Indian Film Culture - 16.cdr - federation of film societies of india

In Devi we meet Soumitra Chatterjee again, by
now already an embodiment of Bengali youth of
a certain period and type both of which are
distinctly derived from Tagore. Already in Devi
the weakness of character has become apparent:
he is thinker more than a man of action, a bit of a
Hamlet. He has read Mill and Bentham and
disapproves of his father's superstitious visions,
but he is not strong enough to withstand the
pressures of tradition or repudiate what he
considers to be the evils of ignorance. In his
political thinking Tagore eschewed both the
violence of the terrorist and the shrewdly
practical non-violence of Gandhi; but he
provided inspiration towards the general ideals
of patriotism which is not narrow, individualism
which is not intolerant. Ray's heroes also
represent a noble philosophical outlook, but are
not men of action on the plane of reality.
By the time of Charulata, Soumitra Chatterjee
has evolved further from his earlier, Tagorean
base. The Mill and Bentham reading character
(inspired by Ram Mohan Roy, a 19th century
social reformer often described as the 'father of
modern India') now belongs to the older
generation, and is embodied in the bearded,
princenez-sporting Bhupati with his affluent
idealism. Amal (Chatterjee) himself stands
between the pure Tagore and what is to come
after. But he too is devoid of cynicism, on the
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Charulata
whole unselfconscious, and capable of moral
action, in going away when he realizes that he is
about to betray his brother. Of what is to come
after, we see rather more in Kapurush: the
'Ravindrik' (Tagorean) generation has finally
revealed his failure in the weak- minded slightly
parasitic intellectual ( a film writer), who is no
longer made a coward by his conscious but by
sheer lack of courage.
In the series of films – the trilogy, Devi, Samapti,
Charulata and Kapurush – the Ray hero has
emerged in a straight line from the Tagore mould
of protected innocence into the contemporary
world, only to find himself inadequate to
contend with it. The type of hero represented by
Soumitra chatterjee in various Ray films is no
longer noble in his motives and irresolute in his
actions: In Kapurush he is weak without being
noble. But this is an end which is surely not
untypical of the romantic Bengali youth brought
up under the Tagore umbrella. They have
become cynical under the disillusionment in
Independent India. Their past idealism has
become a drag on them and has made them
unable to cope with a society where, whether we
like it or not, the law of the jungle has acquired
some currency. But even the evolution never
takes him to its furthest limits, limits which
Tagore himself had explored.
June 2012
Abhijan
Indian Film Culture