Ritwik Ghatak, Unmechanical: photos from the Delhi events

A few images from Shamya Dasgupta's Delhi trip to promote his big Ritwik Ghatak anthology. 

Four Mayabazaaris and one Gulaabo gaadi. Shamya and I with the intrepid and resourceful Shillpi Singh (who recently translated Piyush Mishra's memoir into English), Yasir Abbasi, and a pink Ambassador at the eye-popping Museo Camera in Gurgaon – just before the Ghatak discussion, expertly moderated by Sanghamitra Chakraborty, on December 4.

Museo Camera is run by Aditya Arya, who was the young stills photographer during the making of Jaane bhi do Yaaro in 1982, and it’s always good to meet him and experience his continuing enthusiasm for his film and theatre days. (An old post about him here.)

The talk went well too, I think – Shamya is quite the pro now when it comes to talking Ghatak, and sounds very much like a seasoned film critic at times despite his protestations that he doesn’t know much about cinema. (You can see and hear him discuss the book in this long session which I hosted on Zoom a few weeks ago.)

At the Museo Camera session I spoke a bit about the things I have written about in the anthology – about being underwhelmed and annoyed when I experienced Ghatak films in poor prints and without adequate context around 20 years ago; and my very pleasing re-engagement with his work earlier this year, when Shamya encouraged me to watch the 1959 Bari Theke Paliye (followed by an experience of really good prints of Ajantrik, Meghe Dhaka Tara – and, of course, the wonderful Subarnarekha). 

A Ghatak talk (by Ira Bhaskar) at JNU the next day, in a packed room…

… followed by Shamya, Ira and Kaushik Bhaumik in conversation at India Habitat Centre on the 6th.

And finally, Shamya and I with a few of our Encyclopaedia Britannica colleagues (including Padma Pegu, who was first our post-grad friend before we were all at EB together).

(Unmechanical: Ritwik Ghatak in 50 Fragments is available here)