Review: Rituparno Ghosh On/And Film edited by Somdatta Mandal and Koushik Mondal

Critic and translator and former Professor of English at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, Somdatta Mandal and her doctoral scholar, Koushik Mondal, decided to gather all of Rituparno Ghosh’s writings that appeared in Bengali media, translate them and present them in a single volume. The result is this book, Rituparno Ghosh On/And Film.

What made them take up such a challenging project? “After Rituparno’s death, I was alarmed to find out that there were hardly any serious books or material available on him. Rituparno Ghosh; Cinema, gender and art edited by Sangita Dutta and others was too erudite for the average reader and focussed on his queerness. The high price of the foreign edition also made it inaccessible. Only a few libraries would store a copy. So a book that is comprehensive and easily available in the Indian context was the need of the hour,” says Mandal.

Rituparno Ghosh On/And Film begins with a long introduction to the filmmaker and then graduates to his other talents instead of focusing on his sexuality and its impact on his public image. In the book’s introduction that runs to more than 70 pages, Mandal points out:

“This book is a humble attempt to bring the entire Rituparno Ghosh oeuvre within two covers as till date, only a couple of books have been published in English on his films. From the beginning, we have tried to avoid all sorts of critical assessment of his films by others. We wanted to capture the film maker’s own voice and viewpoints as far as possible.”

Except for Koushik’s visit to the SRFTI Library and the Little Magazine Library in Kolkata, most of the resources were accumulated online. Rituparno’s “First Person” editorials, that appeared every week in Robbar, helped the editors of this volume better understand the director’s thought patterns.

In one opinion piece Ghosh writes:

My real regret is that I could not direct the nimble-footed Madhuri Dixit. She has the most beautiful smile, is highly photogenic and has a body language which no other actress can match. We were almost on the verge of working together but destiny was not kind towards us. I shared a good rapport with Dimple Kapadia but never had a script in mind, which would do justice to her versatility.(Page 59)

The book is divided into five chapters that include the long introduction which carries many quotes from Rituparno on his view on cinema and on how the films of Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and others impressed him even during his stint as a copywriter with Response Advertising Agency. This chapter reveals a Ghosh who is not widely known. He was all praise for several Bombay films like Barfi, which he loved, and actors he worked with like Naseeruddin Shah, Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan. The quotes reveal that he was quite unlike the typical Bengali elite intellectual who turns up his nose at even the mention of Bollywood. In fact, he expressed his regret at not having had the opportunity to work with Madhuri Dixit. He directed many mainstream Bollywood actors including Aishwarya Rai, Monisha Koirala, Arjun Rampal, Divya Seth, Kiron Kher, Shefali Chhaya, Preiti Zinta among others. What’s more, many actors bagged National Awards for their performances in his films.

The second chapter entitled Speaking/Writing on his own feature films as director provides deep insights into his films arranged in chronological sequence beginning with Hirer Angti (1991) and closing with Satyanweshi (2013). Next is The Queer Trilogy, which refers to his “uninhibited performance of queerness both in his films and in the public domain.” The chapter looks at his final queer film trilogy and the impact he left on Kolkata’s LGBT community. Interestingly, two of these films were not directed by Ghosh. The first, Just Another Love Story was directed by Kaushik Ganguly and the last, Memories in March, was directed by Sanjoy Nag. In the latter film, Deepti Naval made her first appearance as Ghosh’s screen mother. This chapter is replete with dozens of interviews of Ghosh taken by noted journalists and film critics both in English and in Bengali. Footnotes offer details of each.

Chapter four entitled Short Films, Telefilms, TV Serials, Documentaries, Dream Projects offers an insight into Ghosh’s lesser known work in these genres. This reviewer recalls the impressive television serial Bahanno Episode that was, sadly, not viewed by too many people. This chapter also details his much-discussed talk shows on satellite channels, some of which raised heated controversies. But he shrugged them off with the casual indifference that became part of his identity as a celebrity.

The last chapter titled Select Interviews in Print and Media is just that.

When asked why they had chosen to work on Rituparno and not some other famous filmmaker in Bengali cinema, Mandal said, “So much has been written and published about Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and other Indian film directors but nothing much is found on Rituparno per se. For such an important film director there is hardly any serious material on him available and the focus of the book was to bring out his own point of view regarding his own films as well as his opinion about other cinema and film personalities as well. Now that his life has come to a full stop it is easy to make a summation, unlike a director who is still living.”

A good read, this is a must-have for film aficionados and film scholars alike.

