A Selective Study in Post-Colonial Bengali Cinema - always yours

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32|Journal of Bengali Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2 Ahindra Choudhury Ahindra was a master of the stage, and was given the title Notoshurjo (Sun among the actors) for his performance in Shontan, an adaptation from Bankim's Anandamath. This play was performed in spite of hostilities from a number of Islamic organizations who had the open support of the then Prime Minister of Bengal Government (led by Muslim League) Khaja Nazimuddin, as Rabi Basu points out, and also reports that Syamaprasad Mukherjee stepped in to ensure that the performance of the play takes place (2: 111). Ahindra was indeed the greatest actor of Bengali stage in those days (closely rivaled by Shishir Bhaduri). But to say that Ahindra did not understand the difference between stage and cinema is a gesture of gross ignorance and characterizes the sweeping left-liberal progressive generalization about the glorious period of early Bengali stage and cinema which they have denigrated to the best of their capacity. Personalities like Ahindra Choudhury heralded a golden age in early Bengali cinema that culminated in the New Theatres, prior to the 'left-progressive' hegemony in Bengali art and culture. They were characteristically pragmatic about the popular pulse, they were masters of their craft, they nurtured their Bengaliness to the core and spoke truth in their memoir without caring for jargons of left-liberal political correctness. When Bengalis first ventured into moviemaking, the only cinema hall in north Kolkata, Cornwallis Cinema, were under the ownership of the non- Bengalis (Parsee owners Madan Theatres); they made it impossible for films made by Bengalis to be released, as Ahindra Choudhury recollects, and to cope up with this problem, a Bengali-owned
33|Journal of Bengali Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2 playhouse named Monomohon Theatre promptly changed to a cinema hall to show movies made by Bengalis (2: 60). Dhiraj Bhattacharya records in his memoir Jokhon Nayok Chhilam the dirty politics he suffered when he was offered a role as a hero in a Hindi/Urdu film to be made by the Madan Theatres; overnight there was an alliance of the non-Bengalis (mostly Muslims who dominated the fields of direction, music, script and dance) at Madan Theatres who did not want Hindi-Urdu cinema to be invaded by a Bengali hero, and he was unjustly shown the door (166- 169). The candid confession of Dhiraj without caring for political correctness is a case in point: the past masters saw reality without the tinged glass of false liberal idealism that would later come to dominate Bengali intelligentsia. This is not the case that idea of communistic excesses is unfamiliar with Bengalis, particularly since 2006-7 when mass opposition to the ruling Left Front Government began. But liberalism remains such a deep rooted doctrine in Bengali pysche, and the dividing line between left-wing politics and liberal politics is so blurred that that in a recent play of Bratya Basu, titled Ruddhoshongeet Ritwik Ghatak has been portrayed as an arch crusader for artistic freedom against Party's doctrinaire and dogmatic leadership, as a kind of liberal idol. But if one reads the collected non-fictional writings of Ghatak, Cholochchitro, Manush ebong Aro Kichu the impression one gets is that Ghatak was dogmatic in a charactersitically communistic way. Particularly, the “Principles of Gananatya Sangha” (the Bengal chapter of IPTA) that was penned by Ritwik, is a typical study of Communist Party's propaganda: full of jargons, propagating a cult of intolerance and mindless submission to Party slogans characterize this manifesto (Ghatak 42-55). Nevertheless, Ritwik Ghatak had occasional praise for Pramathesh Barua, and urged others to study Bengali and Indian cinema in details before getting into Eisenstein and Pudovkin and the hsitories of Italian, Hungarian and Russian movies; he also comments that “we have been contemptuous about our own surrounding” (73). Ritwik Ghatak is an interesting study in contrasts. In spite of being considered the authority on partition centric movies, he actually lived in a denial of
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A Selective Study in Post-Colonial Bengali Cinema - always yours

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