KOMAL GNDHAR

Indian Holocust My Father`s Life and Time-Two Hundred Five

Palash Biswas

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TODAY - 11 November, 2009

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It was a dull Tuesday at Home as I was on Rest offically with weekly OFF. I was jsut browsing the TV Channels having posted my Updates on my Blogs. Suddenly, I stumbled into an intense cene of Komal gandhar on DD Kolkata. The Print is fading but the Impact launched me into Indian Holocaust Immediately. I was just inside the life and Time of my dead father Pulin Babu, the Social Activist, committed Communist and later Anti Communist Ambedkarite.Who lived and died for his community and black Untouchables worldwide without credtied for his great work nd alienated from his thinking Idelogue SON me. He died of Cacer in his Back Bone. I may understand the CANCER Pain and feel it with its imense intensity in every scene of Komal Gandhar, a film dealing with Homeland, Exodus, Ethnic Cleansing,Refugee Camps, Persecution, Unemployment , Disillusionment, Folk in its Original Form, Rabindra sangeet and great Indian Theatre Movement involving Ritwik himself, Salil Chowdhari, Bijon Bhattacharya, Utpal dutt and so on.

It lands into the family of Ritwik Ghatak. I have Never met the man. I have seen the film again on Doordarshan with subtitles on National Channel way back in 1985 without any Homework either in Cinema or Bengal while working in Meerut. I could not involve myself very much with the film. But the Classicwork left its IMPRINT as deep Cuts in my heart and Mind. In Kolkata I saw other ritwik Films including MEGHE DHAKA TARA. Anand Swarup Verma, our Friend in New delhi and an International reputed Social activist and leader in Alterative Media, who was lucky enough to live with Ritwik da, had been very fond of this film.I learnt the Aesthetics Ritwik Brand working with my Film Director Friends Rajiv Kumar, a DSB friend , nw In Charge of Kolkata Film division and Joshy Joseph, most Promising Film Maker from a remote Island of Kolkat who works as a director in Kolkata film Division. I may look beyond the DIM frames as I have seen all the Satyajit ray films meanwhile.

Moreover, for lats three decades I have been very close with Ritwik`s Niece MAHASHWETA DI. I have been involved with the family, the legacy of Maneesh Ghatak, Ritwik Ghatak, Bijon Bhattachary with inercting continuously with Mahasheta Di, who now sings the songs of NABANYA and NABARUN Bhattacharya.

Within this Fame,every frame of Komal Gandhar beside the ZOOM on stopping Tarin on the bank of Padma which haunts me every moment, is so intermingled that I may locate my dead father in the cast somewhere near Salil, Anil, Supriya, Bijon and the lot. Because this film in its immense intensity does not relate to any particular Character. It might be quoted as the only authentic Documentation of Indian Holocaust and only Ritwik ghatak could have done this. The film involves us in a Time Machine Experience to roam freely in partition Time. It does not deal the drama of Partition nor unfolds the Hegemony Manipulation nor the Power Politics behind it, but it reveals all the wounds and fatality of the Pending Tragedy even continuing today in Danda Karanya, Andama and Nicobar, Assam and the Cow belt. It is all about our people whohad been the Ultimate Victims. Ritwik Ghatak reproduces the TRAUMA Afresh written on the faces of ANUSUA, BHRIGU and RISHI in the back ground of east bengal Folk, music, dilect and heart piercing Folk.

The personal interactions interuppted by rteetfights, procesions, slogans and demonstration, Police Firing and so on , just Pushes us into largerinvisible Frames of TEBHAGA, food Movement, KALLOL Age in Bengal and even into the Insurrections and uprisings of Past as well as Future and i dare to corealte these magnificent dimming frames to Prentday Seize within with IMPRINTS of Partition Holcaust as the Technique is well introduced in Komal Gandhar.

Last Night I had very Good Interactions beyond family matters with my aged Elder cousin Nitai Sarkar, a FolkPoetas well as Businessman who is conected with the Senex economy as well as with the roots left in the past. I also talked to Kajol Adhikari , the eldest son of the East Bengal Folk Legend Vijoy Sarkar.He informed me that the Intelectulas and folk artists from East bengal have to visit Kolakata and they plan a SEMINAR in Kolkata but the political developments are so tricky that we have to be aware that no one should Hijack Vijoy Sarkar.

Last Night, while I was working on compueter, DR Subodh Roy who practice in Supreme Court nowadays and had been always Controversial as he Challenged the so Called Nobel laureate AMARYA Sen. Sobodhda informed me that Samir das is planing a massive dalit rally in Kolkata on 7th Nov. in Kolkata under the Banner of Ambedkar Mission. I know the man very well working in Railway SC ST Welfare Associatio and involved with PDS, sidicullah Chowdhari, kaji saifuddin on the one hand and ANIL sarkar, our Philosopher and guid , the Marxist Minister and poet in Tripura, In fact, Mr. sarkar imself introduced Das to me.

CPIM is defeated down toearth in bengal and the REVERSE Continued as Matua Mamata Banerjee has mobilise the SC ST Vote bank and used the Demography Politics very well. In atua Base, BANGAO , CPIM is defeated by Forty Four Thousand Votes. Our Deares lady, widow of late SubhasH Chakrabarti, is defeated by 28 thousand votes.

Anil sarkar used to call me regularly but nowadays he is disconected with me as I have refused to interact with Matua headquarter simply becase of the SHAMEFUL departure from the legacy of Indigo Revolt, Snyasi Vidroh, Chandal Movement and the legacy of harichand Thakur and Guruchand Thakur.