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

Few outside West Bengal are aware that filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh was not only an award-winning filmmaker and actor but also a writer of beautiful memory pieces, profiles, editorials, short stories, song lyrics in Bengali, over which his command was incredible. On being given the responsibility of editing Anandbazar Patrika’s film fortnightly, Anandalok, he gave it a new look. Some years later, he took over the editorship of Robbar, the Sunday supplement of noted Bengali daily, Shongbad Protidin. It would often be sold out within an hour of copies being laid out on the news stand. Following his untimely and sudden death, all his editorials were collected and published by Deys’ Publishing as the two-volume First Person. The title is still selling very well but as all the writing is in Bengali, it is inaccessible to the non-Bengali reader.

Critic and translator and former Professor of English at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, Somdatta Mandal and her doctoral scholar, Koushik Mondal, decided to gather all of Rituparno Ghosh’s writings that appeared in Bengali media, translate them and present them in a single volume. The result is this book, Rituparno Ghosh On/And Film.

What made them take up such a challenging project? “After Rituparno’s death, I was alarmed to find out that there were hardly any serious books or material available on him. Rituparno Ghosh; Cinema, gender and art edited by Sangita Dutta and others was too erudite for the average reader and focussed on his queerness. The high price of the foreign edition also made it inaccessible. Only a few libraries would store a copy. So a book that is comprehensive and easily available in the Indian context was the need of the hour,” says Mandal.

Rituparno Ghosh On/And Film begins with a long introduction to the filmmaker and then graduates to his other talents instead of focusing on his sexuality and its impact on his public image. In the book’s introduction that runs to more than 70 pages, Mandal points out:

“This book is a humble attempt to bring the entire Rituparno Ghosh oeuvre within two covers as till date, only a couple of books have been published in English on his films. From the beginning, we have tried to avoid all sorts of critical assessment of his films by others. We wanted to capture the film maker’s own voice and viewpoints as far as possible.”

Except for Koushik’s visit to the SRFTI Library and the Little Magazine Library in Kolkata, most of the resources were accumulated online. Rituparno’s “First Person” editorials, that appeared every week in Robbar, helped the editors of this volume better understand the director’s thought patterns.

In one opinion piece Ghosh writes:

My real regret is that I could not direct the nimble-footed Madhuri Dixit. She has the most beautiful smile, is highly photogenic and has a body language which no other actress can match. We were almost on the verge of working together but destiny was not kind towards us. I shared a good rapport with Dimple Kapadia but never had a script in mind, which would do justice to her versatility.(Page 59)

The book is divided into five chapters that include the long introduction which carries many quotes from Rituparno on his view on cinema and on how the films of Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and others impressed him even during his stint as a copywriter with Response Advertising Agency. This chapter reveals a Ghosh who is not widely known. He was all praise for several Bombay films like Barfi, which he loved, and actors he worked with like Naseeruddin Shah, Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan. The quotes reveal that he was quite unlike the typical Bengali elite intellectual who turns up his nose at even the mention of Bollywood. In fact, he expressed his regret at not having had the opportunity to work with Madhuri Dixit. He directed many mainstream Bollywood actors including Aishwarya Rai, Monisha Koirala, Arjun Rampal, Divya Seth, Kiron Kher, Shefali Chhaya, Preiti Zinta among others. What’s more, many actors bagged National Awards for their performances in his films.

The second chapter entitled Speaking/Writing on his own feature films as director provides deep insights into his films arranged in chronological sequence beginning with Hirer Angti (1991) and closing with Satyanweshi (2013). Next is The Queer Trilogy, which refers to his “uninhibited performance of queerness both in his films and in the public domain.” The chapter looks at his final queer film trilogy and the impact he left on Kolkata’s LGBT community. Interestingly, two of these films were not directed by Ghosh. The first, Just Another Love Story was directed by Kaushik Ganguly and the last, Memories in March, was directed by Sanjoy Nag. In the latter film, Deepti Naval made her first appearance as Ghosh’s screen mother. This chapter is replete with dozens of interviews of Ghosh taken by noted journalists and film critics both in English and in Bengali. Footnotes offer details of each.

Chapter four entitled Short Films, Telefilms, TV Serials, Documentaries, Dream Projects offers an insight into Ghosh’s lesser known work in these genres. This reviewer recalls the impressive television serial Bahanno Episode that was, sadly, not viewed by too many people. This chapter also details his much-discussed talk shows on satellite channels, some of which raised heated controversies. But he shrugged them off with the casual indifference that became part of his identity as a celebrity.

The last chapter titled Select Interviews in Print and Media is just that.

When asked why they had chosen to work on Rituparno and not some other famous filmmaker in Bengali cinema, Mandal said, “So much has been written and published about Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and other Indian film directors but nothing much is found on Rituparno per se. For such an important film director there is hardly any serious material on him available and the focus of the book was to bring out his own point of view regarding his own films as well as his opinion about other cinema and film personalities as well. Now that his life has come to a full stop it is easy to make a summation, unlike a director who is still living.”

A good read, this is a must-have for film aficionados and film scholars alike.

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