Review: Bondhu by Kunal Sen

These and many more nuggets are found in Kunal Sen’s biography of his father. The book also provides the reader with a picture of the author’s childhood years when the family constantly shifted from one small nondescript flat to another in south Calcutta as they battled dire poverty to which the head of the unit remained strangely indifferent.

Mrinal Sen was one of the warmest and most accessible international celebrities I have ever met. We often bumped into each other at film premiers, art show openings and literary events, and for interviews. He was the most fearlessly forthright director of his time. But Bondhu reveals that Mrinalda was not quite the open book he appeared to be.

This comes across seamlessly and smoothly in an emotional tribute that offers glimpses of an unusual father-son relationship. Unlike the sons of most other film makers in India, Kunal Sen never became a filmmaker. Though an air of nostalgia permeates his recollections of being on the sets of his father’s films, right through the book he insists that he was neither conditioned nor forced to become a film maker. Remarkably, his father also did not try to influence him with his own ideology when it came to politics, finance, matters of literary taste or even about films or film schools.

This unputdownable book is divided into three parts: Bondhu, Filmmaker and Father. One small chapter in the first part entitled “My Maa” offers us a deep insight into Gitadi. “It is impossible to understand my father without the story of my mother, and it is impossible to understand my mother without the story of her beginning,” Kunal writes.

15-year-old Gita was forced to shoulder the burden of running her family when her father fell very ill. The eldest of two sisters and a brother, she experienced poverty at first hand which, later in life, perhaps helped her to adjust to her husband’s entirely casual financial approach towards running the family. After their marriage, Gita quit working in theatre and films and devoted herself to being a good housewife and mother. Years later, her husband and son persuaded her to return to acting and she is still remembered for her performances in Mrinal Sen films like Calcutta ’71, Chorus (1974), Ekdin Pratidin (1979), Aakaler Sandhaney (1980), Chaalchitra (1981), Kharij (1982) and Khandahar (1983). The roles were challenging, perhaps even more so because those who were not aware of her formidable acting background often assumed she had been cast because she was the director’s wife. After that stint, though, she stepped back once more and nothing could make her return to the screen or even the stage.

Mrinal and Gita Sen were perhaps the only couple who sustained a very balanced marriage for more than six decades. She was content to live in the growing shadow of her husband’s fame and happily journeyed with him everywhere from Venice to Tiananmen Square and to New Delhi too when the Dadasaheb Phalke Award was bestowed on him. Unsurprisingly, Mrinal Sen was never the same after she died.

Wherever they lived, whether it was the small space on Ashwini Dutta Road, the flat in Monoharpukur Road, the one on Motilal Nehru Road, or the one on Belltala Road, their home was always filled with friends. The last flat in Chakraberia was nice and somewhat spacious. My first visit to the Mrinal Sen residence in early 1971 filled me with a sense of awe, not because Mrinalda himself opened the door, but because it was there that I was introduced to a crowd I did not know at all. Among them was the late KK Mahajan, the brilliant cinematographer who worked regularly with Mrinalda, Kumar Shahani, who was then struggling to break into films, and of course, the noted character actor Anup Kumar, the group’s permanent member, whom Kunal addresses as “Anu” throughout the book. Gitadi stepped in with cups of tea to go around, smiled and left.

Kunal’s recollections are replete with dry humour, especially when he writes about his father’s complete indifference to matters of finance, which often placed his mother in terribly embarrassing, even awful situations.

Father and son differed on Marxist ideology. While Mrinal Sen completely believed in it,his son remained doubtful and was later quite disillusioned by it. However, the elder Sen never once imposed his opinions, convictions or beliefs on his son. No questions were asked either when he decided to marry Nisha Ruparel, who was from a Gujarati family. In time, Nisha too grew very close to her in-laws. Though Kunal Sen migrated to the United States, he and his wife returned often to spend time with his parents right until the end of their lives. The book includes 16 pages of photographs from the Sen family album. A particularly striking picture captures the father son duo chatting like two old friends.

The book, despite going back to describe the Naxalite movement which disturbed Mrinal Sen deeply as it faded away, is filled with warmth and touches a chord within the reader. Those who are fond of Mrinalda and his films will enjoy it. It is also a rewarding read for the insights it gives into the family and into the author, Kunal Sen, a warm and friendly individual who has lived life, like his great father, on his own terms.

Shoma A Chatterji is an independent journalist. She lives in Kolkata.