The Marxist seem to be ADAMENT to regain the lost base. But as I know my marxist friends , I know from their Body language that they have lost all hopes and PLAN to stop Mamata in herway while accepting the eality f IMMINENT CHANGE. This Chane is heralded with the support of Kolkata Intelligentsia hitherto committed Supporters of CPIM which changed wings during singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh Insurrection led by Mahashweta Debi, the niece of Ritwik Ghatak and the descendents of Indian Theatre movement ad Kallol movement in bengal. railway heritage Committee Chairman appens to be Shaonli Mitra, the dauhter of Tripti Mitra and SHAMBHU Mitra.

Thus, you may not blame me while I relate Komal gandhar to the bengal today fighting for its existence in Free market democracy in the Global Village under Zionsit Dyasty rule. I repent that the Civil Sciety and Inteeligentsia are also in DEPARTURE Mode from their egacy as the Matua Movement is. Our Commited friends do oppose the Marxist genocide Culture but would justify the Ethnic Cleansing and Mass destruction agenda of the TRI IBLIS Satanic Zionist Post Modern anusmriti Apartheid Galaxy Order of US Corporate Imperialism and global Waepon market and Ms mamata Banerjee remains the face of the Ruling Brahaminical hegemony.

You hve to see Komal gandhar herefrom!With Ritwik Ghatak in his Topmost Form you may not dare to be detached with the Bleeding Divided geopolitics and the Great Indian Holocaust Infinite, the Generation next, landed in Black HOLE which is depicted in every Character in Komal Gandhar, Confused but Committed, alking in Wildness butNever to deviate from Destination!

Last day,major siddharth Barve from Mumbai called me and informed me the detail of the Planned demonstartion of Mulnivasi Krmachari sangh on 22 Novemeber starting from Sez zone in BHYNDER and turminating in dadar, Controlled and led by Mulnivasi women. I may locate ANUSUA and BHRIGU and even RISHI right there.

Friend & foe delight Didi
Cong nurses a black eye, CPM unable to stem slide

BISWAJIT ROY

Calcutta, Nov. 10: The Bengal bypoll results today left Mamata Banerjee a winner twice over — the Left slide worsened and her ally Congress stumbled in its north Bengal stronghold.

The Left Front lost all the three seats it held while the Congress could retain only one of its two among the 10 where bypolls were held. Not only does this give Mamata an advantage in future seat talks, she would have particularly enjoyed the Congress's defeat in Goalpokhar, home turf of her chief detractor in the party, Raiganj MP Deepa Das Munshi.

Trinamul not only retained its five seats in south Bengal but capped the performance by wresting Belgachhia East in Calcutta and Rajganj in Jalpaiguri from the CPM.

Mamata has now won a second seat in north Bengal, after Dinhata in 2006, much to the chagrin of many in the Congress who see the region as their party's stronghold.

The Trinamul chief called the results a "tsunami of democracy" and said they were proof that the CPM could not pull off the "turnaround" it had been promising its cadres.

The Left lost Kalchini and Rajganj in north Bengal and Belgachhia East — a seat held since 1977 by Subhas Chakraborty till his death and contested this time by his widow Ramala.

The CPM drew a blank, losing from all the five seats it contested, four against Trinamul and one against the Congress. The saving grace for the front was the Forward Bloc victory in Goalpokhar, North Dinajpur.

The Congress retained only Sujapur in Malda, the family borough of the late A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chowdhury. Its failure to win in Kalchini, which the RSP lost to a Gorkha Janmukti Morcha-backed Independent, will bolster Trinamul's claim to the seat in 2011, sources said.

Losing Goalpokhar, however, was the biggest blow to the Congress. Deepa had vacated the seat after she became an MP in May. Given the frosty relations between her and Mamata, especially after the Congress MP outsmarted Trinamul by taking Left support in the Siliguri mayor's election, Mamata would feel she has had the last laugh.

Asked about the Congress-CPM understanding in Siliguri, Mamata said: "I have got the reply of north Bengal (voters) from (the Trinamul victory in) Rajganj."

Her message for the Congress was subtle but unmistakable. She reaffirmed Trinamul's "leadership" of the Opposition alliance in Bengal and denied her party had a large enough presence in Goalpokhar to share the blame for the Congress defeat.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee declined comment on the results. In the evening at Nandan, where he had gone for the inauguration of the Calcutta Film Festival, the chief minister did speak about "difficult times" but the reference was to global problems, not to politics.

"Most of the films we've brought this year were made in 2008 and 2009. (They were brought) to help (local viewers) understand the kind of films being made in these difficult times," he said. "These films project contemporary problems, like international terrorism, military hegemonies, global warming."

It was left to CPM state secretary Biman Bose to accept the "people's verdict against Left candidates" and promise the customary "review".

CPM leaders admitted the continuing erosion in Left support among tribals, Scheduled Castes and Muslims. Bongaon, bordering Bangladesh and with a sizeable Scheduled Caste population, gave Trinamul's Gopal Seth these bypolls' highest victory margin of 40,428, doubling the Lok Sabha lead from the segment.

The CPM leaders also accepted that Jyoti Basu's appeal to Congress voters had not worked.

The margin of Sujit Bose's victory in Belgachhia East underlined how the CPM was unable to stem the slide. In 2006, Bose had lost to the late Chakraborty by 1,749 votes, but in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, Trinamul secured a lead of over 16,000 from this segment. Now Bose's margin has rocketed to 28,360.

Polarised voting too may have added to Bose's share: the BJP polled 4,839 votes, a nosedive from the 10,000-plus it had won from Salt Lake alone last May. The BJP's poor show hurt the CPM in Alipore, too, with Trinamul's Firhad Hakim winning by 27,555 votes, more than twice the margin of 11,302 recorded by his Trinamul predecessor Tapas Pal. Even Mamata's Alipore-segment margin of 24,000 was eclipsed by Hakim.

