New Delhi, May 16 -- It is not that I have not read other books on him written by fascinated critics like Marie Seton and Robin Wood, or that I have not focused on those memorable dialogues in which he articulated his aesthetic credo and commitment. But still, even after journeying through this long and fervent homage voiced by many, I believe we should all concentrate on this many-faceted interpretation by Chinmoy Guha, which explores regions hitherto uncharted.
Why do I make this explicit claim? First, because the author in the twenty chapters, which constitute this book, has created a single symphonic eulogy out of two different movements, Orient and Occident or East and West, that unravel the singular mastery of the maestro. In other words, he has explored how the cinematic art of Jean Renoir and the artistic dedication of Nandalal Bose (his tutor in Shantiniketan) coalesced in his creativity, beginning from the Apu Trilogy and ending with Aguntuk/Visitor.
While engaged in this dual though related commitments, Ray depicted the paradigmatic human condition which is rooted to a particular soil and, at the same time, devoted to the universal essence. Thus, as Robin Wood has said, Apu and Durga turned into incomparable archetypes. In his words, "Ray is arguably the cinema's greatest director of children." Or, to take another potent example, Biswambhar in Jalsaghar/The Music Room, which roused Paris, came to embody the inescapable decay of the feudal lord everywhere in this world, unable to survive the assault of avaricious mercantilism. In his very own way, Balzac had performed a comparable function in the history of French Literature. He explored the decline of royalist France, that is, the inevitable social transformation in the human condition, as experienced by Friedrich Engels, his most diligent reader.
Apart from these reasons mentioned above, Guha, an ardent student of literature and literary theory, has made consummate use of poetry and criticism to widen the range of our response. I shall limit myself to one specific example in this context - his masterly utilisation of T.S. Eliot's celebrated thesis in his essay Tradition and Individual Talent and his unforgettable poem Four Quartets. Both construct that palpable intimacy between two related forms of creativity, literature and cinema, pen and camera. Chinmoy reminds us of Francois Truffaut's eulogy to buttress this connection. Truffaut described Ray as the "master of auteur (author) cinema, capable of creating music with 'images'."
While reading the author's excellent explication of Charulata, I became even more intensely aware of this particular metamorphosis from one language to another. Only Ray could turn that impeccable novella Nastanir into an impeccable film. Indeed, what he achieved was exemplary. He utilised enviably the tragic fragments of a conjugal relationship to paint a society layered with the shades of new impulses and emerging tensions in a colonial society trying to bask in the sunshine of segmented reform.
Perhaps, yet another remarkable feature of this book is its emphasis on the nature of Satyajit's political aesthetic cum sociopolitical commitment. He himself phrased it succinctly in the following terms, "People say that I don't commit myself. I commit myself to human beings, that's a good enough commitment for me." No wonder, this inherent adherence to his trademark of ethics prompted him to expose the cruel amorality of corporate mercantilism in Seemabadha/Confined by Limits without being a provocateur, provoked his hero in Pratidwandi/Rival to single out the militant defiance in Vietnam as the most historic event of the last century and inspired him to spell out his redemptive vision in his very last film Aguntuk/Visitor. In point of fact, the very distinctiveness of his commitment kept him apart from the pronounced aesthetic of the other two greats, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen. Fortunately so, the three contemporaries etched their varying socio-cinematic agendas and, in the process, offered us a splendid variety of corrective attachment to the world that enveloped them.
Above all and everything, he was a superlative narrator like Balzac and Manik Bandyopadhyay, and this is transcribed in the dialogues which he carved, delivered by his characters. Five such dialogues constitute the last section of the book and the more you dwell on them, the more you realise the unsullied authenticity of V.S. Naipaul's comment, "He seems to achieve more and more with less and less."
This tribute reminds me of the maestro's own critique. I asked him once, "Why do you rate Utpal Dutt's Tiner Talwar/The Tin-Sword as the most remarkable Bengali play and production of our times?" His answer was compellingly unequivocal, "Utpal showed, just in 2½ hours, the grave and tragic limitations of our vaunted Bengal Renaissance on the stage. Our best historians devote pages on this same very anomalous subject." This revealing reply underlines the precisely crafted eloquence of his creativity as well. The fingers of Charu and Bhupathi did not meet ultimately, that wordless separation explained all.
I would have been even more delighted if the author had devoted one chapter - it could have been brief - on Ray's memorable documentary on Rabindranath. He himself wrote the text of this film and lent his booming voice. Both together etched the kindred points of heaven and home by capturing the sacred privacy of the poet and the indomitable protest of his social being, both interrelated inextricably.
Finally, he could have recalled the sustained tribute paid by Salman Rushdie, who said that he simply 'grew' up with his films. I recall that the two protagonists in Rushdie's immaculate fairytale Haroun and the Sea of Stories were christened Goopy and Bagha. No admiration could be more deep-rooted and intrinsic than this dependence on names.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.