Do you know that director Mrinal Sen’s wife, Gita, did not touch a rosogolla in her life? And why did she deprive herself of the syrupy sweet that is part of Bengali identity? Because she didn’t have the money to buy a rosogolla for her dying father when he had asked for one. Many of us also did not know that Kunal, Mrinal Sen’s only child, an early PhD in Artificial Intelligence, always addressed his father as “bondhu”, the Bengali word for “friend”. That’s why he felt that Bondhu would be the ideal title for a book on his father.

These and many more nuggets are found in Kunal Sen’s biography of his father. The book also provides the reader with a picture of the author’s childhood years when the family constantly shifted from one small nondescript flat to another in south Calcutta as they battled dire poverty to which the head of the unit remained strangely indifferent.

Mrinal Sen was one of the warmest and most accessible international celebrities I have ever met. We often bumped into each other at film premiers, art show openings and literary events, and for interviews. He was the most fearlessly forthright director of his time. But Bondhu reveals that Mrinalda was not quite the open book he appeared to be.

This comes across seamlessly and smoothly in an emotional tribute that offers glimpses of an unusual father-son relationship. Unlike the sons of most other film makers in India, Kunal Sen never became a filmmaker. Though an air of nostalgia permeates his recollections of being on the sets of his father’s films, right through the book he insists that he was neither conditioned nor forced to become a film maker. Remarkably, his father also did not try to influence him with his own ideology when it came to politics, finance, matters of literary taste or even about films or film schools.

This unputdownable book is divided into three parts: Bondhu, Filmmaker and Father. One small chapter in the first part entitled “My Maa” offers us a deep insight into Gitadi. “It is impossible to understand my father without the story of my mother, and it is impossible to understand my mother without the story of her beginning,” Kunal writes.

15-year-old Gita was forced to shoulder the burden of running her family when her father fell very ill. The eldest of two sisters and a brother, she experienced poverty at first hand which, later in life, perhaps helped her to adjust to her husband’s entirely casual financial approach towards running the family. After their marriage, Gita quit working in theatre and films and devoted herself to being a good housewife and mother. Years later, her husband and son persuaded her to return to acting and she is still remembered for her performances in Mrinal Sen films like Calcutta ’71, Chorus (1974), Ekdin Pratidin (1979), Aakaler Sandhaney (1980), Chaalchitra (1981), Kharij (1982) and Khandahar (1983). The roles were challenging, perhaps even more so because those who were not aware of her formidable acting background often assumed she had been cast because she was the director’s wife. After that stint, though, she stepped back once more and nothing could make her return to the screen or even the stage.

Mrinal and Gita Sen were perhaps the only couple who sustained a very balanced marriage for more than six decades. She was content to live in the growing shadow of her husband’s fame and happily journeyed with him everywhere from Venice to Tiananmen Square and to New Delhi too when the Dadasaheb Phalke Award was bestowed on him. Unsurprisingly, Mrinal Sen was never the same after she died.

Wherever they lived, whether it was the small space on Ashwini Dutta Road, the flat in Monoharpukur Road, the one on Motilal Nehru Road, or the one on Belltala Road, their home was always filled with friends. The last flat in Chakraberia was nice and somewhat spacious. My first visit to the Mrinal Sen residence in early 1971 filled me with a sense of awe, not because Mrinalda himself opened the door, but because it was there that I was introduced to a crowd I did not know at all. Among them was the late KK Mahajan, the brilliant cinematographer who worked regularly with Mrinalda, Kumar Shahani, who was then struggling to break into films, and of course, the noted character actor Anup Kumar, the group’s permanent member, whom Kunal addresses as “Anu” throughout the book. Gitadi stepped in with cups of tea to go around, smiled and left.

Kunal’s recollections are replete with dry humour, especially when he writes about his father’s complete indifference to matters of finance, which often placed his mother in terribly embarrassing, even awful situations.

Father and son differed on Marxist ideology. While Mrinal Sen completely believed in it,his son remained doubtful and was later quite disillusioned by it. However, the elder Sen never once imposed his opinions, convictions or beliefs on his son. No questions were asked either when he decided to marry Nisha Ruparel, who was from a Gujarati family. In time, Nisha too grew very close to her in-laws. Though Kunal Sen migrated to the United States, he and his wife returned often to spend time with his parents right until the end of their lives. The book includes 16 pages of photographs from the Sen family album. A particularly striking picture captures the father son duo chatting like two old friends.

The book, despite going back to describe the Naxalite movement which disturbed Mrinal Sen deeply as it faded away, is filled with warmth and touches a chord within the reader. Those who are fond of Mrinalda and his films will enjoy it. It is also a rewarding read for the insights it gives into the family and into the author, Kunal Sen, a warm and friendly individual who has lived life, like his great father, on his own terms.

Shoma A Chatterji is an independent journalist. She lives in Kolkata.