The Indian Weekender, 11 June 2021

16 ENTERTAINMENT
Friday, June 11, 2021 The Indian Weekender
AJAY DEVGN: Not sufficient
to play Bhagat Singhji once
in your lifetime
Bollywood star Ajay Devgn posted an
Instagram note to celebrate the release of
his film "The Legend Of Bhagat Singh" 19
years ago. The film hit theatres on June 7, 2002.
"It is not sufficient to play a revolutionary like
Bhagat Singhji, once in your lifetime & career.
You need to keep him there constantly... After
all, these are those who wrote history with their
(blood). #19YearsOfTheLegendOfBhagatSingh
#RajkumarSantoshi," wrote Ajay, with a
photograph that shows him dressed as Shaheed
Bhagat Singh.
Ajay won a National Award as Best Actor for
his starring role, while the Rajkumar Santoshi
directorial also bagged a National Award as Best
Feature Film in Hindi.
The historical drama also featured Sushant
Singh as Sukhdev, D. Santosh as Rajguru and
Akhilendra Mishra as Chandrashekhar Azad,
besides Raj Babbar and Amrita Rao.
Ajay's upcoming projects are "Maidaan", "Bhuj:
The Pride of India", "RRR" and his directorial film
"Mayday", and he also appears in "Sooryavanshi"
and "Gangubai Kathiawadi".
Actor Tusshar Kapoor claims the
audience maintains a double
standard for star kids and outsiders.
The actor, who is the son of veteran actor
Jeetendra, says he has learnt from his father's
mistakes.
"Coming from the film industry, you get
the first film much easily. There have been
some pluses. Being the son of an actor I
have learnt from his mistakes and success
and failures. But I also believe that industry
kids are probably judged from different
barometers than others from the outside, and
no matter what we do the glass will always
be half empty.
"For those who are from outside, the glass
is always half full irrespective of how many
mistakes they make. It's unfair in that sense.
But eventually, it balances out," he said.
However, he feels that the audience has
always given him his due.
"I have got my due where the audiences
are concerned, with their love. They have
recognised my hard work and given my due
with their love. That is why I want to be part
of the industry," he says.
The actor adds that he has learnt to deal
with disappointments along the way.
"There were some disappointments
besides the success. Initially, I used to feel
a bit dull. But over a period of time, I have
learnt to take everything that this industry
throws at me in my stride. That is called
growing up. I do believe that I have grown up
here and I am able to cope with success and
failures much better now. I used to feel a bit
disappointed but I didn't get bogged down.
I stood up and moved on like a warrior," he
declares.
Cinema of Satyajit Ray in the time of pandemic
When "Ray", a four-story anthology based on stories
by late Satyajit Ray, drops on OTT later this month,
it will be an interesting attempt by a set of newage
artistes and filmmakers at exploring the thought process
of an auteur who passed away nearly three decades ago, but
who continues to topline any discussion on world cinema if it
involves India.
For the record, the anthology has two films directed by
Srijit Mukherji, and one each by Abhishek Chaubey and Vasan
Bala. These are filmmakers who've garnered enough plaudits
for displaying finer aesthetics in their works. Still, it could be
a challenge bringing to life the writings of Ray -- legions of
admirers would settle for nothing less than flawless, and that's
something even the maestro's son, the undeniably gifted Sandeep
Ray, would vouch for from experience.
Yet, at one level, the essence of Ray doesn't seem like something
that is detached from contemporary realities. His cinema actually
highlights many 'isms' that occupy the mindspace of the world
today, long before it became socially fashionable to discuss these
topics. Many conversations that have opened up now have found
resonance in Ray's cinema, directly or indirectly.
We look at a few raging points of discussions in the world
today, and how the cinema of Satyajit Ray touched upon these
ideas in his era.
THE PANDEMIC
Ray couldn't have possibly foreseen what the world is going
through currently, as there was no virus outbreak of the proportion
of Covid between 1955 and 1992, the time span when he made
29 feature films, five documentaries, and two short films.
Yet, two films resonate the idea, in different ways. His 1973
film "Ashani Sanket" is a fiction based on the Bengal Famine
of 1943, when an estimated two to three million died of disease
and starvation, even as World War II raged on in the West. While
the film's premise is war-induced famine in British India, the
horrors it portrays are not far from newspaper images and news
TV vignettes that have dominated over the past year.
The second film is "Ganashatru", his 1990 release adapted
from Henrik Ibsen's 1882 play "An Enemy of the People".
Ray's Indianised plot is set in a small town, where the major
draw is a temple that attracts local devotees and tourists alike.
