By Tirthankar Mitra
Does austerity match with aesthetics? Art house cinema icon, Kumar Shahani who passed away on Sundayattheageof83placed these two unlikely attributes side by side in his works in celluloid. It was no square peg in round whole existence. A look at the films he directed underscored the point.
Of course, the films Shahani made cannot be called hits by any stretch of imagination. But the fact remains that those were feted films. The discerning film buffs made a beeline for them. Unfortunately, they did not make either a large or an increasing number of viewers. Shahani’s was not a large oeuvre. But be it Maya Darpan (1972), Tarang (1984), Khayal Gatha (1989) and Kasba (1990) all were acclaimed works focusing on issues which are real and which the film directors generally avoided.
Born in Sindh seven years before independence Shahani shifted to Mumbai with his family after Partition. After graduating from the University of Bombay, he went on to study screen play writing and direction at Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) Pune, where he came in contact with Ritwik Ghatak. Who was then teaching at the FTTI. Sahni belonged to a group of students who were looking for imparting a new social imprint to portray the struggles of the common people in independent India.
Shahani’s life and career thereafter were much influenced by Ghatak. Robert Bresson, the French writer-director whom the aspiring film maker assisted when he went to France on a government of India scholarship. He was another major inspiration. Sahani was a Marxist with his own ideas of serving the society through his films. He was in touch with the famous Marxist historian D D Kosambi also.
Shahani’s films matched minimalism with neo-realism. Ghatak’s influence was very much at work. Quiet flamboyance comfortably coexisted with formalism in his films. Small wonder, the common man seeking some respite after a day’s work was not the ideal crowd of his films. But Shahani was very much a part of the New Wave cinema which enriched Indian films. Such films were marked by interconnectedness of art even as it told stories of churn.
Pandit Ravi Shankar or Birju Maharaj being roped in for Satyajit Ray’s films, Ustad Bahadur Khan’s background score adding value to Ritwik Ghatak’s direction or K K Mahajan shaping Mrinal Sen’s films are cases in point. They left a quiet imprint, inalienable from the narrative.
The pattern is reiterated in Shahani’s Maya Darpan where structural formalism and slow tension of feudal and patriarchal system were caught in the throes of change. The performance of a Mayurbhanjchou troupe together with the flute of Hariprasad Chourasia stood out in it.
His brilliant cinematic work and excellent credentials notwithstanding, the road to success for Kumar Shahani was long drawn.. The blame for the delay can be laid at the door of his perfectionism and the failure of the cinemagoers to do justice to his cinematic idiom.
Shahani’s films were replete with digression and asymmetry between plot and action. They spoke of change for which the society was neither prepared for nor could comprehend..Priye Charu Shile, Shahani’s last film will be released soon . The script is short but reads almost like poetry. (IPA Service)