In Rajganj, the CPM's Lok Sabha lead of 30,000 votes vanished and Trinamul clocked a margin of around 15,000, probably aided by Morcha support. Unlike the Big Brother, the DSP, a minor Left Front partner, managed to halve the margin of Trinamul in Egra.

However, the surprise victory of Morcha-backed Independent Wilson Champromari in Kalchini and the emergence of the Adivasi Vikas Parishad as runner-up is likely to become a thorn in the side of both mainstream camps.

Incumbent RSP and challenger Congress lost the plot as the Morcha marshalled the lion's share of the one lakh-strong Nepali-speaking vote and the Parishad attracted tribal support. Both the Left and the Opposition believe the Morcha will use the result to justify its claim on Dooars as part of a proposed Gorkhaland.

The Left blamed Mamata for the Morcha's growing clout, citing her dependence on its support in Rajganj to defeat the CPM. Mamata denied the result would stoke any separatist movement and promised to accommodate the hill people's demands without dividing Bengal.

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Komal Gandhar (1961) More at IMDbPro »

Overview

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7.7/10 42 votes

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Up 26% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.

Director:

Ritwik Ghatak

Writer:

Ritwik Ghatak (screenplay)

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A brilliant movie more (4 total)

Cast

(Credited cast)

Abinash Bannerjee	...	Bhrigu (as Abanish Banerjee)
Abhi Bhattacharya
Bijon Bhattacharya	...	Gagan
Satindra Bhattacharya	...	Shibnath
Debabrata Biswas
Anil Chatterjee	...	Rishi (as Anil Chatterji)
Satyabrata Chattopadhyay	...	Prabhat
Salil Choudhury
Supriya Choudhury	...	Ansuya (as Supriya Chowdhury)
Gita Dey	...	Shanta (as Gita De)
Chitra Mandal	...	Jaya
Gyanesh Mukherjee	...	Debu Bose
Mani Srimani	...	Speaker

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http://www.indiavideo.org/cinema/komal-gandhar-bengali-films-2134.php

Komal Gandhar, a film by Ritwik Ghatak

Komal Gandhar, known internationally as A Soft Note on a Sharp Scale, or in the UK as E-Flat, was introduced into the romantic drama category of Indian cinema in the year 1961. This film noire piece, set originally in the Bengali language, West Bengal, India was directed by Ritwik Ghatak.

The film Komal Gandhar portrays a maverick's vision of uniting Bengal. This dream gave birth to the Permanent Settlement Act, a number of famines, and a new popular culture by the name of Gentoo. This new culture soon fell apart on August the 15th 1947 after the harsh blow was dealt with the onslaught of the Indian partition. Although anyone disassociated with the cultures and tales of Bengal will feel out of the loop when it comes to understanding the film, the general theme of love and unity can be appreciated by all.

Throughout the film Ritwik shows his enthusiasm for optimism, but also shows that success and happiness come through treacherous paths. He shows that not only is union violent and a necessity, but it can only be reached through listening to one's heart.

This film stars Bengali actors Gyanesh Mukherjee, Bijon Bhattacharya, and Anil Chatterjee.

Komal Gandhar was produced, directed, and written by Ritwik Ghatak, edited by Ramesh Joshi, with cinematography by Dilip Rajan Mukherjee and an original soundtrack by Jyotirindra Moitra.

Note: If you know more about the content of this video , please add it as comment under this video.

http://www.indiavideo.org/cinema/komal-gandhar-bengali-films-2134.php

Ritwik Kumar Ghatak (1925-1976)

Komal Gandhar (1961)

Komal Gandhar can be described as Ritwik Ghatak's thesis-film. The film is a semi-autobiographical account of both the radical theatre movements in the 1940s and 1950s, particularly recalling Indian People's Theatre Association, an important leftist cultural platform of which Ghatak was an active member and relatively calmer Bengal in the latter half of 1950s. So unabashed it was in its candor that the film landed Ghatak in major differences with the pro-soviet Communist Party of India, from which his distance increased slowly. The dialogue that triggers off the film is from a play which is being staged within the film, describing the effects of the Partition of India: "They have other-ed my mother, my own mother". The narrative is about a couple of rival radical theatre groups, one led by Bhrigu, and the other by Shanta, of which Anasuya, the heroine of the film, is a member. Anasuya tries to bridge the groups. During the staging of a resultant joint-production of Bhrigu's version of the Sanskrit classic Shakuntala, Shanta and her cronies deliberately sabotages it. Bhrigu and Anasuya, in between productions and journeys, fall in love. Now Anasuya has to choose between Bhrigu and Samar, her fiancée who lives in Paris.

The Mother and Memories

One can start by recalling a fuzzy area of Komal Gandhar: Anasuya sees her mother's eyes in Bhrigu's and addresses him as her mother's son. The brother-sister relation is always implicit as the ideal one in Ghatak's films. Ashish Rajadhyaksha says about Ghatak's "increasingly nebulous, undefined relationships": "These relationships which negate the surface realism of theme are important because the form itself suggests a return to the realist, at least insofar as the characters and situations are in his later work much more firmly rooted in the contemporary." (Ritwik Ghatak: A Return to the Epic, Bombay: Screen Unit, 1982, p 82). But I wish to emphasize here that reading incestuous undertones between characters as a release of repressed sexual energies, as many would conclude, would be thoroughly misleading in the case of Ghatak's films, since such a reading considers the characters as autonomous individuals. The incestuous undertones must be read in terms of allegory and ideations, in other words, as being associated to and defined by, the notion of the Mother. The brother and the sister dyad, as progenies, are to be read as the inheritors of the memories of the Mother/Land. Thus, Bhrigu and Anasuya, as characters and also repositories of ideas are children of the same Mother, i.e. the Land or rather the earlier state of the Mother/Land before it was truncated into two halves during the Partition in 1947. You can also read another article on this issue here.

