Apur Sansar: For Apur Sansar, the final film in the “Apu Trilogy”, the great director plucked a young radio announcer and small-time theater actor from anonymity to play the titular role. Soumitra Chatterjee. Nurtured by Ray’s genius, Soumitra brought to the world of light and shadows the unforgettable character of Apu, boyishly handsome, romantically intense and poetically fragile, journeying on the lyrical road of life, pushing aside the poverty, despondency and death that he encounters on the way. That last scene of “Apur Sansar” in which Apu’s face becomes an almost wordless kaleidoscope of sadness, joy, guilt and hope as he reunites with his estranged son Kajal is so heart-wrenching that not even the greatest curmudgeon can prevent the eyes from welling up with tears. It was as triumphant an arrival of a great actor as one could hope for. So sensational was he that would go on to become the exacting Ray’s favorite actor for all time.
Archive for the 'Memories' Category
We Bengalis don’t really celebrate Diwali.
What we do observe is Kali Pujo.
This is precisely what we were told growing up in Kolkata. Kali Pujo is for Bangalis.
And Diwali is for “Marawaris”
In the bedroom, in the narrow space between the foot of the bed and the old wooden bookcase, was my own little corner. Growing up, I would squeeze in that narrow space, open the lower shelves (the ones near the ground) and bring out piles of Amar Chitra Katha and leaf through them, one by one.
It didnt matter that I had read them, like a thousand times before. Like a favorite song or a favorite person, Amar Chitra Kathas had repeat-value, you could discover and re-discover them, marveling only at how much you missed last time.
Waking up and reading about the demise of Tapen Chattopadhyay, the Bengali actor famous for playing the role of Goopy Gyne in Satyajit Ray’s Goopy-Bagha trilogy for children (the last was directed by Sandip Ray based on a story written by Satyajit Ray), the first thing I thought, like countless of Bengali people of my generation, was: “Goopy will sing no more”.
Rabi Ghosh, the freakishly gifted actor who played Goopy’s partner Bagha Byne, died ten years ago. But since he played many other memorable comic characters in Bengali movies, the conceptual connection between him and Bagha was not so ‘one-to-one’ as that between Tapen and Goopy Gyne.
Today with Tapen Chattapadhyay’s death however, one also remembers Rabi Ghosh and the partnership they forged as Goopy-Bagha, the endearing musical superheroes who would always save the day, no matter the odds. The sadness we feel today is not only for the passing of a true artist but also that of a magical age when movies were works of art, stories were true and simple, soul ruled over special effects, and characters stayed in our hearts long after the end credits had rolled.
Continuing my series [Baba Deewana, Dheere Dheere Haulle Haulle ]on people who inspired me (a spin-off on the chapter in my book “May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss” on inspirational movies of the 90s) , I present to you another of my gurus.
A day in the nineties. The sun had set and evening was descending. I was waiting for a friend, sitting on the stairs of a building, not wanting to go upstairs to his place. The building’s guards and their friends were sitting in a circle listening to a song on the battery-operated cassette player. There was darkness all around because of a load-shedding (i.e. no power) and mosquitoes, the size of Shilpa Shirodhkar, were feasting on my neck.
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