A doctor discovers that the rise in jaundice cases in the town
could be linked to the contaminated water being distributed as
the 'charanamrita' (holy water) that devotees consume.
The film links the perils of blind faith with mass spread of
disease, even as temple and civic authorities prefer to stay quiet
because acknowledging the peril could dent the image -- hence,
commercial prospects -- of tourist attraction. The attention is
deftly diverted, the doctor is blamed, and the frenzy continues.
One finds a likeness in the Covid era. Many incidents of religious
and mass hysteria were allowed to go on for commercial gains, at
the cost of the pandemic situation worsening.
FASCISM
At a time when many nations are run by right wing
governments, and the shadow of dictatorship keeps rearing its
ugly head, Ray's 1980 film "Hirak Rajar Deshe" could make for
an interesting watch. Billed primarily as a family entertainer, the
sequel to the 1969 release "Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne" actually
unfolds a layered narrative about a fictional dystopian world.
This is a world where fascism – portrayed by a mighty king
-- uses science (symbolised by a scientist who invents a machine
that can brainwash people) to bring the masses under his control.
Everyone speaks in rhyme, symbolising that thought process is
curbed to sound nice and politically correct, except the teacher,
who represents education that sets off free will and, hence, free
speech. Goopy the singer and Bagha the drummer represent the
power of art, which ultimately joins forces with science and
Tusshar Kapoor: Industry kids are judged
with different barometers than outsiders
Adil Hussain: No person in their right mind would use the Covid situation for any advantage, it’s inhuman
Actor Adil Hussain talks about the
hoarding of medicines and essentials
by some people in the current crisis.
Black marketing and hoarding of essentials
and medicines during the second wave of the
Covid pandemic has been highlighted and
condemned by many.
Social media, apart from SOS requests,
was also full of people claiming they were
defrauded on various grounds.
Actor Adil Hussain, who has been using
his social media accounts to amplify request
by people in “genuine need”, upon reading
all this, was pretty upset. “If all that was true,
it’s very inhuman. This is not to be done. No
person in their right mind would ever do this,
for any advantage, greed of money,” he says,
posing a pertinent question.
“Haven’t we learnt our lessons yet?” he asks,
and adds, “I think this second wave hopefully
will make more people learn and understand,
which they haven’t yet from the previous one.”
However, Hussain, 57, would like to believe
that it’s just a handful of people who act
this way.
“Not just for people who are hoarding
things, each and every individual has to learn.
We have fingers to be pointed at things we have
within, we have to point them at ourselves
first,” he insists.
education to bring down fascism.
WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT
Every female protagonist that Ray portrayed in his stories was
a celebration of empowerment, long before cinema seriously
trained its lens on the trait. We could look at three prominent
examples. The first would be Karuna Banerjee as Apu's mother
Sarbojaya in "Pather Panchali" (1955) and its sequel "Aparajito"
(1956). She holds her family together against every storm, and
is a classic template of the quintessential mother who cares and
protects.
Sarbojaya strikes a contrast to Ray's most unforgettable female
protagonist -- Madhabi Mukherji as the titular "Charulata" in the
filmmaker's 1964 gem of the same name.
Based on a Rabindranath Tagore story titled "Nashtanir",
"Charulata" highlights a traditional housewife of a conservative,
upper-class Bengali household in pre-Independent India, whose
desire to break free the shackles of her mind and existence is
triggered when the young, handsome cousin of her husband comes
visiting. The film was ahead of its time, and the poignancy with
which Ray sketched Charulata on screen remains unparalleled.
Madhabi Mukherjee also stars as the remarkable Arati in
Ray's 1963 film "Mahanagar". Widely acknowledged as a
celebration of feminism, the film narrates the story of a middleclass
Kolkata couple. Arati takes up a job and her husband
agrees, mainly because they could do with the money to meet
burgeoning expenses.
Things get complicated when he loses his job. The film was
outstanding in its understanding of a woman's sense of freedom
as an entity that's equivalent to that of a man's, at a time when
the idea of women going out to earn was not wholly permissible
in society.
You could write books about the women in Ray's cinema and
empowerment, each female character would merit her chapters.
Random recall would highlight Sharmila Tagore as Dayamoyee
in "Devi" (1960) or Tutul in "Seemabaddha" (1971), as well as
Swatilekha Chatterjee as Bimala in "Ghare Baire" (1984), among
others. The truth is that the work of a genius will always echo in
every coming generation, which is why such efforts stand the
test of time. It is a reason Ray's cinema quite simply relates to
the cerebral audience even today. It is also something that made
Japanese legend Akira Kurosawa famously say: "Not to have
seen the cinema of Satyajit Ray means existing in the world
without seeing the sun or the moon."