Anasuya's mother was murdered during the pre-partitional riots in Noakhali in 1946. She remains only as a diary zealously prized by the daughter, a diary where accounts of the successful anti-partition movements in 1905-12 are kept, laced with the political dreams of a mother. The film primarily presents the Mother, un-figured or rather un-personified in the film as we never see her, as an abstract ideation, as a repository of erstwhile values and, importantly, as a repository of memories. Komal Gandhar is an exercise of active remembrance of the historically forgotten, an activity that is almost ritualized. Bhrigu and Anasuya, in the process of falling in love, create an internal space where the Mother is given a domain: the space of memory. One must remember that flashback as a cinematic device retrieving or recalling time seems to be impossible in Ghatak's films, as he threatens the resultant complacency of the cinematic experience when we 'totally recall' the past (The only flashback sequence in Ghatak's entire career occurs in his autobiographical Jukti, Takko ar Gappo (1974)). Thus, in Komal Gandhar the Mother cannot be visualized in a flashback, as the process of personifying her will rob her of the status of an unrepresentable past. Therefore, the individual memory-spaces of Bhrigu and Anasuya, being the domain of the same Mother, are corollaries of a divided Bengal. Their consummation means the unification of their memory-spaces.

Marriage: 'this land is my land, this land is your land'

What stands as a wedge preventing Bhrigu and Anasuya's union? The interdicting 'Third entity' is (also un-figured) Anasuya's fiancee, Samar (also named Ferdinand as he names Anasuya Miranda, alluding to William Shakespeare's The Tempest). Anasuya – as she says once – is an embodiment of bilateral splits. Samar lives in Paris, a scholarly guy interminably extending his stay in the West while Anasuya is waiting for him to return, when they will get married and the couple will fly away from 'this land'. She is torn between the memory of a past plenitudinal relation with the Mother and the choice of submission to the interdicting order of a submissive marriage, interestingly of her choice. The split is also figured between Shakuntala, the role she acts out, and Miranda, the name she is assigned. Ghatak has said that he was influenced by Rabindranath Tagore's essay 'Shakuntala' (1802), which, in a critical response to Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay's essay compares Shakespeare's Miranda and medieval Indian poet Kalidasa's Shakuntala in relation to the spaces they inhabit. Rabindranath explains that Miranda can be easily isolated from the island she inhabits; but Shakuntala is organically linked with the forest that is her abode: passages describing the beauty of the heroine and that of the surrounding natural abundance of which she is the nurturer mirror each other. Probably this observation inspired Ghatak to comment: "The heroine is Bengal's Shakuntala, Shakuntala is transformed into Bengal to me." Anasuya's possible de-patriation would complete the split between the body and the ground, a historical split triggered by colonialism; also a split which has its temporal dimensions, one is split from the past too. The split is again figured through words: her Mother's diaries (relayed to Bhrigu) and the simultaneous presence of Ferdinand/Samar's telegrams and absence of his letters for which she is eagerly waiting. So, who is Anasuya: the receiver of the letters from the past, i.e. her mother's diaries or the receiver of Samar/Ferdinand's telegrams and unwritten letters of an fuzzy future?

Thus, an array of marks of identification and difference are produced. Anasuya can either be the worthy addressee of her mother's diaries or she remains the addressee of Ferdinand/Samar's telegrams. Either, like Shakuntala, she remains organically, existentially linked to her land or she severs the link, like Miranda, in a marriage with the 'brave new world'. The split selves seem unbridgeable. Her newfound desire for Bhrigu can only be fulfilled by rejecting the interdictions of the patriarchal Symbolic Order, in an effort to regain the lost maternal plenitude.

Ghatak multiplies the notion of marriage, harmony or union beyond the mere formation of the lead couple through the use of diegetic and non-diegetic music. While the diegesis presents stories of rifts, quarrels, failures and alienations, the soundtrack is replete with musical motifs of union. There are songs referring to the politically promising 1940s when radical cultural movements aided with an effective leftist militancy hinted at a possible socialist revolution. There are songs written by Rabindranath during the successful anti-partition movements of 1905-12. Then, as leitmotifs, there is a marriage songs culled from the ancient times. These musical motifs, thus, function in a two-fold way. They recall a buoyant and fruitful past and they also hint towards a utopian future, when radical cultural movements – bridging the past and the present, the urban and the rural – will lead to political upheavals resulting in a union of the split Bengal. So, the couple-formation of Bhrigu and Anasuya is a dream (the only dream Ghatak dreamt of): one marriage means the revitalization of the now-dwindling radical art movements, which will lead to a bridging between the urban sensibilities and rural struggle, leading to the birth of a revolutionary consciousness, which might result in a union of the two Bengals.

Marriages, consummation, union, and the resolution of divided are all ideas which the film tries to present: either of the quarreling radical theatre groups, or of the divided Bengal, or between the past and the present, or between subjectivities. These ideas remain on the plane of abstract ideation i.e. something that cannot to be diegetically worked out in narrative logistics, something which must not bring a cathartic closure, something which must not be a resolution of problems, suturing the loose ends. Otherwise the political purpose of activating the spectator would be defeated. It must be stressed that Ghatak's cinema is "meant to bring back the moment of rupture to consciousness, a moment that the traumatised do not know how to remember" as Moinak Biswas says. In other words, the narrative must not follow the beaten path of wish-fulfillment. Thus, the evolution of ideas does not take place only through the allegory of the protagonists' union. Bhrigu is just a catalyst of a process, not a half to be united with the other. His eyes reflect back Anasuya's desire of the Mother in both the senses. She recognizes her desire for the Mother/Land (thus she rejects the call of the interdicting 'third entity') through Bhrigu. She also realises she is the Mother's desire; she must be what her mother wanted to be: a woman belonging to the land.

