My father was very fond of catching some strange kind of films shown on Doordarshan on Sundays, which didn’t fall into any of these categories We didn’t have television set at home in those days, not till my senior school days. My father used to go to friendly drawing rooms with TV sets (a rarity those days) to watch along with a neighbourhood, (quite common) these out of the box kind of films.

One day, he took me along. An obscure black and white film , with the kind of village I had not seen in commercial Hindi cinema (the real kind), with characters who looked too ordinary and too normal (my reference points were very glamorous and very large in attitude, declamation and action) going around, doing day to day things, exchanging glances and expressions. There seemed to be no recognisable plot, no formulaic occurrences, no set pieces of music and melodrama and no fist fights at all. Just some guy, who happened to be a young zamindar but looked nothing like Pran or Premnath in those palaces, some rural woman, who looked coy and silent and laboured away in a manner a Hema or Zeenat did not and another character, her husband, who was both deaf and mute, looked funny but far from behaving like a Mehmood or Jagdeep, just reacted to life with those large expressive eyes.

Some relationships seemed to be forming. The arrival of the Zamindar boy’s wife, seemed to add some tension. The rural woman gets pregnant, the deaf and mute husband of hers, goes to seek work from the Zamindar boy, who was busy flying kites with an enthusiastic kid, but seeing the approaching character, abandons the activity, gets a whip and starts lashing the deaf and mute mercilessly, while the pregnant rural labourer runs across the field to fall on her battered husband in protection, weeping, screaming, ” all he wanted was a little work, not any revenge for exploiting me…”.

The Zamindar rushes inside, bolts the door and pants and whimpers in a mix of guilt and rage. The kid who was so invested in flying kites with the young Zamindar, takes off from the plot, suddenly turning around, picking up a stone and throwing it at the house….the film ends…huhhhh.

I was puzzled, my pre-mature brain riddled with the images of that of angry young man Vijay jumping from six floors down to bash up a dozen goondas and avenging his family, while the police and heroine arrive at the fag end, with the theme song, announcing ‘The End’, on the faces of the happy escapist multitudes. That was my understanding of a climax and a resolution …but this throwing of a pebble by a kid?

What kind of resolution was that? I still remember what my father explained to me, then. The gist of it was, “this is the precursor to a revolution, the beginning with a stone, thrown by a kid, now awakened to existing class exploitation and hinting at a larger class conflict ” Huhhhh? Too heavy, too complex as compared to a simple individual heroic retribution?

But I understood this much. That it was a film about social churning, about an India which existed beyond the screens of mainstream Hindi cinema. The film was ANKUR, the director was debutant SHYAM BENEGAL and the theme was feudal class conflict and social injustice and the result was the eyes of a standard three student, opening wide.

That was the beginning of my tryst with Shyam babu’s didactic social realism, mirroring the resilience and resistance of the toiling masses: MANTHAN, the helplessness of the idealistic middle class in the face of a dominant feudal diktat. NISHANT, the emancipation of feminine expression in the face of patriarchy. BHUMIKA, the coming together of the masses across religion and region against colonialism, while the feudal lords remained blissfully immersed in debauchery. JUNOON, the politics of capitalism mirroring the Mahabharata, KALYUG and many, many more.

The peak being a television series unmatched anywhere in the in the world in its nuanced scope—THE DISCOVERY OF INDIA (Bharat Ek Khoj), an almost impossible narrative, to capture the long, complex and diverse history and myth representing spirit and soul of INDIA….which only a Man of unparalleled vision, profound sensitivity, titular intellect and tremendous understanding of the craft of images and words could wield and conjure….yes, SHYAM BENGAL epitomised the finest spirit and world view of our freedom struggle and subsequent nation building, otherwise understood as the NEHRUVIAN spirit, where tradition and modernism, the secular and spiritual, co-existed with an all-encompassing humanist outlook in seeking justice in a society riddled with the merciless bondages of feudalism and the shackles of capitalist greed.

Shyam babu’s passing away pulls the curtains on 20th century Indian modernism in art and aesthetics, flagged off by the likes of a Habib Tanvir and Ebrahim Alkazi in theatre, a Ravi Shankar and Zakir Hussain in music, a Sahir Ludhianwi and Amrita Pritam in literature, etc etc etc

Shyam Benegal the pioneer of parallel Indian cinema, advertising, documentation and above all, a guiding light for hundreds of apprentices across mediums, performed his final service to the nation with his series on the making of the Indian Constitution– SAMVIDHAN, an epic creative archive like no other.

Thank you, Sir. May our emotions on your passing, not end with penning obituaries but actually manifest the spirit of our Constitution which you so eloquently espoused.

