Mrinal Sen and his ceaseless search for humanity

by Rupen Ghosh on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 9:55pm

I hate to be branded as a political filmmaker. The term

political is clichd. Can you label Satyajit Ray as a
humanist filmmaker or Tapan Sinha just as a brilliant
storyteller? Ray had a wide vision, was disciplined and
meticulous while Ghatak was unpredictable, bold in his
thoughts, often pained by the pangs of Partition. Mrinal
Sen

Mrinal Sen, the ace auteur, along with Satyajit Ray and
Ritwik Ghatak, formed the grand trio of Indian cinema.
Mrinal Sen, endearingly referred to as Mrinalda by his
countless admirers, started his career as a filmmaker with
Raat Bhor in 1951. It was not a memorable film by his
standards. His real break was with Neel Akasher Neeche
in the mid-'50s. The film depicted the social situation in
Bengal in the post-independence era and had Bikash Roy,
Manju De and Kali Banerjee in the leading roles. The film
had outstanding music by Hemanta Mukherjee. The old
timers recall that the film was highly praised by none
other than Jawaharlal Nehru. It may be noted here that
during his student days in Calcutta in the early forties
when he was studying physics in Calcutta University,
he had his association with the Indian Peoples Theatre
Association (IPTA), which brought him in touch with
people with similar cultural preferences and moorings and
developed his sensitivities for those on the margins of our
society, a commitment he has carried all through his life.
1

This commitment sharpened his aesthetics to produce

what may be called as a separate genre of politically
committed cinema where he ceaselessly tried to give
voice to the underprivileged sections of our society, and
more than the voice, to bestow dignity and humanity to
them.
Then followed Baishe Sraban based on the death
anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore. Along the same
time, Satyajit Ray was creating magic with his Apu
trilogy and Mrinal Sen personally liked the trilogy as
Ray's best creation. What happened with his next film
Akash Kusum with Soumitra Chatterjee and Aparna Sen
as leading actors was that there was a long epistolary war
with Satyajit Ray. But both the masters shared a kind of
mutual respect, a kind of bonding and a silent regard for
each other, which remained unbroken till Rays death.
Bhuvan Shome was the first Sen film which brought out
his creative and artistic brilliance, and it gave him a lot of
space to experiment with cinematic language. Like Ray,
Sen was also influenced by the European masters like
Eisenstein and Vitorio DSica, Fellini and Rosselini; the
neo-realist touch of Italian masters deeply moved Sen.
Unlike Ray, Sen never really admired the film making of
Hollywood, though he liked the works of John Ford, David
Lean and Billy Wilder.
His next few films were overtly political. At that time,
Calcutta was witnessing large-scale political turmoil and
unrest and this naturally influenced Sen to take up
political themes. One needs to have a better
understanding of the wider political, economic, historical
and social situation of Calcutta and Bengal in the
turbulent 1970s in order to appreciate the political films
2

made by the masters like Sen, Ray and others during this
period, though many may not admit to this
categorisation. Similar to Rays urban trilogy of
Pratidwandi, Seemabadha and Jana Aranya, Sens own
city trilogy included Interview, Calcutta 71 and
Padatik. The theme of Interview was of an unemployed
young man, as in Rays Pratidwandi. Unlike Ray, whose
approach was mostly subtle, nuanced and more
balanced, even when the theme was overtly political, Sen
followed a robust political path, direct and, what many
critics felt, more blunt. Sen soon shifted focus to target
his own middle class society, much to the discomfiture,
consternation and anger of the Bhadralok class. Even
Ray noted with sarcasm that Sen was finding an easy
target in the middle class. But Mrinalda was undeterred
and increasingly started questioning the iniquitous socioeconomic and political system and its immediate feudal,
regressive past and how it had brought miseries to the
countless millions for centuries, and how the middle class
was selfish, greedy and ambitious and how their craving
for success was at the cost of the underclass and the
poorer sections of our society, who were left in abject
misery and penury. Despite belonging to the same class,
Sen never was hesitant in exposing the hypocrisy,
the shameless aping of the most privileged sections by
the middle class- the super-rich, the 1% - and their
literally slavering to kick the ladder to reach the very top,
no matter how many wretchedly poor may be clinging to
it for sheer survival; he was scathing in his criticism of the
callous and heartless attitude of India's middle class
towards the poor and underprivileged. To give credit to
him, Sen has never shied away from displaying his
political leanings, though he did rise about sloganeering
in some of his later films. He claims that he never allowed
3

