Guru Speak

                                                       
                                                          

                              Swami Sharnanand


Once an old lady came to Swami Sharnanand and complained that her son had taken away from her the entire property left for her by her husband and she had nothing left to fend for herself. She was in deep distress and was crying because she did not know how to fight with her own son. Swamiji told her that either she should fight for her rights and take back what was due to her from her son or just give it up happily for the son whom she loved. The lady followed his advice accordingly fought for her rights and got back what was due to her without any malice in her heart. Swamiji believed that one should not take injustice lying down and one should always struggle for one's rights.


Vishnu Mathur.
April 18, 2014.  
Mumbai.

Far Away Land. Again! ( Part Two)

Part Two.

    

My train  reached Guwahati the next afternoon.I was picked up at the station by a taxi and promptly transported to Tezpur the gateway to Arunachal Pradesh. On my previous trips to Arunachal Pradesh too I have passed through Tezpur and have even camped overnight in this small but homogeneous town which is half way between being an big city  and an over grown town. The town Tezpur was  in news during the Indo-China war in 1962 as there were rumours that the Chinese troops had reached up to Tezpur which is in Assam and last year when I was in Tezpur the local news papers were writing stories about how the local people of Tezpur were bracing themselves to face the Chinese take over of the town. Today there are no such fears of such an eventuality for that is what one perceives looking at the large presence of army in the region.

Walking along very homely crowd around the market place in the evening, just below my hotel I did some shopping buying some essential things for my stay in Jhamtse Gatsal. The town gives me a sense of relaxed feeling. An easy going town where people come out in the evening in their light woollens during that period of the year for shopping of the day or just out for a stroll along the promenade. As the sun set I saw the shops pulling down shutters at eight or  eight thirty and people slowly ambling back to their Maruti 8oo cars like a slow fade out.Too early in the evening for a person from a metropolis like Mumbai  to retire. But then I too reluctantly amble back to my hotel  which was on the main street of the town. I tucked myself in the bed early to brace myself for a long journey ahead to Jhamtse Gatsal the next morning at 4 A.M. Mildly excited about the long journey ahead I fell asleep.


                                                
                                                                         



By 4.30 A.M. the next morning our Sumo Jeep was on the way after packing all the baggage which included a lot of equipment for the physics lab for the children at the school. I had some co-passengers who were known to the official driver of the van Dor Je. Dor Je who has been with the community since its inception is the trusted ally of Lama Lobsang Phuntsok, the founder and the current director of Jhamtse Gatsal Children's Community and is in charge of all the transport to and from Jhamtse Gatsal and the three vehicles the community owns. I was told that in order to reach Tawang/Lumna one has to cross over five small and big mountians including Se La pass which is at 14 000 feet. It is a tough ride for anyone young or old and driving all the way  in a day is a herculean task for any one. Dor Je told me that he must have driven on that route at least a thousand times. Earlier he was a professional driver driving the Sumo taxis which run on that route from Tezpur to Tawang.

As the sun  rose one could could see the now familiar topography of the place including the tea gardens on the way till we started climbing the mountains.Tea gardens of Assam produce the famous Assam Tea, the most popular tea in India because of its thick body which makes a strong brew, the "kadak chai" as they call it in Hindi. The other two teas which India produces are of milder and more fragrant variety; Darjeeling and the Nilgiri teas.A connoisseur of tea must sometime try a blend of all the three Indian teas and enjoy the thick body and flavor of the tea at the same time. As we moved along I realised that the journey this time was less arduous as the monsoon was over and there were no landslides and slush on the roads as it was during my last trip.In fact, during my last trip in 2013, at some points on my journey one had to cross sheets of water overflowing on the roads and at points roads were virtually non existent. With mandatory halts for breakfast and lunch and a few pee breaks we covered our journey in good time. As we touched  Lumna the closest town to Jhamtse Gatsal I could feel the excitement in my body of secretly knowing that there in the campus of the school all the children and teachers would have lined up to receive me as is the tradition of the community, to welcome each guest in a ceremonious manner. But more than that it was the excitement of seeing the happy faces of the beautiful children and  the bountiful hugs from them which gives one a great sense of joy and long lasting love.That is what  Jhamtse Gatsal stands for -- love and compassion. As our van entered the campus I could see Lobsang Phuntsok at the head of the queue with the ceremonial white scarf which he put around my neck after a warm embrace as soon as I got down from the van. This time I was also prepared as I presented him with a woolen shawl which I had carried with me all the way from Mumbai. Rest of the evening was a series of  warm embraces from the children and adults alike some old and some new faces. Warm food in the kitchen followed where some familiar and some new volunteers were waiting to see me. I was home in a 'Far Away Land, Again!