The Mother and the Land

The notion of the Mother in this film evolves from the unrepresentable abstraction of Anasuya's mother to the concrete icon of Anasuya as 'the Mother'. A Mother synonymous to the 'land', not a map but the tangible, experiential, concrete land is iconised as the Mother. This happens with a simultaneous mobilisation of the landscape in the film. The Shakuntala/Miranda binary has established two options to the narrative resolution of Anasuya's character: either linked with or divorced from the Mother/Land. To Bhrigu and Anasuya, the notions 'Mother' and the 'Land' is relegated to the past, in the domain of memory. Their memory-spaces comprise only memories about the land across the border. The space of plenitude is rendered inaccessible, like the nourishing past, since it is politically relocated on the other side of the border, in the land of the political 'other'. The other half of Bengal – which they inhabit now – is never something they nostalgically long for. In one of his essays Ghatak says that in spite of the richness of the Indian half of post-partition Bengal, he can't work to his full potentials, the other half being inaccessible to him. (from Bengali essays collected in Chitrabikshan, No. 18, 1984, 35-36) Incidentally, Ghatak, made Titash Ekti Nadir Nam in 1974 in Bangladesh. Therefore, the eastern/Indian half of Bengal needs to be functionalised. This happens through a rare discursive use of the landscape. The Land/Mother performs the function of priesthood over the final couple-formation. Before illustrating how let us have a brief glimpse at Paul Willemen's observations on the use of landscape in particular sequences of several new British films:

[In a new sort of avant-garde film] the use of landscape requires what Raymond Williams, following Brecht, called 'complex seeing': the reading of landscape within the diegesis as itself a layered set of discourses as a text in its own right. In these examples, landscape is not subordinated to character or plot development. Instead, it is offered as a discursive terrain with the same weight, and requiring the same attention, as the other discourses that structure and move the text. (Willemen, 'An Avant Garde for the 90s', in Looks and Frictions: Essays in Cultural Studies and Film Theory, 1994, London: BFI, 141)

He further elaborates:

In conventional narrative, the diegetic setting (location, décor) is rigorously subordinated to plot and character development. Setting is deployed according to the dictates of psychological realism and motivation. It functions either as metaphor…as a picturesque backdrop… as a symbol for a character's environment in the sociological sense… or simply as the necessary collection of props required to give a character a realistic space to inhabit.

None of the conventional uses of landscape, for instance, whether rural or urban, insist on offering the landscape as itself an active, multi-layered discursive space demanding to be read in its own right. Invariably, a tourist's point-of-view is adopted as opposed to the point of view, for example, of those whose history is actually traced in the setting, or for whom the land is a crucial element in the relations of productions governing their lives. (Willemen 1994, 155-56 emphasis mine)

In my observation, while the non-diegetic soundtrack of Komal Gandhar is replete with ancient marriage-songs and the diegesis spells out splits and disharmonies in urban settings, the scenes of harmony take place within the landscapes of Bengal. Anasuya's epiphanic realization has an important corollary; redemption of the urban spaces takes place. Earlier in the film, Calcutta is described as a "hazy city, filled with dust and smoke", divorced from the plenitudinal and perennial rural Bengal. Being the dumping ground of the East Bengali refugees, the state of the city is perceived as "fallen". This aspect can't be fully explained by clichéd city-village dichotomies. A separate post would be necessary to elaborate how Ghatak's films are exemplary instances of a discursive use of landscapes.

In Kurseong (a hill-station in North Bengal), we are presented with the elaborate visuals accompanied with a song composed by Rabindranath celebrating the human subjects' plenitudinal relationship with the land. In following dialogues Bengal is described as a sweet, young girl, intertextual references are made to imagery from poems of Rabindranath and Bishnu Dey, from which the title of the film (literally meaning the musical note E flat) is derived (One can relate this also to poet Jibanananda Das, especially, his poems in Rupashi Bangla, literally 'Pretty Bengal', originally published in 1957). In Lalgola and Bolpur, Bhrigu and Anasuya share their memories about the Mother. A composition from the Lalgola sequence is illuminating. In the foreground Bhrigu and Anasuya share their memories. In the background the river Padma flows, the place is located in the border of the two Bengals. In the mid-ground stands an enormous weight-scale, signifying that the place was a marketplace in yesteryears. Similarly, a disused rail track is also shown in the sequence. Bhrigu describes it as a sign of conjunction between the two halves of Bengal in the past and a sign of disjunction in the present. Ironically, its status of a conjunction-marker in the past can only be derived after the track is halted at a buffer in the present (in a famous tracking shot ending the sequence the camera charges towards the buffer accompanied by a choric wail).

