We may call him a new wave filmmaker, writer, actor, activist and social commentator but Rituparno Ghosh, much like the fluidity of his clothes that defied gender stereotypes, never wanted to put himself in a box. “Why should you call me a Bengali filmmakerIJ Why can’t we all call ourselves makers of world cinema, telling our stories in different languagesIJ Mine happens to be Bengali,” he said in a recent interview.
With Tagore’s world citizen philosophy in his blood and the craft of Ray shaping his emotional chords, Ghosh could be intricately local and universal in the split of a sweep. It was this amazing flexibility and ability to see through to the human soul that made him deliver a Tagore classic like Chokher Bali with Aishwarya Rai and a method actor’s swan song in The last lear with Amitabh Bachchan. Who would have thought a Jackie Shroff could be a rapacious Bengali zamindar or Abhishek Bachchan a mute potter in Antarmahal, Rakhi could be a home-grown Miss Marple in Shubho Mahurat and even a rookie Arjun Rampal a contemplative director in learIJ
Many thought he was obsessed with Bollywood. Few understood his practical logic. Choosing identifiable faces was his way of saying that cinema could and should transcend stereotypes. It also showed his uncanny eye for talent. He shaped several local actors and talent, not only hosting them at great adda sessions but grooming them selflessly like a patriarch. He even encouraged young filmmakers, without ever being insecure that they would become his competitors some day.
Strangely, he never fed himself on Hollywood and European cinema in his formative years though he did start watching them in the digital format much later. He rose from the Bengal school, rooted himself deeply to a mileu he understood, the urban spaces in a changing India, a Kolkata that was breaking out of sepia frames, of feudal style puritanism and expressing its liberal spirit. Post Ray’s death in the early 90s and the intermittent and divergent offerings of filmmakers like Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Goutam Ghosh and Aparna Sen, a void emerged in Bengali cinema. As they retreated into a parallel space, bent on contextualising their films against a panoramic social or issue-based backdrop, commercial filmmakers in Bengal shamelessly followed Hindi, Tamil and Telugu hits and formula. Ghosh filled a vaccuum in everyday lives by telling stories that were realistic, simple, within the grip of the Bengali mindspace, private and probing without being judgmental.
His stories could be our personal diaries in a ruthlessly demanding urban space. No wonder many like Anik Dutta, the director of Bhooter Bhabishyat, dared to follow his contemporary grammar and experiment with themes. “He was extremely aesthetic and had a great eye for detail. Even his props spoke when the characters did not. In these days of competition, he was one director who was always willing to help anyone who asked for it. And that is overwhelming,” he said.
Close to his mother and later his friends at the Jadavpur University, Rituparno Ghosh was most comfortable in recasting women in flesh and blood. Be it the mother-daughter conflict and resolution in Unishe April, the tussle between guilt and courage in Dahan, the passion play in Chokher Bali, the brutality of desire in Antarmahal, the child-like wishes of a middle-aged landlady in Bariwali, the acceptance in Dosar or the soul connect of Noukadubi, Ghosh’s women were layered, complex and not scared to express their frailty or shout out their darker side. “I will not let them be subjects of victimology,” he once said. With them as protagonists, he could explore the depths of inter-personal relationships in a manner that most seem to avoid, simply because he carried the fullness of both man and woman within himself. In his lens eye, the unpretty became pretty.
As actor Anupam Kher, who produced his Bariwali, told us, “He had a fantastic sense of humour. His understanding of human behaviour and nature showed in the detailing of his characters. He maintained all Bengali traditions yet boldly portrayed his thoughts, redefining our cinema in the process.”
little wonder then that Unishe April won him his first of the 12 National Film Awards. His other National Award winning films include Dahan, Asukh, Chokher Bali, Utsab, Raincoat, Shubho Mahurat, Abohoman, Shob Charitro Kalponik and The last lear.
As an actor, he chose to express himself just as boldly, by playing himself. He connected with the mother of his gay partner in Memories of March while his last film was a modern take on Rabindranath Tagore’s Chitrangada. It deals with a very romantic relationship between two males with one of them embarking on a sex change procedure. In the end he refuses to be conditioned and lives within his own space. That was his essence. Said director Goutam Ghosh, “Besides losing an extremely sensitive film director, we have also lost one of the pillars of the lGBT movement.”
One of his best friends from college, Meenakshi Ganguly, reminisces: “He was not shy of his sexual orientation even in those years. He had a boyfriend who lived in his neighbourhood. One day the guy ditched him and Ritu was shattered, he cried ceaselessly for hours with his head on my lap and finally said, ‘They all go away.’ In that moment, he had understood the stark reality of relationships and their hurtfulness that is reflected in his work. And he never hurt anybody, not even his mother for whom he pursued economics, topped mathematics while reading literature and making films.” That was Ghosh, a pleasant rebel of his time, if you could call him that.
Charting a different course from his last few films on relationships and alternative sexuality, Ghosh took up the ambitious work of filming the exploits of popular Bengali sleuth Byomkesh Bakshi, casting Kahaani director Sujoy Ghosh in the lead. Having dealt with morbidity and the delicate recesses of relationships, he really wanted to make a happy, bright film. That next chapter, hopefully, will be written by Rituda’s many disciples.
(With inputs from Sutapa Mukerjee)