Nemai Ghosh’s documentation of filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s actresses reveals the director’s concern with Indian femininity, the assumption of roles and problems of identity in society, says Uma Nair
Satyajit Ray had an epicurean eye when he chose actresses for his epic films. Whether it was Sharmila Tagore or Smita Patil or even Simi Garewal, the auteur’s vision can be seen in a historic suite of images collected by DAG’s founder director Ashish Anand. The iconic exhibition was organised on the 97th birth anniversary of the director on May 2, 2018 by Nehru Memorial Museum & library in association with DAG. Called Nemai Ghosh, Satyajit Ray & Beyond, the images evoke the vast scale of Ray’s world and the human determination to traverse it.
To begin with, Bollywood and Bengali actresses feature in a few prints by Nemai Ghosh. They seem to be iconic in their symbolism and their feminine allure with the stamp of rustic simplicity and grace. The demure and gorgeous Paromita Chowdhury, versatile and timeless Sharmila Tagore, the tall and swanky Simi Garewal, the emotively attractive Smita Patil. What a winsome quartet!
Sharmila Tagore
Sharmila Tagore sitting in a railway coach in Aranyar Din Raatri is the stuff of yesteryear nostalgia. Ghosh captures her doe-shaped eyes and her subtle smile. This singular image of Sharmila at the window tells us that Ray evolved his own themes, to form a technique that was wholly Indian and deeply individualist.
History states that Ray introduced Tagore in Apur Sansar, the final film of the Apu Trilogy. She played the young wife Aparna. She was just a 14-year-old then, with no previous acting experience but she was Ray’s discovery. He cast her in his next film Devi too.
Tagore went on to become a very successful actress in Bollywood’s Hindi films. She returned to work in later Ray films —Nayak, Aranyer Din Ratri and Seemabaddha. These films also indicated Ray’s concern with the Indian woman, her assumption of roles and problems of identity and her struggles in Indian society. The second image by Ghosh is Tagore in the film Seemabaddha. Sitting with the dapper hero in a striped blazer, Tagore is lost in thought and subtle in her enigmatic elegance — and this is the most important insight that photographer Ghosh gives us.
Another brilliant image from the same film is with the starlet Paromita Chowdhury, where she is gazing into an oval mirror wearing a classic Bengal cotton sari. It is the poise and the aura that is contained in this single portrait that defines its class.
The images that Ray crafted were the work of a reflective realist. Ray’s mise-en-scene (placing on stage) unveiled that his films were a complex amalgam of ideas and images that drew not only on individual artistic genius but an enlightened awareness that the medium itself was based on artifice.
Simi Garewal
Ghosh’s image of Simi Garewal as the Adivasi girl Dhuli in Aranyer Din Raatri is another magical image. Here is the sophisticated Garewal dressed like a darkskinned Santhal, looking every part of an erotic ensemble in the darkened background of a hut. You can almost smell the forests of Chhipadohar. The image also brings back Garewal’s own reflections about Ray whom she used to call Manikda. “Manikda became a friend — and a pen friend. I still have a pile of his beautifully hand-written letters. So inspired was I by the culture of Bengal that I learned Bengali. It was a memorable time, cocooned in this distant forest, making a film that the world would soon applaud. It seemed no one else existed on the planet. It was surreal and timeless,” she had said.
Smita Patil
The piece de resistance of Ghosh’s images of Bollywood’s beauties are a pair of rare portraits of Smita Patil — the first in the historic film Sadgati. To translate Munshi Premchand on celluloid and create a film for Doordarshan tells us of the genius of Ray and also of the high standards that Doordarshan had in the past. Patil’s portrait as Jhuria, with half her face covered with a sari, captured by the camera’s aperture, defines an unforgettable tenor in both grace and solitude — the mood and the alchemy of the moment is nothing but pensive poise — the finest piece of art which continues to ring a bell. Sadgati, directed by Ray and based on Premchand’s heart-wrenching short story, held up a mirror to society. The second is a languorous Patil standing at a balcony.
Ray — grammar of film-making
Nemai Ghosh, Ray’s biographer and photographer, turned 85 on May 8 this year. When I met him in 2005 at the home of Paresh Maity in Delhi, he spoke of Ray being the grammar of film-making and becoming Ray’s shadow as a biographer. In this cameo of images at DAG, there are a number of Ray portraits which define him as an imperial aesthete, a monarch in his own kingdom. The most dramatic image is Ray (1989) in his studio while shooting Ganashatru.
When asked to describe a day in the life of Ray during a shoot, Ghosh said, “When he would come in for the shoot in the morning, Manikda would put his notes down on the table so that everyone would see. I would also go through it along with the unit because I had to plan where I would take working stills and where I would take his pictures. We had a great understanding and rapport between us. Manikda was also flexible.”
And Ghosh also spoke about the hard work that the unity put in and the rapport that the unit had, “All of us planned and worked like a family, the unit was involved heart and soul every moment. Everything worked like clockwork — all of us — from the man behind the trolley to the boy carrying water, we were all part of the perfect plan. I have taken more than 90,000 photographs of Manikda over the years and I’m happy when my photographs are bought by serious collectors. I want my photographs to have a life beyond mine.”
In its celebration of Ghosh, DAG Modern brought alive the words of Ray: “Humanity and optimism mingled with poignant social concerns and values always inspired me. Nihilism and pessimism have never been my forte.”The exhibition runs from May 15-30, 2018.