Only once is the landscape remarkably used as a site of split: in the Aaj jyotsna raate song-sequence. The song, another composition by Rabindranath, is a lament of an individual separated by choice from the collective, who is in a state of blissful plenitude with nature in a night of a full moon. The shots frontally present the audience instead of the singer (a panning long-shot actually leaves her in darkness), almost leaving the shots unsutured. The spectator's expectation to see Anasuya singing is consciously thwarted, forcing him/her to hear and contemplate the song and observe the nocturnal nature. The Khowai sequence is a tribute to Rabindranath (whose iconisation of the land in his numerous patriotic songs, <<urghhh! badly described>>, comes closest to Ghatak's in this film); Bolpur and Khowai being places associated with the poet in Bengali culture. To illustrate, one can quote Rabindranath: "This Bengal sky full of light, this south breeze, this flow of the river, this broad leisure stretching horizon to horizon, all these were to me as food and drink to the hungry and thirsty. Here it felt indeed like home, and in these I recognised the ministrations of a Mother." (from translation of Jibansmriti, quoted in Rajadhyaksha 1982, 87). The sequence is dramatically important because here Anasuya divulges about Samar/Ferdinand to Bhrigu and gives him her mother's treasured diaries. A recognizable strain of one of Rabindranath's swadeshi song is heard (The first two lines of the song, 'Sarthaka janama amar', can be loosely translated as 'my birth is worthy because I am born in this land, my birth is blessed because of your love, Mother'). This is an exemplary sequence where "a use of setting interacts with other elements in the text in the same way that, for example, a written text inscribed in an image would interact with it" (Willemen 1994, 156).

In these sequences (and also in the other films of the Trilogy), whenever the camera records the landscape, the use of the panning movements is marked. Recalling Sergei Eisenstein's observations that "landscape…is the freest element in [a] film which is liberated from the tasks of narration", Ghatak's panning camera renders the landscapes visually musical. The volumes, lines and contours move and change in crests and falls as the camera pans. The graphic limits of the shot, i.e. the frames and the cuts, are transcended as the lines and contours flow and melt into each other across the shots. Characters are located within this panorama.

As the landscape becomes the site of harmony one must be aware of the fact that here the land comprises of only the western, i.e. Indian, half. Thus, one half of the land is activated in the memory; the other half becomes functional in the present. While the city-space is the domain of rifts and splits, when Anasuya evolves to become the Mother, it is redeemed too, in lieu with Bhrigu's words that Calcutta can become a new idyll for the new Shakuntala. Anasuya's realization that she belongs to the land renders her act of refusing Samar a political act. In an epiphanic moment a street-urchin pulls back her sari, begging for a coin or two. Anasuya reads the act as her land pulling her back, resisting her de-patriation, recalling the dear calf similarly pulling back the Shakuntala's sari when she was leaving her parental abode in the play. As the soundtrack is saturated with gunshots and bombings (obviously non-diegetic) a political worker addresses her as "the known one": the people of Bengal exist because women like Anasuya sustain them. Ghatak's familiar compositions of his women reappear, enshrining Anasuya as the Mother, iconising her. The final 'marriage' between Bhrigu and Anasuya is rendered embedded within a montage of panning shots of all those landscapes of Bengal we have seen so far, even the Calcuttan cityscape find its place here (though one is painfully reminded that this is only half of Bengal, the other half is missing leaving the merging of the landscapes unsutured; the memory-space remains 'unfigurable', for obvious political reasons). An aural montage of ancient marriage-songs and the song by Rabindranath featured in the Khowai sequence fills the soundtrack.

http://thinkingscreens.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/komal-gandhar/

JUMP CUT
A REVIEW OF CONTEMPORARY MEDIA

Riwik Ghatak constructs detailed visual and aural commentaries of Bengal in the socially and politically tumultuous period from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. Here seen in his last, semi-autobiographical film, Jukti Takko Ar Gappo / Arguments and a Story (1974).

Ghatak's theme: the 1947 partition of India and its profound after-effects

Pakistan was composed of two geographically separate (over 1,250 miles apart) and culturally, linguistically different parts: West Pakistan—now known as simply Pakistan—and East Pakistan—now known as Bangladesh. Note location of Calcutta.

Bengal was physically rent apart—by the 1947 Partition, engendered by the departing British colonizers, and by the Bangladeshi War of Independence in 1971. Here, a map of the 1947 Partition of Bengal.

The final scene of Nemai Gosh's Chinnamul, a saga about Bengali farmers forced to move to Calcutta because of Partition. Ghatak's first film acting role was in this landmark of Bengali cinematic realism.

"In Komal Gandhar [E-Flat], I had to face the problem of operating at different levels. I wanted to draw simultaneously on Anasuya's [the heroine's] divided mind, the divided leadership of the People's Theatre movement of Bengal [members pictured above in the film], and the pain of divided Bengal...."

..."On the soundtrack [of Komal Gandhar], I brought together words and tunes that are more than a century old .... When going to her husband's place, Shakuntala [heroine as Shakuntala pictured above] had to tear herself away from her ashram, her very familiar world, the land where she had lived from the day of her birth. The heroine of the film is the Shakuntala of Bengal, while the hero reflects on the burning discontent of today's youth. -- Ritwik Ghatak, Chitrabikshan, 1975

In Komal Gandhar, the hero and heroine look to their homeland, the former East Bengal.

Images from Meghe Dhaka Tara / A Cloud Covered Star

The heroine Nita appears for the first time, both in and of the Bengali landscape.

Nita listens to her unemployed brother Shankar sing. Her small income as a teacher provides her family's only financial support.

Nita's mother is a destructive force. She is worried that Nita will marry and leave the family penniless.

Nita's mother and father argue about her future.

"Tell your father you owe us for two months," the grocer complains to Nita.

