Tapan Sinha - A Reflection article

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There are a few childhood memories which remain vivid even if you grow up, more or less this happens for everyone I guess. Like the first circus experience or the glimpse of the tiger in the zoo, it was Airabat, the giant white elephant for me when it comes to cinema. It was a time when we didn't have TV at home and our cinema viewing programmes were heavily censored by my parents - they ensured that me and my sister don't watch anything ‘˜adult' at that time. So it was one of my first few films that I can recollect and I do remember I loved the end of the film which otherwise kept me and my sister sobbing almost the entire reel time. It was Safed Hathi and back in school we all were excited about it - enacting the different roles of the film. We never bothered who directed the film, it was good and that's what it mattered.  Over a period of time as I grew up under the over-encompassing virtual tutelage of Ritwik Ghatak's films, I had almost forgotten one name - Tapan Sinha. Or maybe we chose to. Satyajit Ray was always dear and we probably couldn't ignore Mrinal Sen for many a masterpiece of his, but definitely there was none apart from the trio in our radar.

      This is the fate of Tapan Sinha, like Uttam Kumar, the central character of his second film Upahar (1955) - none of them got their due from the serious film audience (read the film critics). But as life does such a balance act, Tapan Sinha is loved by the educated, middle-class Bengali more than anyone else, probably second only to the towering Ray. Looking back, as Sinha passed away on the morning of 15^th January, I was rather reflective - what his cinema means to me? And I was not very sure. On one side his staggering range and diversity would definitely had made Ray proud as well, and on the other side his debatable, yet unfailing belief in film being a 100% linear narrative medium. His range is so diverse that in the 40+ films that he made over more than 50 years, its hard to find any one film a sequel of a predecessor, leave alone a trilogy! From classics like Kabuliwala, Kshudita Pashan, Hnasuli Bnaker Upakatha to the more urbane Jotugriho, Apanjan (remade in Hindi as Mere Apne by Gulzar), Ekhone and social awareness in Adalat o ekti meye, Ek Doctor ki Maut, Atanka, Antardhan he had ventured almost every genre. And his rich repertoire of satirical offerings in Galpa Holeo Satti (whose sub-standard Hindi remake is Bawarchi), Ek je chhilo desh, Bancharamer Bagan side-by-side with his eye for children's films is worth appreciating.

      The five Sinha films which are etched in my mind more than the others are - Kabuliwala, Jhinder Bandi, Jotugriho, Sagina Mahato and Ek Doctor ki Maut. The Bengali version of Kabuliwala(1957) played by none other than the inimitable Chhabi Biswas had been a delight to watch. Sinha was faithful to the original Tagore masterpiece though he inserted a number of subplots that carried along the main narrative.

An extremely goofed up makeup of Biswas along with a number of technical glitches couldn't peg back this film which remains vivid in my heart for its sensitive rendition of basic human values of love and longing. It remains a masterpiece of Indian cinema and justifies Sinha's position as a natural story-teller who relied heavily on simplicity and intrinsic goodness of individuals.

Jhinder Bandi(1961), based on a Bengali novel with the same name by Saradindu Bandyopadhyay is a successful ‘˜Indianized' adaptation of Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda. This film is one of the oldest Bengali films that showcased drama and suspense in a way very few films of the time portrayed. Yet again, the length of the film induced by an inordinate expense of reel time to setup a love relationship between the two central characters along with some very naïve sword fight sequences might have held it back from being a classic. However, one important factor of this film being this is the first time that the two legendary Bengali actors appeared on-screen together. Uttam Kumar and Soumitra Chatterjee probably never looked so good together in any other film and this is the first time that Soumitra was cast as a villain. This is quite an event because with Soumitra's marked aristocratic looks and refined personality he looked more at home with the Tagorean characters. Sinha brought out this rare aspect of the versatile actor which remains Chatterjee's one of the finest characterisations as well.

Whereas Jhinder Bandi dealt with almost a fantasy where kin-rivalry unfolded into a bitter drama of betrayal and killing, Jotugriho (1964) brings up the subject of marital discord with impeccable finesse at a time when the subject itself would have been perceived as daring by most Indian film-makers. Again adapted from a poignant short story Sinha deviated little but added interesting insights into the main narrative that made it look interesting. As always, in most of Tapan Sinha's films (another trait that he shares with Satyajit Ray), this film is also studded with fine performances - this time Uttam Kumar coming out with a sterling exposition of an introvert engineer stung by life. What makes this film so unforgettable is the sense of void that is inflicted on the audience in the empty cul-de-sac called ‘˜life'. What went wrong, what was the problem? There were no villains, it's the turn of life that puts the two endearing souls far apart, forever. This sense of helplessness is so prominent that we empathize for the characters - the one big difference from its Hindi remake Ijazat by Gulzar where we can feel that the marriage might have been saved in rid of the triangle.

Sagina Mahato (1970) and its remake in Hindi by Sinha himself is one of his overt political statements. Sagina was a coolie who fought against injustices meted towards them by the tea estate owners and soon rises to be their leader. And as he became too hot to handle the, management took advantage of his innocence and ignorance in turning him as their puppet against the same men who chose him to be their leader. Dilip Kumar as Sagina was fantastic, quite different from his otherwise romantic roles and this film rose quite a bit of questions about the success of trade union movements and its like at a time when Bengal was burning from Naxalite movements. In most of Tapan Sinha's films it was mostly the story of the struggles of the common man and how he triumphs over his situation. Sinha once said -

I have always believed in individual courage and effort. I think, collective system or life hardly allows an individual to discover the infinite strength within him. I like the individual who has the courage to face any untoward situation, which is why I have shown an individual as a relentless fighter against all hazards in Aadmi aur Aurat(1982), Atanka(1986) and Ek Doctor ki Maut(1991). My protagonists in these films have practically done miracles by their own strength and self-confidence.

This belief in the individual made him sharply different in his philosophy from many of his colleagues who had staunch Marxist lineage. And in this regard he probably is closer to Dr.Stockmann (of Henik Ibsen's The Enemy of the People) who said ‘˜...the strongest man in the world is the man who stands most alone.' Notably, even Satyajit Ray turned the end of his film Ganashatru (1989) based on the Ibsen play to include the ‘˜mass' in an individual's struggle for existence. This Ibsenian touch is found in Ek Doctor ki Maut where a doctor who invented a drug to cure leprosy was constantly politicized by his colleagues out of jealousy. In a claustrophobic society talent loses its battle against middle-class sense of animosity arising out of uncertainty and incompetence to acknowledge excellence. The doctor was devastated by his hostile environment that forced him to give up his research, but he finds a way to love his life.

      But where did Tapan Sinha falter then? To me, the greatest drawback of Sinha is probably in his simplistic solution to situations when he dealt with social or contemporary issues. In his penchant for triumphing human beings in the end is were his downfall is embedded as well - the director coming out as too prophetic at times. In the earlier films where he played with the classical stories, his narrative strength was probably more than many. But then again, his positioning of himself in the post-Renaissance Bengali culture along-side Ray ensured that his craft was always compared only with Ray (and never with Ghatak or Sen) - a misfortune which probably was difficult for him to shrug off. And it was probably unfair too. If Sinha would have happened now, probably he would have got more space than he got. Surely he deserved more. But then again, probably he wouldn't have taken up films which made him an icon amongst his niche viewers who took pride in sporting a ‘˜Bangali-aana' (the cultured Bengali persona) which is so rapidly diminishing these days. Sinha chose to remain humble, always recluse and impeccably restrained another trait of a by-gone era. He chose to be a small man in this world. But his films ensured that he had always been big. It has been us who never could measure him up.