Bimal Roy: Bridging Generations Through Realistic Cinema



Maverick story teller, the author just loves turning around what…
Join the late-night banter between Sujit, Som, and Sid as they reminisce about legendary filmmaker Bimal Roy on his birth anniversary. Delve into discussions about Roy’s contributions to Indian cinema, his inspiration from Italian Neo-Realism, and the socio-political undertones in his films.
“Hyan ray, kaal to Bimal Roy -er janmobarshiki”!
It was a routine call from Sid to Somashis. ‘Routine’ because every Thursday night we have these edit calls to finalise the weekly uploads for the next edition. Quite unaware of the confabulations between Sid and Som, I was nursing some scars due to a terrible fungal skin infection. Half past nine, and I was down four pegs, so when the call came through to me, I guessed Som must be a few pegs down too, but not Sid. He has become a ‘good boy’ these days and has stopped drinking… albeit, between every two pegs.
Bimal Roy… De Sicca… The Bicycle Thieves, not the grand French abstractions of Goddard or Fellini, but the Italian Neo Realistic films… Do Bigha Zameen… Parinita … Sujata… Bandini… so many decades away into my boyhood!
“Sujitda,” Som called me, now on a conference call with Sid in tow (if not to be ‘towed’… you know… between two pegs… “Tomorrow is Bimal Roy’s birth anniversary… shouldn’t we run a feature on him?” he asked.
It was amply right, socially, politically, culturally, etc., just the right thing to do, but alas! Nine forty-five at night… I mean… I am sure that you as a reader know what I mean. And yet, with the palette seeking the next peg, my sweetheart daughter was calling me for dinner, I just could not say I shall not do this. Instead, I suggested what I thought could be an easy escape route for me, and I said, “Look, Bimal Roy is almost Jurassic Age, so should we chat a few minutes about what I know and you two do, and then maybe I can send the article early on Friday?
Fortunately, both agreed but my woes did not last a few minutes.
That night… or was it evening? We forgot the marginal time fissure between ‘evening’ or ‘night’ or… ‘dawn’!
This is a direct ‘transmission’ rather in the mien of Moses when three old youngsters revelled in what was their obvious past (by the Gregorian calendar) but still living their passed-by youth!
Me: Som, Bimal Roy… I mean, I have watched his movies.., Do Bigha Zameen, Sujata, Parineeta and all that. Bimal Roy… but I have wondered why he went to make such films in Hindi when he could have easily done them in Bengali,,, were there no financers for him?
Som: Sid, do you have to say anything? And I am being direct… toy know the deal. For Google to catch us on its track we need the article this…
Sid: Yes, I know, Charlie… the crux of Sujitda’s question is why a Bangal… you know, a Bangal like him, born in Dhaka did not opt to make films in Bengali, but rather, in Hindi, isn’t that your question, Sujitda?
Me: (just gulping down my fourth) Yup! I mean, when Ritwik Ghatak. Mrinal Sen and Satyajit Ray could make films in Bengali…
Som: Sujitda one second… when did Ray, Ghatak, and Sen make their films? In the 1970s, give and take a few years, right? But that is when Bengali Tollywood was once again picking up their stockings…
Sid: Som, just hold on… Sujitda.. Sujitda, don’t forget that those were two different eras… I mean what the hell… Ray and Bimal Roy were a generation apart. I was talking to Bimal Da’s relative one-day last year and he told me that his Bimal Dadu had started his career with the legend, Prince Pramathesh Barua of Gauripur in Assam. And just after Bimal Roy ended his last work with the Prince… well… that is when the Bengali film industry went into its death….
Me: Stop… stop dear, you mean Bengali cinema had suffered a death?
Sid: not death, really, but a sort of hibernation…
Me: Hibernation, not death… but Som, let me ask you one question… Ritwik Ghatak as a filmmaking legend was directly linked to the Communist Party and its Indian Peoples Theatre Association (IPTA)… which Ray or Mrinalda (Mrinal Sen) were not, but how far was Bimalda linked to it?
Som: Sujitda, I’m not aware if Bimalda was linked with the Indian Communist movement, but he did make films like Do Bigha Zameen (Two Acres of Land), which sees the owner of the land become a farming tenant. That was a Communist…
Me: But Do Bigha Zameen was built on a poem by Rabindranath Tagore… shudho bighey duii, chilo mor bhuin, aar shobie geche hriney / Babu kohilen. Bujhey Upen, ei jomi lobo kiney… right, Som, Sid.
Sid: yes, but let us go back a little. Bimal Da was working as what in the beginning?
Som: Well, you tell me…he was initially just a camera assistant for New Theatres, one of the glorious examples of Bengali theatre. And he was just a Publicity Photographer for Prince Barua, and then… what led him to suddenly become a filmmaker in Bombay?
Me: I personally feel that he had a personal liking towards the IPTA line of thought that we find in Do Bigha Zameen… I may be wrong… Sid, if you have his son Joy Bimal Roy’s number, why don’t you call him?