"Woman" and "homeland"
in Ritwik Ghatak's films:
Constructing post-Independence
Bengali cultural identity

by Erin O'Donnell

The Bengali filmmaker, Ritwik Ghatak, was born in Dhaka in 1925, and lived in East Bengal (present-day Bangladesh) throughout his adolescence.[1] [open notes in new window] The Bengal Famine of 1943-44, World War II and finally, the Partition of 1947 compelled Ghatak to move to Calcutta[2] where he became actively involved in the Indian People's Theater Association (IPTA) and the Communist Party of India (CPI).[3] Formed in 1943, IPTA was the first organized national theater movement in India that developed and performed plays addressing social injustice and British imperialism. Ghatak began working with West Bengal's IPTA wing in Calcutta in 1948, writing, directing and acting in his own plays, such as Jwala ("Flame," 1951) and Dalil ("Document," 1952). He acted in other plays, such as revivals of Bijan Bhattacharya's Nabanna ("New Harvest," 1944) and Dinabandhu Mitra's Neeldarpan ("Indigo Mirror," 1860), and adaptations of Gogol's The Government Inspector and Gorky's The Lower Depths. [4]

In 1951, Ghatak was commissioned by the Provincial Draft Preparatory Committee of IPTA to draft a document that would articulate the political and cultural ideology of IPTA in West Bengal. In his 1954 thesis On The Cultural Front, Ghatak outlined a cultural future (in ideological and organizational terms) for West Bengal's IPTA in particular and the CPI in general.[5] In 1996, I edited this document. It had been stored in the Communist Party office in Calcutta until that year, when it was given to the Ritwik Memorial Trust, which has been systematically restoring Ghatak's films and republishing his writings and screenplays over the last two decades.

Because of many of the views Ghatak articulates in this document, and due to a "smear" campaign initiated against him by certain members of the CPI and documented in On The Cultural Front, he was forced to leave IPTA in 1954. He was removed from the membership rolls of the Communist Party in 1955. His dismissal letter is reprinted in On The Cultural Front. However, Ghatak has claimed that he willingly left IPTA and that he was never a CPI "card-carrying" member. As early as 1944 with the initial staging of Nabanna, the Bengal IPTA members disagreed about the organization's political and cultural trajectory, which echoed dissension in the CPI at large.[6]

Besides working with IPTA in the 1950s, Ghatak became active in filmmaking. Beginning in 1948, Ghatak and other aspiring Bengali filmmakers, like Mrinal Sen, began to meet to discuss films and filmmaking at a teashop in Calcutta called Paradise Cafe.[7] Ghatak led members of the group to organize a trade union for the underpaid studio workers and technicians in Calcutta.[8] One of Ghatak's first intensive involvements with cinema was as an actor in Nemai Ghosh's 1950 Bengali film, Chinnamul ("The Uprooted"). This film is pivotal in the development of Bengali cinematic realism and relates the story of a group of farmers from East Bengal who are forced to migrate to Calcutta because of Partition. Supported by IPTA, Chinnamul used Calcutta's Sealdah railway station as a location and actual refugees as characters and extras. That station had political importance as a site where thousands of refugees entered the city during and after Partition.

In 1952, a catalytic cinematic event for all of the emerging Bengali filmmakers, including Ghatak, Ray and Sen, occurred when the first International Film Festival was held in four Indian cities, including Calcutta. At this festival, Indian audiences first viewed Italian neo-realist films like De Sica's "Bicycle Thieves" and Japanese films such as Kurosawa's "Rashomon." Also in 1952, Ghatak produced and directed his first feature film entitled, Nagarik ("The Citizen"). He completed eight feature films and ten documentaries before his death in 1976. [9]

In his films, Ghatak constructs detailed visual and aural commentaries of Bengal (located in northeast India) in the socially and politically tumultuous period from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. Twice during his lifetime Bengal was physically rent apart—in 1947 by the Partition engendered by the departing British colonizers and in 1971 by the Bangladeshi War of Independence.[10] In his work, Ghatak critically addresses and questions—from the personal to the national level—the identity of post-Independence Bengal. The formation of East Pakistan in 1947 and Bangladesh in 1971 motivated Ghatak to seek through his films the cultural identity of Bengal in the midst of these new political divisions and physical boundaries.

Ghatak was an important actor in and commentator upon Bengali culture. His films represent an influential and decidedly unique viewpoint of post-Independence Bengal. Unique, because in his films he pointedly explored the fallout of the 1947 Partition of India on Bengali society, and influential, because his films set a standard for newly-emerging "alternative" or "parallel" cinema directors — in contrast to those directors who opted for the hegemonic "Bollywood" or Bombay style(s) of Indian cinema.[11] The majority of Ghatak's films are narratives that focus on the post-Independence Bengali family and community, with a sustained critique of the emerging petite-bourgeoisie in Bengal, specifically in the urban environment of Calcutta. In this context, Ghatak utilizes a melodramatic style and mode novel to Indian cinema. His melodrama combines popular and classical idioms of performance from Bengal and India that are merged with Stanislavskian acting and Brechtian theatrical techniques.

In this paper, I will examine the relations between three interconnected elements in Ghatak's film narratives:

women
landscape (exterior and interior)
sound and music.

In his films, Ghatak consistently layers these three components to convey both utopian and dystopian visions of "Homeland" in an independent Bengal. He employs Bengali folk music and frames Bengali landscapes to inform, both aurally and visually, his representations of Bengali women as symbolic images of the joy, sorrow and nostalgia that he associates with the birth of the Indian state. I will analyze scenes from two of Ghatak's films, Meghe Dhaka Tara (A Cloud-Covered Star, 1960), and Subarnarekha (The Golden Line, 1962; also the name of a river in what is now Bangladesh) to illustrate this critical relationship between women, landscape, and sound and music which is fundamental to his construction of a "resistant" narrative of the new Indian nation.[12] First, some brief background information about the 1947 Partition of India and Ghatak's melodramatic style is necessary in order to contextualize Ghatak's representations of "Woman" and "Homeland" and begin to understand how these representations are linked together in his films Meghe Dhaka Tara and Subarnarekha.

