Abhijan : Magic on the Big Screen
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On the occasion of Satyajit Ray’s 104th birth anniversary, his 1962 classic Abhijan returned to the big screen at Nandan. A gripping tale adapted from Tarashankar Bandopadhyay’s novel.
Abhijan ( The Expedition ), the movie, was made and released in the September of 1962. Early that year another feature film, “Kanchanjungha”, the first ever colour movie by Satyajit Ray, was released. While “Kanchanjungha” was based on Ray’s own story about a middle-class Bengali family on a vacation to Darjeeling, “Abhijan“ was scripted by Ray himself on a novel written by famous author Tarashankar Bandopadhyay in the backdrop of rural Bengal – a place somewhere on the border of Birbhum district and the state of Bihar.
Ray, not only made a shift from the comfortable locale of a snow-clad hill station to a sun-scorched plateau, but also in a gap of few months he brought on the celluloid two different stories of varied complexions and layers of the society – one of the quintessential Bengali bhadralok and other Narsingh, the Rajput cabby whose high self-esteem doesn’t allow him to accept insult or defeat, He is passionate about the car he drives around – a vintage 1930 model Chrystler, and does not mind racing it with a speeding train, another car or a bus to prove supremacy and power in which a Rajput bloodline takes pride. His life centres around a bucolic, mundane, milieu with characters like Rama, Sukhram, Neeli, Joseph, and Gulabi, a demonstrative and beautiful village widow who is instinctively drawn to Narsingh.
While the storyline of Abhijan was more or less linear, Ray used numerous imageries to build the characters. The decrepit car, which is almost crumbling under its age, stays loyal to its owner till the last. It wins every race– be it a train or another car speeding by and becomes a part of Narsingh and his man Friday Rama. The inked lion on Narsingh’s forearm is emblematic of a daring legacy.
Soumendu Roy, the trusted cinematographer of Ray, captured the arid, terrain of Birbhum through his lens, particularly Dubrajpur, which is famous for the mama bhagne pahar, a hillock where a pair of almost spherical natural boulders of granite rock, one balancing on the top of the other. Be it the wide expanse of the farm fields or the chiaroscuro of the meandering rocks on the hillock or the intense shadowy look of Gulabi – all come alive on the screen with the synchronized masterstroke of Ray and Roy which played a symphony in unison, from frame to frame.
“Abhijan“ in its 63rd year came back for a big screen view on the eve of Ray’s 104th birth anniversary at Nandan. Organised by the Society For Preservation Of Satyajit Ray Archives, the viewing was preceded by a short recorded interview of Waheeda Rahman, the only surviving actor of the film who lives in Mumbai. For her, working with the great master was an experience of a lifetime. She added that the editor of Filmfare B K Karanjia, sent someone to her house with a letter from Mr Ray that said ‘My leading man Soumitra Chatterjee, and my unit believe that you are the most suitable for the role of Gulabi, the heroine of my next film. If you agree to play the part, we’ll be very pleased! And that was the way it all started! She also talked at length about Ray’s directing her and completing the shooting in nineteen days. In one scene, in fact, he made her sing a few lines. When she said “ But I don’t know how to sing, and my voice is not that good”, he said, “We’re used to the voices of Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhonsle, but I want to hear Waheeda’s voice. Gulabi is a simple village girl, and if her voice isn’t perfect, it will sound natural. That’s the effect I want”. And that’s how the song “ piya nahin aye ho rama” was picturised on Waheeda.
Like many other Ray classics, released till the mid-sixties, “Abhijan” was also never seen on a big screen by our generation. In recent times two of his other films – Nayak and Sonar Kella have been re-released commercially and ran packed houses. And that’s the magic of a big screen!
In the days of digital entertainment when the technology is ushering in the movie screen inside our homes, our eyeballs getting used to smaller aspect ratios of mobiles or computer screens or a wall-mounted LED, when OTT “content” is on the verge of purging the word “cinema”, watching an old movie in a theatre is truly an excitement. It’s that seductive power of the big screen that takes us to the dark movie hall and we see the story unfolding in light and sound. Newer generations perhaps miss that as they are possessed by a “deadly form of loneliness, which is digital loneliness” as pointed out by the German filmmaker Wim Wenders.
On Satyajit Ray’s birth anniversary screening of “Abhijan” at Nandan, whose logo was designed by Ray himself, was a tribute not only to the great master but also to the big-screen-cinema which more than 100 years entertained the world with its make-believe!
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Saptarshi,
Wonderful description of the film, the Director, the characters,etc. Very well written. I missed the opportunity to attend the show. Please inform me whenever there is a show of Abhijan.