his beliefs to dominate every frame and asserts that the

ideas for his films come straight from his heart.
Sen as supreme humanist
Despite the political labeling, Sen remains a humanist
and a compassionate soul. His concerns were humanistic
and universal, though his way of expressing his concerns
in his films may be more direct, staccato like and shorn of
nuances. His concerns for rural, village life and for the
impoverished and marginal people have always
remained. While making Akaler Sandhaney, he
experienced a kind of compassion for people, which he
feels was way above any technique of film making. He
was extremely disturbed when he heard a villager
exclaim on the arrival of the crew on the rural location,
chosen to depict the 1943 drought, "they have come from
the city looking for famine. But we are the famine." This
feeling for people has never been away from him, and
that makes him a supreme humanist. That he was deeply
humanist, could be discerned from the following passage
from an article by Ms. Gowri Ramnanrayan, a noted film
critic, which appeared in the Frontline in 2005:
He was to make an unforgettable journey to a changedbeyond-recognition Faridpur in 1990, and stand in front of
his old house as a `foreigner'. The local people gathered
around in silence. A smiling woman walked out of the
house and offered flowers to Sen's wife Gita saying, "You
are in the house of your father-in-law." She turned to Sen
and said, "Come, you will see the memorial at the water's
edge." Through the decades, his sister's memorial (she
had drowned as a child in the same pond) had been
preserved by the occupants of his ancestral home. Being
Mrinal Sen, he could not see it as a moving individual
4

experience. Its impact widened to include vast political

issues: if only the Mahatma were here now, he exclaimed.
He would know that Partition had not robbed simple folk
of their essential values, their humanity. Sen searched for
this humanity in every one of his films, and agonised over
the forces that tried to destroy it.
On the very oeuvre of Sens film making and how he and
Ray differed in their outlook and approach to film making,
Suhasini Mulay, who made her debut as an effervescent
young 17 year old Gauri in Mrinal Sens path-breaking
masterpiece Bhubhan Shome, had this to say: "On
returning to India I took up a short assignment as
assistant to the secretary of jury at the International Film
Festival, and Satyajit Ray was the chairman. He was on
the lookout for an assistant, and that's how I went to
Kolkata. I learnt a lot the discipline, conceptualisation,
planning your shots. Often, when he had finalised a shot
he'd ask me to look through the camera too, and Ray
being an illustrator had a perfection at every stage. At
the end of the day, I'd seek clarifications on various
things I had noted down during the shooting and he
would most generously explain it. Even before I reached
the city he had sent me a 30-page detailed synopsis of
the film, which made all the difference to a person who
did not know Bengali. As far as Mrinalda was concerned I
had known him since Bhuvan Shome.' Mrigaya' was not
a planned career move. I was stepping in to fill the space
of an assistant who had taken ill. Here, it was the editing
stage of the film. He too was organised but there was lot
of warmth and affection that came along with it. With
Manikda (Ray) there was that awe and respect. In fact,
even on the sets people would rarely ask questions of Ray
because of this. I knew I had gone to learn and ask him
questions I did.
5

Ray and Sen an ambivalent relationship

Assessing the greatness of legends like Sen and Ray may
not be easy as their style of film making and approach to
the concept of making cinema were quite different,
literally poles apart. Their views on cinema, politics and
ideology were in stark opposition to one another. To some
of Ray aficionados, a far better film maker Sen was, when
freed of his ideological baggage and mooring and when
he made such sensitive films like Akash Kusum, which
remains one of the most thought-provoking, bitter-sweet
films ever, Khandar, as well as Aakaler Sandhaney, which
allows connoisseurs space to think and realise the
greatness of Sen's craft.

Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen are both legends, and each
has its own style of film making, vision and approach and
outlook to life itself, and we should respect their
individualities and appreciate their genre of filmmaking.
Ray was a towering figure, both physically and
intellectually, and inspired awe. But Sen is always
Mrinalda to many and is friendly, warm and
approachable. To some Indian filmgoers, Mrinal Sen is a
cult figure, a trend setter. To them, Sen has managed to
transform certain inescapable social realities, rarely
discussed in films, into socially relevant, politically
committed cinema. For a long time, the Bengali cinema
had been quite removed from social realism and
relevance.
There were certain sections who adore Sen and who felt,
perhaps, unjustly, that even the great Satyajit Ray, had
seemed content to portray India from the artists
viewpointpainting beautiful canvases devoid of any real
6

analysis of Indias condition. Ray has ignored the

problems that are predominant in Indian society. To
them, he was apolitical and kept away from stark realities
of life. Those who adore Mrinal Sen felt that it was only
with him, that serious discussions started on these
terrible problems in a completely non-romantic manner,
that made people take notice. Since they were coming
from Mrinal Sen fans belonging to certain political school,
may be, they could be ignored. But when it came from
serious Ray watchers and admirers and friend like
Chidananda Das Gupta, one had to take notice. In his
Talking About Films, 1981, he writes: "Neither these
more terrible aspects of our society, nor the poetry of
anguish generated by the struggle of the 'Ravindriks' to
cope with them are reflected in Ray's films. In fact
wherever he has taken a tentative step toward them, Ray
has tended to burn his fingers. Take Abhijaan for instance;
the attempt to enter the underworld of the working class
results in total failure. And the reasons for the failure are
that it cannot be drawn from the myths and types of the
Tagore world." It is to the credit of Ray, however, that he
made serious attempts to understand the grim socioeconomic realities of rural India in films like Asani Sanket
(on Bengal famine) and Sadgati. In the Premchand short
story made into a heart rending tele-film - Sadgati - about
the viciously exploitative and oppressive caste system,
Ray did not hold back and presented a very disturbing
picture of the indignities heaped on the socially
disadvantaged sections and myriad sufferings they still
endure in our society.
Ray and Sen had an ambivalent relationship. Ray-Sen
barbs were legendary and continued unabated, though
they had deep respect for each other and never crossed
the boundaries of civility, thorough gentlemen as they
7