It took me a few days to recover from the journey and get on with the job I was scheduled to do.The place was abuzz with excitement as two film makers Andrew Hinton and Johnny Burke were in the process of making a documentary film on Lobsang Phuntsok and the community. So I was the third film maker on the campus! So while they were all over the campus with their camera and recorder I started my Cinema Workshop with the children. This time my workshop was entitled "Evolution of Mass Communication" in which I included evolution of visual communication, the spoken language, drawing and visual art, evolution of the written language leading to the printing press and beginning of the newspaper the first medium of mass communication after hand written books.Then the evolution of Radio, Television and Cinema as media of mass communication leading to the present  age of the digital world of computers, laptops and mobile phones. Children found the journey I took them through very fascinating.That brought them back to my subject cinema. I revised for them what I had taught them in the previous workshop in 2013 entitled "Six days in Cinema."And then started another session of screening of a fresh bunch of films I had taken with me for them. Another journey into the wonderful world of Cinema.

                                     



Like the previous year I started the film screening programme with a Charles Chaplin film. Last Time it was "City Lights' this time I screened "Gold Rush" As expected children started rolling all over the ground with laughter as soon as Charlie Chaplin appeared on the screen with his baggage and a huge bear following him. This went on as long as the film lasted.Children love Charlie Chaplin because Chaplin immediately communicates with audience.The was an instant hit.While the film was being screened the film makers Andrew and Johnny were busy filming the reaction of the children and they did it throughout the running time of the film.Later on they told me that they could make short film out of the footage they shot by inserting the clippings of the film in between the reaction shots of the kids.They thought it would make a nice short film.I told them that it would and I suggested that the film could be called "The Kids'. I hope they remember and make that film.I would make a nice tribute to the great Charles Chaplin.

                                                 

Photographs and Text ©

 Vishnu Mathur.

April 13,2014.Mumbai

"I Quote"

                                         

                                       

                                                        


                                                        Can I express myself more simply?

                                                                        More Briefly.

                                                     Ingmar  Bergman.

                                                                     Swedish Film maker.

Vishnu Mathur.
Mumbai.
March 13,2014.

Far Away Land. Again ! (Revised}

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
.
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!

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.

A poem

             एक दृश्य।                                                                                   The View.
                                             
            चलती रहे रेल                                                                             In the running train
            और बैठा रहू मै                                                                            Let me be
            रेल के  उस डब्बे में                                                                      In the corner
           और देखता रहूँ                                                                             Of that compartment
           बदलते हुए                                                                                   And just look
           दृश्य                                                                                            At the passing world
           धरती के इस कोने से                                                                    From this end
           उस कोने तक।                                                                             To another.

          विष्णु माथुर                                                                                Vishnu Mathur
          फरवरी  १०. २०१४                                                                        February 10, 2014.

Though Of The Day

Poverty deprives a majority of the humanity from realizing the real 
purpose of their lives and achieve the goals they aspire for.

Vishnu Mathur.
January 27,2014.

A Poem.

                      

                       
                        आकाश।                                                           The Sky.                              

                         है एक आकाश                                                   There is the sky
                         और एक मैं                                                       And here I am
                        जलता है सुरज                                                   The sun keeps  burning        
                        और चलता हूँ मैं।                                                 And I just walk.
                                                                                               
                        विष्णु माथुर।                                                     Vishnu Mathur
                         जनवरी १०  , २ 0 १ ४                                        January 10,2014.