Opinion ‘Nagarik’ — a practice in understatement, an ode to Ritwik Ghatak’s unceasing protest
While Satyajit Ray reached the pinnacle in his first venture, for Ghatak, it took six years and the experience of making three films — Nagarik, Ajantrik and Bari Theke Paliye — to create his outstanding Meghe Dhaka Tara
Nagarik’s importance rested elsewhere. It was germinative, and its breakaway power nurtured the seeds of the later efflorescence Written by Subhoranjan Dasgupta
The question, “Why is Nagarik, aesthetically, not as overwhelming as Meghe Dhaka Tara?” is superfluous because the criticism inherent in this query is irrelevant. Nagarik was a worthy preface, but the crescendo of his career was attained in the last, unforgettable scene of Meghe Dhaka Tara, his very best, where the tragic Nita, destined to die, filled the Himalayan ranges with her echoing cry, “Dada, I want to live”. When Satyajit Ray claimed, “Cinema runs in the veins of Ritwik”, he referred to this scene, which did not brook any comparison. The claim that Nagarik comes nowhere near Ray’s Pather Panchali is also pointless. Because the creative graphs of these two masters were essentially different: While Ray reached the pinnacle in his first venture (the apex, I think, was Charulata), for Ghatak, it took six years (from 1953 to 1959) and the experience of making three films — Nagarik, Ajantrik and Bari Theke Paliye — to create his outstanding Meghe Dhaka Tara.
Nagarik’s importance rested elsewhere. It was germinative, and its breakaway power nurtured the seeds of the later efflorescence. From the stunning use of chiaroscuro to the choice of interpretative music, there were many elements here that pointed unerringly towards the future. There is another reason for stressing this aspect of aesthetic understatement. For example, when Seeta (Sova Sen), in Nagarik, confronted her companion Sagar (Ajit Banerjee), impelled by desperation and when another Sita in Subarnarekha picked up the chopper to commit wordless suicide, they were far-placed from melodrama; they were just compellingly human in their traumatic brevity.
The art of understatement was tied to another virtue. It directed the actors to be starkly lifelike. We experience this unembellished representation in Nagarik where Sita and Ramu (Satindra Bhattacharya), her brother, the frantic job-seeker, were faultless precursors of Sita and Abhiram (Satindra Bhattacharya) in Subarnarekha. Along with other characters who spoke the minimum to evoke the maximum, the mother (Prabha Devi), in particular, overwhelmed us. She embodied the anguish of all mothers who did not know how they were going to save their children in this hostile world.
Every single character in Nagarik was dedicated to the practice of understatement. The violinist pronounced only the following words: “I shall play if I am paid” Shiuli, who took the primrose path, justified her fall with the barest acknowledgement, “Whatever you do in order to survive is just”; the political activist, Sushanta, made a down-to-earth appeal to Ramu, “Will you join us?” All these earthy sentences etched the tragedy of lower-middle-class existence downsliding to the level of life in slums with the most unadorned brushstrokes.
No doubt we applaud their performance, but while doing so we cannot afford to forget the decisive role of the director who moulded them into what they were on the screen. He gave them that skeletal screenplay and then directed them to enact its spirit. For example, when Seeta, submerged in limitless grief, discovered that her only possible refuge, Sagar, was departing, she turned desperate. But even this frantic, she could not say anything more than, “Please take me, I shall go with you, I know that you love me.” Sagar’s shocked reaction was even more telling. Unnerved by Seeta’s despairing advance, he managed to blurt out in a frightened voice, “I, why, who am I?” While Sagar’s fragments were like whipcracks, Sita’s helplessness caught in the sterility of lower-middle class life gyrated within the cycles of the inferno.
The counterpoint of political opposition was also kept at a distance, deliberately. Protest marches in the background and the wordless music of the Internationale combined to make this antithesis an integral though not compulsive part of the cinematic diction. The most powerful political statement was voiced by Uma (Ketaki Dutta) when she raised her defiant face carrying a beatific smile to say, “I shall come to arrange the room in the slum.” Her words merged with the Internationale and the tune of the violin to resonate the message of Ghatak’s unceasing protest.
Dasgupta is an academic based in Kolkata. He has written several books in English and Bengali on history, politics and culture
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