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Celebrating the man who gave us “Sated Hathi" and “Kabuliwala”
To celebrate the 60th year of India’s Independence, among other things, the Indian government will honour living movie legends --Tapan Sinha. Dilip Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar and Saroja Devi - by conferring them with lifetime achievement awards.
On this occasion. Tathagata Bandyopadhyay -- grandson of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay (author of Pather Panchali} — raises a toast to Tapan Sinha, the Bengali director who gave the audience classics like Hanshulibaank-er Upokotha, Jhind-er Bandi, Safed Haathi, Kabuliwala and Ek Doctor KiMaut.
Tathagata Bandyopadhyay: 'When I was about four or five. I was just beginning to discover that it was uncool for boys to weep. One day, my pet parakeet cut its claw on a sharp cage bar. I saw blood dripping from the injured limb, and found myself sniffling uncontrollably. I felt I had to hide from my mother the fact I was a cry baby. 1 told her I had a cold. I suspect she knew what the matter was (she must have -- children don't suddenly develop a cold that's better in an hour or so). But she said nothing.
'That's always been the way with- me. I’m not the soulful type but I can t stand the suffering of animals When someone throws a rock at a starving mongrel that is sitting in the gutters. I'm ready to-commit violence. I also feel ready to weep, but manage to hold it back because guys aren't supposed to snivel in public.
"I first came to know this when my mother took me to watch Safed Haathi at a local cinema house. I find on an Internet database that this film was released in 1978, so this must have been about the same ume as the parakeet incident, perhaps a little earlier.
"I wasn't usually allowed to watch movies at that time (this was before we had television) because they were deemed a corrupting influence Only two kinds of movies were allowed those made specifically for children, and those which my parents considered to be of an edifying nature or helpful for building character.
'In this last category, I watched various inferior religious-themed melodramas involving minor gods and goddesses which I highly enjoyed at the time, biopics of great men and women which I generally tried to avoid, and patriotic films, which were okay because they had a lot of gunfights.
"Not too many films could be found in the first category, and its definition was confusing too. Mother once took me to watch 'Masoom,' thinking it was for children. She was hugely scandalised that I was watching intimate scenes between Shabana Azmi and Naseeruddin Shah, while I was thoroughly bored and kept asking her when the real action would begin. Butthat'sanothcrstory.
"Safed Haathi' may have been the very first movie I ever watched -• I don't have memory of any before that. I don't remember the details of the story, only that it was about a large, innocent, friendly, good elephant being persecuted by dangerous, cruel, bad men. I came out sobbing, powerfully moved.
"The plot synopsis on the database says it had a happy ending. Yet, the impression I have always retained is of an intensely painful and intensely beautiful movie -perhaps the kind of intensity only children can feel. For the next day or two, I felt a lump in my throat whenever I remembered the good elephant's predicament.
"That was my first experience of Tapan Sinha's work though I doubt I even knew the word 'director' at that time. Not that I would have cared, if I had. Cinema was cinema, pictures and sounds with stories. Who needed directors? 'Safed Haathi' was great; I had no use for Tapan Sinha or whoever.
"Three decades later, 1 have a revised opinion on the subject. I think we could use more filmmakers like him. Unlikely, but st ill.
"I am no film critic, and don't command the type of jargon and attitude that seem to be indispensable in sophisticated modern critical writing if one hopes to be taken seriously. Nor am I a scholar of Tapan Sinha's works. All I can talk about is how a well-made children'sfilmreally affects a child.
"The effect on me of watching Safed Haathi was profound. I believe the film was largely responsible for what I feel for animals now. Deeper in, I believe it was this film that first introduced to me several moral dichotomies of life in a clear and powerful way: Honest vs Dishonest, Friendly vs Greedy, Innocent vs Cruel. And of course, Good vs Evil. Basic stuff, and top starkly done in black and white. But children don't understand shades of grey, basic stuff is what they need. Tapan Sinha is a master of that idiom. "Later, I realised 'Safed Haathi' wasn't thematically unique in his opus. Tapan Sinha's great recurrent subject is the oppression of innocents and loners by the greedy, small-minded and cruel.
"Rahamat in Kabuliwallah is a huge Afghan who can commit murder if provoked, but in his soul he is as pure as the girl Minnie, who reminds him of his own daughter in his distant homeland. This gentle giant from the land of deserts and hills, too free in spirit, doesn't understand law and order in the land of little men, doesn't speak their language, and can only suffer mutely as he finds his freedom curbed.
"The hero of 'Ek Doctor Ki Maut,' the outstanding scientist Dr Dipankar Roy, is hounded and crushed by his colleagues simply because he is better than them.
"These characters do not seem to me too different from the white elephant, who is persecuted simply because it is rare. Which is not to say that he has no variety. 'Kshudhita Pashan,' 'Hatey Bazare,' 'Jotugriha,' 'Nirjan Saikatey' and many other accomplished films have less elemental, more 'adult' subjects, and do not conform to any pattern that I can discover. Golpo Holeo Satti’ and 'Tonsil' are fine comedies.
"But my own dominant experience of his work concerns his outstanding-individual-baited-by-jealous-oppressors theme. I have a gut feeling that these are the works the future shall remember him by.
"To judge a director's technical excellence is beyond my ability. As I said before, I have no great understanding of camera angles, mon- I tages and such like. But whenever 1 have sat down to watch one of Tapan Sinha's films, I have I expected an uplifting story neatly and skilfully told. I am yet to be disappointed. They just don't I make directors like that any more."
Source: rediff.com