The recently-announced National Awards 2013 saw Alaka Sahani win the best film critic award Swarna Kamal and `75,000 for her critiques in English. The citation says, “Through her articles published in 2013, film critic Alaka Sahani has highlighted facets of cinema beyond glamour and gossip by delving deeper into the contemporary relevance of iconic filmmakers, hunting down the remnants of yesteryear theatres in Mumbai, investigating the new lease of life given to documentary filmmakers by the internet and by looking at film making on the other side of the border. The jury recommends her for the award for the nonmainstream theme of her articles and the sensitivity with which she has presented these issues.”
Alaka belongs to Cuttack district. At present, she heads the features section of the Mumbai edition of The Indian Express and writes extensively on cinema and theatre. Since her father Keshab Charan Sahani was an Income Tax officer and had a transferrable job, Alaka studied at different parts of the State. She did her schooling at Barabati Girls High School, Baleswar, FM College, Baleswar and SB Women’s College, Cuttack. Alaka is a second batch graduate from IIMC, Dhenkanal. She talks about her career, inspiration and tips to be good film critic.
Career in journalism:
I started my career with news reporting in the Sun Times and The Asian Age in Odisha. When I moved to the Hindustan Times, Kolkata, I joined the news desk. later, I worked on the desks of The Times of India, Kolkata, and The Hindustan Times, Mumbai. While I was at HT, Mumbai, I realised that I am not enjoying the desk job and wanted to resume reporting and writing again. That’s when I started contributing to HT’s Sunday magazine Brunch and other sections alongside my desk job. For Brunch, I wrote several film trend stories as well as interviews. In February 2007, I joined the features section of The Indian Express, Mumbai. It is here that I started writing on films regularly. I mostly focussed on off-beat cinema and film festivals. I would also like to mention Rakhi Ghosh, the best mother-in-law in this world, who has given me all the love and freedom to pursue my dreams.
Inspiration for film journalism:
No one inspired me to take up film journalism. However, I was exposed to cinema, especially old Hindi films and art movies, by my parents from a very young age. While growing up, we used to have a VCR. There were times, when I have watched two-three movies in a day. These movie viewings used to be followed by intense debate and discussions in the family. At times, it led to lengthy argument with my parents. While I was more influenced by my mother Premlata Sahani’s ability to understand and analyse a movie, it’s my father, Keshab Charan Sahani (retired deputy commissioner of Income Tax), who was more liberal with me and allowed to watch all sorts of movies. So, we also watched quite a few English movies in the late 80s and 90s like Top Gun, Blue lagoon, The Five Men Army and Ben Hur.
Exposure to world cinema happened thanks to my husband Pratik Ghosh, who has done a film appreciation course at FTII, Pune. In fact, earlier we used to watch at least one movie of masters like Akira Kurosawa, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Pedro Almodovar, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese and others.
Since I always had a deep love for cinema, it was natural for me to gravitate towards it after I joined The Indian Express. And the appreciation of my seniors and colleagues encouraged me stick to writing on films.
About Odia film
journalism:
I am not in a position to answer this as I have not been able to keep track of it in the last few years. However, I would ask all those who are writing on movies to watch a lot of good movies and read up on the subject. That can help them add new perspectives to their approach and writing.