Sid: Gosh,,, Sujitda, it will take some time…
Som: Sid, what I find interesting is that Bimal Da had been so influenced by De Sicca’s The Bicycle Thieves….I feel that was in a way a leftist inclination since the Italian neo-realists had the same inclination towards the economic and class distinction issue faced by the European working class. And the concept of the mise en scène, which he employed to portray realism.
Me: But Som, mise en scène means showing what the director sees through the camera, the scene as it is. I do not see why he was not making films that could have gotten him rewards and awards… like he was making films in the 1940s and early 1950s when there came Hollywood blockbusters like Some Like it Hot, or Hitchcock’s Rear Window or Vertigo, or even some of in the mien of Kurosawa’s Drunken Angel or even a milestone like Roshomom… I mean, it is difficult to believe that he did not get excited by Kurosawa…
Som: But did Ray or Ghatak get influenced by Kurosawa? The Japanese culture was so far removed from our Indian film culture…
Sid: Sujitda, when you just said about Bimal Da’a awards, I think you must have had one too many. Bimal Da won a number of awards throughout his career, including eleven Filmfare Awards, two National Film Awards, and the International Prize of the Cannes Film Festival. Madhumati won nine Filmfare Awards in 1958, a record held for 37 years.
Me: Oops… I was not looking into that… that must be your Wiki knowledge, right?
Sid: Oh, so you do not believe in my readings, Sujitda…
Som: Sid, don’t be a kid, man, he was just pulling your legs.
Sid: Well yes Som I know.
Som: Sid, go have another dip… Sujitda, I find a strange thing in the Bombay film industry and maybe that is why Bimal Da could make socialistic films like Do Bigha Zameen, and it is that Bollywood in its initial two stages had a dual character. One is the pure entertainment genre of films and the other is the socialistic variety, do you…
Me: Sure. I entirely agree with you. That socialistic streak continued for a very long time in Bollywood, because you must realise that those were India’s sunrise years as a nation, and Jawaharlal Nehru’s demi-socialism and Gandhiji’s espoused basing the country’s social and economic structure based on rural sustainability meant that gold diggers, the producers also wanted to make their fortunes by capitalising on the market films that could reap the moolah. As Sid said just now, Bimal Da bagged so many prizes and I am sure the investors must have had that factor in mind.
Som: Is that why films such as Amit Mitra’s Jagtey Raho or Raj Kapoor’s Mother India minted the box office in those years?
Sid: Maybe, I was too small then… Sujitda?
Me: I think that is one of the major factors why Bimal Da’s films earned the jingles at the box office. Like I was just 12 years away after Independence, and people like Nehru, Subhash Bose, and even Radhakrishnan won great respect within our hearts, Bimal Da finished his filmmaking career in the early or mid-1950s.
Sid: But Sujitda, what do you see his Devdas, with Prince Barua as Devdas and what do you say about Shah Rukh and Aishwarya Rai?
Me: Sid… tor kota holo ) how many have you downed? Well in Bangla there is a saying… bolbo?
Som: Sujitda, say… what is the harm? It’s just us listening…
Me: Shon taley… eta holo chande aar ponde… (so hear, you cannot compare the moon and the arse, simply because both are round!
Som: And by 1970, Raj Kapoor’s iconic Mera Naam Joker had come and was slowly causing a sort of metamorphosis in Indian films…
Sid: Maybe…ummm but the more I think of it, the more likely am I to agree that even in Mera Naam Joker, that particular streak of Bimal Roy’s filmic socialism had a sort of a Swan Song.
Me: Yes, a Swan Song it was, for Mera Naam Joker in 1970, perhaps ended that great period of socialistic thinking in Bollywood. I find it strange to come to grasp with the fact that the same man who made Mother India as well as Mera Naam Joker, could make a crass film like Bobby, with rather shamefaced sexual innuendoes in 1973.
Sid: ha ha ha ha… Sujitda, you are too old, and I think I shall call you Sujitdadu (Sujit, the grandpa) because Bobby was my first wet dream! But tell me (Sid stopped after a guffaw, maybe to have “one for the bed”) tell me, have we lost all Bimal Roys forever?
Me: Well as Subhash Bose said, “Give me blood and I shall give you freedom”, I am sure I know several modern-day filmmakers who will rather make a Do Bigha Zameen, than spend millions on buying the jury to bag an Oscar for a shit song like… you know what I am talking about.
This banter actually went on for a longer time last night. We discussed several of Bimal Roy’s landmark films like Bandini, and more especially, a majestic romance film Madhumati he had created with Salil Chowdhury’s music. But we concluded that though new technology may be harnessed to make newer films, the compassion built in the DNA of older films shall surely return, carrying within their bosom of older and not yet dying socially concerned films.
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Maverick story teller, the author just loves turning around what people write into stories.He has worked with several magazines, such as Sunday Mail, Mail Today, Debonair, The Sunday Indian, Down To Earth, IANS, www.sportzpower.com, www.indiantelevision.com etc. He also loves singing and cooking