ready for it.I carried all my woolens in my possession and set out with a certain sense of adventure to the the Himalayan region of the country right on the border of Bhutan, Tibet and China.
This time I took a different route.I traveled to Kolkata first by train this time in a much more comfortable one called Duronto a bengali name given during the reign of Mamta Benerjee as the union minister of the Indian Railways. I took a halt in Kolkata for a day to break journey and also to meet a few friends and revisit the city.Last time I was there for the shooting of a documentary film for SPARROW with my wife C.S.Lakshmi on the legendary writer Mahashweta Devi. That was some years ago.
My association with 'Calcutta' then and now Kolkota has been a long one. I first went there with the unit of Mrinal Sen for his Hindi film 'Ek Adhuri Kahani' produced by Arun Kaul way back in 1970 when I had just passed out of the Film Institute in 'Pune'. I was an assistant director to Mrinal Sen in that film which was shot by the legendary cameraman K.K. Mahajan. That visit was followed by a much longer trip working as a virtual ghost director for a Hindi film 'Parivatan'. The entire cast and crew of the film was from Kolkata. The Producer Director of the film was D.S.Sultania. who had also produced Mrinal Sen's films "Interview' and 'Calcutta 71'.
During the shooting of that film I had the wonderful opportunity of working in the hallowed New Theatre Studio One, popularly mentioned as 'NT ONE'.That was a great experience for me; not only did it gave me a chance to know the great city of Kolkata of that time but also to work and know some of the finest actors and technicians of Bengal film industry.I had the opportunity to work with legends like Utpal Dutt, Shekhar Chaterjee, Gyanesh Mukherjee, Juhi Benerjee, Lili Chakrobarty, Anup Kumar, Robi Ghosh and Ranjeet Mullik, the leading man of the film who had just started his career with Mrinal Sen's 'Interview'. Juhi Benerjee who was the female lead initially was later replaced by Heena Kausar, daughter of the legendary actress of Hindi cinema Nigar Sultana of the 'Mughal E' Aazam' fame for our generation. Nigar Sultana also accompanied her daughter to the shooting and to my surprise created a flutter on the streets of Kolkata even at that age, evry time she stepped out of the hotel. 'Parivatan' went on to become a big hit in Kolkata and celebrated a ' Silver Jubilee' there. Incidentally Sudha Shivpuri also played an important rrole in the film as the mother of the leading actress.
On one of my later visits I had the good opportunity of interacting with the legendary actor of Bengal, Soumitra Chatterjee. At that time I wanted to make a documentary film on his life and work.I had some nice interactions with him during that trip at his residence and during a visit to his favorite watering hole in the evening. He recounted some beautiful events of his life for me. In spite of all my enthusiasm that project never got off the ground but I was happy to have met him and to have had some interesting exchanges with him. Later on, my trips to Kolkata were mostly during the film festivals where some of my films were screened. I remember 'Pahala Adhyay' in 1983 and 'The Flying Bird' much later in the early nineties
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And there I was walking on the streets of Kolkata around the Esplanade the next morning waiting for a call from an old friend who was to pick me up from there. The area around Esplanade looked very familiar, the people, the shops and the general ambiance of the city. I felt the city in that sense had not changed as much as other metropolises in the country like Chennai,Bangalore, Jaipur. Chandigarh and Hyderabad. In fact, I had noticed in my previous trip to Park Street that it had lost its charm and looked a little run down. Some parts of Kolkata may have changed for the better but by and large things had remained the same. Except maybe there were more people on the streets and more shops on the footpaths. There was a sense of deja vous. In that sense Kolkota for me more or less remains the same over grown village which it was fourty years ago But I was happy going back there, having a drink in a typical Kolkata bar, meeting old friends and having Macher Jhol. It was particularly nice to meet my old friend from the Film Institute, the well-known cameraman Kamal Naik,who has worked with many famous directors in Bengal including Budhadeb Das Gupta for his film 'Bagh Bahadur'. Unfortunately I could not meet Mrinal Sen as he was not available at that time.
So ferrying across Hooghly to Howrah and looking at Kolkata had its own share of romance which brought many memories of my past associations with Kolkata including seeing some great classics of Bengali cinema like 'Pather Panchali' of Satyaji Ray and 'Meghe Dhaka Tara'of Ritwik Ghatak. I had the good oppportunity of meeting these legendary film makers earlier in Mumbai.In fact, I kind of "assisted" Satyajit Ray for a day in Mumbai when he was doing post-production for his film 'Pratidwandi' at Rajkamal Studio. I had gone there to see him at work but he involved me in dubbing some sound effects along with Tinu Anand who was an assistant to him at that time. So I have some footsteps of mine recorded somewhere on the sound track of that film! I also met Ritwik Ghatak briefly in Mumbai soon after I passed out of the Film Institute in Famous Tardeo Studios while I was working on Mani Kaul'.s 'Aashad Ka Ek Din' I love these chance meetings with legendary personalities however brief they may be.They enrich you. As someone who met the great J. Krishnamurthi for fifteen minutes described the encounter saying, "The sky looks bigger", I have had many such encounters with some of my idols but may be I will write about it in a different post.
So I bid good by to the "City of Joy" the next day and boarded another train to Guwahati in the afternoon from Howrah station on my way to Jhamtse Gatsal in Arunacahl Pradesh very close to the city of Tawang. To Far away Land. Once again!
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Still from the film Pratidwandi
Directed by Satyajit Ray |
Still from the film 'Meghe Dhaka Tara'
Directed By Ritwik Ghatak
Vishnu Mathur.
Mumbai.
May 12, 2014.