Joy Sengupta

(The author, Joy Sengupta, is a well-acclaimed actor in theatre and cinema. Apart from awards won for performances in Hazar Chaurasi ki Ma directed by Govind Nihalani and for the portrayal of Gandhi in the ipic play, Samy  and the Bengali film, Bilu Rakhosh,  Sengupta has worked with legendary directors  Habib Tanveer and Safdar Hashmi. He is a teacher of Theatre in Education and used theatre for projects on literacy and social work)

Related:

‘You left us a decade too soon, when India needed its body healed and soul rejuvenated’: a farewell to comrade Sitaram Yechury

Artists & Intellectuals must appeal to the Good: Joy Sengupta, theatre-film actor

The post How Shyam Benegal’s social realism opened wide the eyes of a 13 year-old, Joy Sengupta appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In colleges the unions were divided between two broad outlooks and behaviour(s): one which advocated the intellectual quest for progressive politics and the other which advocated muscular pursuit for power by any means. The former was often represented by SFI/AISF while the latter was predominantly represented by NSUI/ABVP.

It was natural for someone like me getting drawn towards SFI’s ideological goals and culturally veered toward socialist ideals. In that horizon a common face which represented both the ideology and the culture of progressiveness, in its most gentle liberal way was Comrade Sitaram Yachury. He was young, educated and erudite. He also had an expansive personality, which encompassed a wide section of eager voices and interests.

Amongst the panorama of shrill trade unionists, militant ideologists and rigid intellectuals, comrade Sitaram seemed like an ocean of objectivity and acceptabiliry. He so easily communicated the essence of historical materialism while also appreciating the lyricism of Ustad Amjad Ali khan sahab’s sarod interpreting the ancient ragas.

He could find relevance in a working class rally as well as a progressive Urdu mushiara.

He was the fulcrum which balanced many shades of ideologies and didn’t find harsh detractors amongst opposing ideologies. I was always confused as to whether to address him as a political leader or a liberal intellectual, so easily he slipped between the two roles.

In my formative years of cultural renaissance, working with the Jan Natya Manch, volunteering for Sahmat, teaching theatre in education in progressive schools, handling projects on litetacy and minimum science for other organisations and groups, I found I was constantly trying to emulate the idea of Comrade Sitaram…wear a smile on your face, fill ideological idealism in your heart and carry the steel of purpose in your mind. All while taking everyone along the common democratic path. Easier said than done. Only comrade Sitaram knew that, and held that quality till the very end, while most of us drifted and floated around in myriad contradictions.

I doubt if we will ever get someone so gentle and so graceful, yet so precise and incisive in political discourse, to ever inhabit the most treacherous and complex political landscape, that is India.

A decade too soon, you left us, just as Indian politics  needed all the sanity and empathy you embodied: sane and empathetic leaders to collectively help, heal its body and rejuvenate its soul.

Farewell comrade.

(The author, Joy Sengupta, is a well-acclaimed actor in theatre and cinema. Apart from awards won for performances in Hazar Chaurasi ki Ma directed by Govind Nihalani and for the portrayal of Gandhi in the ipic play, Samy  and the Bengali film, Bilu Rakhosh,  Sengupta has worked with legendary directors  Habib Tanveer and Safdar Hashmi. He is a teacher of Theatre in Education and used theatre for projects on literacy and social work)

Related:

Artists & Intellectuals must appeal to the Good: Joy Sengupta, theatre-film actor

The post ‘You left us a decade too soon, when India needed its body healed and soul rejuvenated’: a farewell to comrade Sitaram Yechury appeared first on SabrangIndia.

I truly believe that I was born a Nehruvian child, even though born into a Bengali household which swore by Subhas Chandra Bose in the clichéd Bose vs Nehru misplaced debate. The atmosphere around me was replete with respect and adherence to an objective connect between Tradition and Modernism, where Tradition was inspected through Modernist concerns.

My very literacy began with children’s versions of Ramayana & Mahabharata, while in our drawing rooms, a healthy debate took place, on various moral positions of the epic characters of these mighty mythologies. Taking apart both the mighty and the mundane, critically, was most common. Thus these mythologies gained a deep, critical respect in my heart, never blind faith.

Every evening, the harmonium would come out and my mother would practice Rabindra Sangeet in all its romanticism, Atul Prasad’s ballads in their spiritualism & Kazi Nazrul’s lores, in their revolutionary zeal…so even the music that penetrated my soul was diverse, myriad and therefore progressive in its appeal.

Literature was, also, of utmost importance in our household and I was encouraged to read World Classics along with Bengali Children’s literature from age four. Thus Charles Dickension dissection of David Copperfield, caught in Victorian mores and the chaos of the Industrial revolution brushed shoulders with indigenous fairy tales, in my reading palette.

Cinema was even more interesting, family viewing being the rule. Mrinal Sen’s angry political films were as much within my five year old gaze as children’s films.

