Ritwik Ghatak, born in November 1925 in Dhaka, then part of undivided Bengal, belonged to a generation whose lives were irrevocably transformed by the most traumatic upheavals in south Asia. His birth centenary invites not merely to commemorate one of world cinema’s greatest filmmakers, but also to revisit one of the most profound chroniclers of the India’s deepest historical wound – partition of the Indian subcontinent. This assumes a cathartic poignancy in the aftermath of the recent elections in West Bengal where debates over buried memories and unresolved afterlives of 1947 have returned with uncanny force.

In such a moment, Ghatak and his cinema return as history’s forgotten doubles, illuminating not simply the deeper psychological rupture of Partition but also the shape-shifting forms of exile, displacement and loss through which Bengal continues to imagine itself. Those who believe cinema to be no more than chimera or fantasy will be surprised to discover in Ghatak’s films a world where Kafkaesque estrangement is fused with Fanon’s tragic vision of decolonisation.

Few filmmakers in world cinema have evoked as much passion, and admiration and yet remained so intriguingly neglected as Ritwik Ghatak. During his lifetime, he occupied a curious position on the margins of Indian cinema, revered by his fellow artists and intellectuals but denied visibility and recognition. Yet his apparent marginality concealed an extraordinary influence. Contemporary Indian film makers frequently acknowledge that his work reshaped the possibilities of Indian cinema by combining melodrama, political consciousness, and formal experimentation.

Sudhir Mishra, maker of iconic films such as Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, recently remarked that “every time you make a film, somewhere Ghatak is present,” suggesting that his cinematic grammar has become part of the sub-conscious of Indian filmmaking. Sudhir Mishra’s observation is all the more compelling because Ghatak’s legacy lay not only in the films he made but also in mentoring some of the most........

© The Financial Express