A few days ago I got my
copy of a book I’m super-excited about – my old friend Shamya Dasgupta’s massive, beautiful-looking
tribute to Ritwik Ghatak (whose birth centenary it is next month). Doing an
essay for this anthology, after almost having backed out, was probably the
highlight of my writing life this year – and after the initial misgivings and
much grumbling, I really enjoyed working on it. It also gave me the opportunity
to feel like a teen film-student again, by rediscovering a major filmmaker
whose work I hadn’t fully engaged with before (largely due to poor and poorly subtitled prints), and whom I had consequently developed
many narrow perceptions about. Getting to watch (mostly) good prints of films
like Subarnarekha, Bari Theke Paliye and Meghe Dhaka Tara was a very
invigorating experience.
My piece is
about this rediscovery of Ghatak, but the book looks to be chockful of
treasures about various facets of the man and his art. by It's great to be sharing
space with such contributors as Mahasweta Devi, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Safdar
Hashmi and Adoor Goplakrishnan – and a few writers whom I personally know, such
as Sumana Roy (whose essay on “Ritwik’s trees” is near the top of my to-read
list), Amborish Roychoudhury and Joy Bimal Roy. There are also some terrific illustrations by Soumitra Adhikary.
Unmechanical: Ritwik Ghatak in 50 Fragments is available for pre-order now. Link here.
My piece is
about this rediscovery of Ghatak, but the book looks to be chockful of
treasures about various facets of the man and his art. by It's great to be sharing
space with such contributors as Mahasweta Devi, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Safdar
Hashmi and Adoor Goplakrishnan – and a few writers whom I personally know, such
as Sumana Roy (whose essay on “Ritwik’s trees” is near the top of my to-read
list), Amborish Roychoudhury and Joy Bimal Roy. There are also some terrific illustrations by Soumitra Adhikary.
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