Opinion Shubhra Gupta writes: The enduring legacy of Kumar Shahani

During that expansive two-hour chat, Shahani takes us through a lifetime of being a student of cinema, his stint at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) where he and compatriot Mani Kaul gravitated towards the filmmaking aesthetic of Ritwik Ghatak– both became Ghatak’s best-known disciples — and his never-ending struggle to stay true to his art. He spoke of his apprenticeship under Robert Bresson, whose style of formalism could be seen in his (Shahani’s) work. He was also impacted by Roberto Rossellini, the Italian neo-realist filmmaker, but appreciating these European masters did not mean borrowing; a nod to these influences could be seen in his own distinctive style, making it a hallmark of this pioneer of the Indian New Wave.

His passing, at 83, brings with it a sense of an ending. Of the passionate young votaries who embraced, without wavering even slightly, the art-for-art’s-sake credo. Of voices which were imbued by the past and present, aware of the cataclysmic events which were shaping ideologies. Of being citizens of the world while delving deeply into Indian traditions of literature and music.

Veteran director Kumar Shahani with actor-director Amol Palekar. (Express file photo)

At FTII, under Ghatak, whose iconoclasm left an indelible stamp on his students, Shahani learnt the art of storytelling without the crutches of plot-lines; it was pure cinema, where sound and images were fused to propel an idea, or a thought. In Maya Darpan (1972), a rigorous examination of old-style feudalism and modern industrialisation, you can see this construction come together in what was then completely novel in the Indian filmmaking context.

The opening credits in Hindi, wrought as simply as chalk-on-board, starting with the Film Finance Corporation (which was subsequently renamed National Film Development Corporation of India), give you an idea of the range of artistes who got together for this film: Flute maestro Hariprasad Chaurasia, the Mayurbhanj Chhau dance troupe, Bansi Chandragupta as art director, Bhaskar Chandavarkar as music director, Vani Jayaram as singer, KK Mahajan as cinematographer, Nirmal Verma as writer; the melding of classical music and dance in cinema was a strong feature of Shahani’s (and Kaul’s) work.

It took Shahani 12 years to make his next film Tarang (1984), featuring a starry slate of Amol Palekar, Smita Patil, Shreeram Lagoo and Girish Karnad, which interrogates class struggles within a business family, run by a patriarch whose fortunes start to dwindle. It is a more conventional “plot” than Maya Darpan, and there are songs in the film, too, but there’s no change in the minimalist approach in storytelling. For all its attempted starry bells and whistles, Tarang is very much a Kumar Shahani film.

He went on to make a handful of other well-regarded films, including Khayal Gatha (1989), Kasba (1990), and Char Adhyay (1997). Aside from making films, he was also a writer (his essays on film theory and his own practice are part of a Tulika publication) and a teacher, travelling around the world, giving lectures.

During that Pingyao conversation, Shahani touched upon how the inexplicably hurtful dismissiveness of Satyajit Ray had cost him a delay in funding after his first film. It begs the question, if there hadn’t been a lag, and if Shahani had made his films faster, would there have been more of his oeuvre to celebrate today? He spoke of films he had been long working on, which were still incomplete. And now, will always be.

shubhra.gupta@expressindia.com