The point being , there was no contradiction in my growing up mind, between East or West , Local or Global, Traditional or Modern, Art and Entertainment, the Progressive and the Spiritual…they were part of the same stream, same civilisational values as represented by Rammohan Roy (social reforms) or Vidyasagar (educational empowerment) or  Vivekanand

(spiritual robustness) or Jagdish Bose (scientific outlook) or Satyajit Ray (humanist aesthetics).

All of this being my Bengali heritage and all of them, encapsulated in a Nehruvian vision.

When I started teaching & training in Theatre Studies, almost every play I picked to direct or act was anti-establishment, each one of them. The common fervour was intellectually questioning, the voices were consistently progressive. Thus there was no escape from developing a personal voice which was always critically introspective of every issue and every force…bhakti was beyond belief in my young adult cultural education.

Somewhere along the mid-nineties, a rabid neo consumerism was taking root and youth culture suddenly turned frivolously aspirational, completely nonchalant about the medievalisation of a young Nation by the dark revivalist forces; kicking into our existence with the Ram Janmabhoomi movement via the Rath Yatra culminating into demolishing a historic mosque, creating a militant fundamentalist movement, while the Indian youth was basking in an Internet boom…ironical isn’t it?

And the young budding ‘could have been ‘ playwrights, unlike their predecessors of the 1970s and 1980s were now writing for an expanding Television’s (often) Anti-Culture. The anti-establishment voices were no more mainstream.

The 2000s brought in even more harsh contradictions. The millennium clock was supposed to ring in the eradication of Borders, the world was supposed to get flatter and globalisation was supposed to be the reigning culture…all of it was true at a technological, commercial plane, while India was torn apart by an acceptance of genocidal culture and ideas of ethnic cleansing as demonstrated by Gujrat 2002 .

And around the same time, what did we see in mainstream entertainment— Saas Bahu sagas, joint family jostles, in sharp definition, highly regressive, never ending mega rating / money churning soaps keeping so-called globalised Indians enthralled. Neo liberal economy, technological leaps, global travels, went hand in hand with normalisation of Hate & Revivalism.

We all know that post 2014, the Cultural Fraternity, Entertainment industry sometimes grudgingly but most times willingly decided to collaborate with the openly xenophobic Manuvadi agenda imposed from the top.

I personally realised that it’s as much a personal battle as a professional one. Around 2005, I exited from my very successful and well-paying TV Career, to rely totally on a mix of Theatre and art house cinema, having fought a few fair battles on the sets of TV soaps, refusing to shoot scenes which denigrate female characters in any manner. Though my income plummeted, I have no regrets, as I could not breathe artistically in a vapid, rabid Entertainment Scenario.

Post 2014, even cinema joined the revivalist agenda of religious and cultural nationalism. Two out of three offers were in that category, yet I resisted the mainstream monetary glow and refused multiple projects which pushed the agenda, sometimes subtly but surely. But I completely understand and empathise with those who cannot.  I will never judge those who have chosen to be part of these propaganda vehicles,  out of professional necessity, political propaganda by itself not so much of a problem, promotion of Hate definitely is, polarisation being the death knell of our diverse civilisational fabric.

I recognise that the conditions which were nurtured over the last several decades for  such divide and collaboration, were enabled also due to the relative hard lines of so-called progressives, self- justifying hypocrisy of the privileged liberal class, an arrogance of the intellectual echo chambers and general delusion of the neo liberal ruling class (I cannot exclude myself ) for the fascist anti- cultural forces getting such a leg up and the  hidden vitriolic elements crawling out of the holes into our mainstream media and Entertainment space.

I still adhere to the belief, passed down by my mentors, the late Safdar Hashmi, Habib Tanveer, and Ebrahim Alakazi among so many others. That culture will always be a personal struggle of communicating what is inherently essential, with the hope that even if a minority of an audience, gets swayed by progressive aesthetics and ideas, you present, they may out of a sense of awakened consciousness, share it with others and thus the spread of these universal principles will no longer remain within a minority.

That is the hope I carry, with a very realistic outlook that, human society moves in cycles of progress and regress and human beings remain an embodiment of both good and evil.

Gandhi & Tagore appealed to the Good. We should continue to do so, as Artists or Intellectuals.

(The author, Joy Sengupta, is a well-acclaimed actor in theatre and cinema. Apart from awards won for performances in Hazar Chaurasi ki Ma directed by Govind Nihalani and for the portrayal of Gandhi in the ipic play, Samy  and the Bengali film, Bilu Rakhosh,  Sengupta has worked with legendary directors  Habib Tanveer and Safdar Hashmi. He is a teacher of Theatre in Education and used theatre for projects on literacy and social work)

The post Artists & Intellectuals must appeal to the Good: Joy Sengupta, theatre-film actor appeared first on SabrangIndia.