were. They had a year-long letter war carried on in The

Statesman, Calcutta, after Sen's Akash Kusum was
released. Off and on, this continued. On Ekdin Pratidin,
when the young woman, the sole breadwinner of the
family, does not return home till dawn, no explanations
are given as to her absence for the whole night. Sen later
said that he wanted to turn the searchlight inwards, at
the middle class itself, to highlight their selfish and
conformist patriarchal mindset and norms. This would not
please the bhadralok, who were up in arms. Asked by
angry members of bhadralok viewers, "Where did she
go?", Sen replied that he did not know and that the
viewers had to suffer not knowing. This provoked Ray to
write to a friend that never before had a filmmaker shown
"such ignorance about characters authored by him". Even
earlier, Ray had trashed Sens Akash Kusum, as tragicomic, where a young man tells lies about his wealth to a
rich girl, whom he loved. Worse was to follow as Sen's
best-known and universally acclaimed film Bhuvan
Shome was dismissed summarily by Ray with a withering
remark when he summed up the film as Big Bad
Bureaucrat Reformed by Rustic Belle".
Sens oeuvre a testament to human compassion
and concern for the underprivileged
It is undeniable that Mrinal Sen made conscious attempts
at making what are known as political films and some
likened him to be a pamphleteer. This may not have
endeared him to critics who were apolitical or belonged to
political schools antithetical to the left. But this was a
phase of his life from which he has moved away. To be
given credit where it was due, among the film makers in
India, barring the earlier films of Shyam Benegal of Ankur
and Nishant, part of his rural trilogy, it was Sen alone who
8

made films which point to bitter socio-economic injustice

which scar the lives of the underprivileged, often
airbrushed in many of the works of fairly respectable
directors, and spoke about actions to bring about change.
Yes, there was stridency and moralizing which must have
been galling to many and must have marred the beauty
of his films as an aesthetic medium and reduced his films
to sometimes as a propagandists tool. But from 1990s,
one saw that there was a more subdued tone and a kind
of maturity, never seen earlier and which impressed the
critic in India and outside. In a long span of a film maker,
no one can lay claim to producing uniformly qualitative
good cinema, not even the greats, including Ray, and Sen
was no exception, but his feelings and compassion for the
underprivileged and his restless energy were never in
doubt. Who among the film makers, barring some
honourable exceptions, have highlighted the plight and
fate of marginal people, treated as sub-humans, be it
tribals in Mrigaya, socially disadvantaged in Oka Oorie
Katha, pavement dwellers in Parashuram, working women
in Ek Din Pratidin and servants as in Kharij?

From his body of works, if one were to choose at least five

memorable films which would be remembered for long,
what would they be? The unanimous choice would be on
Bhuvan Shome, Mrigaya, Ekdin Pratidin, Oka Oori Katha
(in Telegu, based on Munshi Premchands famous story of
Kafan) and Khandhar. These movies are timeless classics,
and are unique human documents, to be treasured for
many, many years, and Sens reputation would rest firmly
on these creations. Gone were his overtly political cinema
of Chorus and Calcutta 71. The critics are uniform in
admiration that some of these films like Khandhar
9

showed his maturity as a film maker, where he has shown

that one can be subtle and understated in exploring
human emotions and depicting even grim socio-economic
realities and be equally effective, without trying to thrust
one's ideas and worldview on the audience. In Khandhar
for instance, there was a remarkably fresh approach, and
thankfully, no moralizing and no political speeches or
posturings. In fact, it was a matured and subdued Sen
where, unlike his earlier films, he left it to the audience to
draw its morals and its own conclusions. The beauty of
the film lay in its unique understatement, its subtlety of
emotions, its nuanced portrayals by an ensemble cast of
Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Pankaj Kapur and
Mrinal Sens wife Gita Sen. The film Khandhar fetched
Shabana Azmi the national award and set her on the path
of more critically acclaimed roles.
Recipient of numerous international and national awards,
including Dada Saheb Phalke, Mrinalda has completed 60
years of film making and remains an exceedingly warm,
compassionate, humane and lively person, all the time
remaining humble, unpretentious and approachable.
Even at this age he is 85 Sen retains exuberance and
zest for life and his ideals, ever willing to take up new
subjects, that are closer to his heart and which he feels
would advance the cause of the larger humanity. We wish
him many more years of creativity, good health and
peace.

10