1947: Partition of India

In August 1947, after over a year of tortuous negotiations in the midst of communal (religious) riots and killings throughout India, leaders and representatives of the departing British colonial government, the predominantly Hindu Indian Congress Party and the Muslim League decided to divide India into the Indian Union, with a Hindu majority, and Pakistan, with a Muslim majority. Furthermore, Pakistan was composed of two geographically separate (more than 1,250 miles apart) and culturally, linguistically different parts: West Pakistan (now known as simply Pakistan) and East Pakistan (now known as Bangladesh). [See map.] Consequently, Bengal was also geographically and culturally divided into two parts: East Bengal became Pakistani East Bengal or East Pakistan and West Bengal became Indian West Bengal. [See map.]

An estimated ten million people, primarily Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs, were forced over the next months to abandon the homes that they had lived in for generations and to migrate. Muslims fled to West and East Pakistan, Hindus and Sikhs to India. Families were divided, friends and neighbors were left behind, and an immense mass confusion developed as to where to go and what to expect when they got there. All of these factors created tremendous tension which led to the religious hatred, riots and murders that ushered in India's independence from Britain and the birth of Pakistan. Ghatak viewed the division of his native Bengal as mishandled and ill-conceived. Government officials, he believed, gave barely a thought to the devastating impact that such a division would (and did) have on millions of people. Ghatak spent his entire artistic life wrestling with the consequences of Partition: particularly the insecurity and anxiety engendered by the homelessness of the refugees of Bengal.[13] In his films, he tries to convey how Partition struck at the roots of Bengali culture. He seeks to express the nostalgia and yearning that many Bengalis' have for their pre-Partition way of life.[14]

Ghatak was outspoken concerning India's Independence and Partition. In response to an interviewer's question regarding what personal truth had inspired his films, stories and plays, Ghatak replied:

"Being a Bengali from East Bengal, I have seen the untold miseries inflicted on my people in the name of independence—which is a fake and a sham. I have reacted violently towards this and I have tried to portray different aspects of this [in my films]."[15]

In another interview, Ghatak discussed the common thread of union in his films, Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960), Komal Gandhar (The Gandhar Sublime, 1961; in the Indian classical musical system, an E-flat or flatted third), and Subarnarekha (1962). He stated:

"Against my intention the films Meghe Dhaka Tara, Komal Gandhar, and Subarnarekha formed my trilogy. When I started Meghe Dhaka Tara, I never spoke of political unification. Even now I don't think of it because history will not alter and I won't venture to do this impossible task. The cultural segregation caused by politics and economics was a thing to which I never reconciled myself as I always thought in terms of cultural integration. This very theme of cultural integration forms the theme in all three films."[16]

In his films, Ghatak often situates his preoccupation with the union of East Pakistan and West Bengal within the heart of Bengali society: the family. And through the post-Independence Bengali "family," Ghatak expresses the radical transformations that occurred within Bengali culture. Ghatak's "families" are often not the traditional extended Bengali family, but "alternative," "surrogate" families, like the theatrical troupe in Komal Gandhar or the wandering group of misfits in Jukti Takko Ar Gappo (Arguments and a Story, 1974), who are displaced, urban, lower middle class refugees searching for a home. By utilizing a melodramatic style comprised of Bengali, Indian, European and Russian elements, Ghatak visually and aurally articulates a new Bengali homeland.

Continued: Ghatak and Indian melodrama

http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc47.2005/ghatak/index.html

Komal Gandhar: A Maverick's Dream review

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Nov 19 2007

Komal Gandhar is layered with cultural references -- urban and folk. Heroes take names from Indian mythology- Bhrigu, Anasuya ; the theatre group wants to find its essence in a performance of Shakuntala; Bhrigu compares Shakuntala's sorrow in leaving behind her forest with an eviction from someone's own space in Calcutta, writes Anirban Lahiri

It all started with a Maverick's dream of unifying Bengal. The undivided state used to be the largest province in a pre-partition India. It gave birth to Permanent Settlement Act, saw a series of famines despite being arguably the most fertile deltaic land in the world and produced a gentoo culture (popularly known as '˜Babu') quite similar to the culture in Paris, at the time of MoliÃ¨re. That culture faced an indelible blow on the onslaught of partition of India, on 15 August, 1947. Things fell apart'¦ there was no centre to hold.

Komal Gandhar (1962) picks up from this point. With a loudspeaker announcing the last act of a play on partition and refuge, the opening leads us to a 'second theatre' stage where a high-pitched dramatic moment is being enacted. And the act itself? What could it be except refugees waiting at a rail station platform? The fine backdrop and lighting simulating a real location make a direct reference to Khaled Choudhury and Tapas Sen —- the two maestros of Indian theatre, in art direction and lighting. The utterance is typically Ritwik's "Why should I move away from home, my beautiful home, my bountiful river Padma?!" Ritwik could never properly understand the absurd logic of such displacements, partitions, evictions. He dedicated his journey to the search, for a plausible answer.

The film talks about union — of the lands, the people, two sects in '˜progressive' theatre and finally of two individuals. Ritwik is fantastically optimistic in the film. But, he reaches that joy in union through a tortuous path. Union is necessary, union is violent, and union comes only when one listens to the heart. Ritwik Ghatak sees life through the perspective of a theatre, specifically Indian Peoples' Theatre Association (IPTA) — how it fragmented, how any movement or organization finally divides on leadership issues. Hero of this film, Bhrigu, is a leader. And in due course, he is challenged and left alone by other leadership aspirants. Life is a competition, not cooperation. And few leaders decide the fate of humanity from the centre of power-circle (or, apex of the pyramid). Only when these leaders are back to their roots, they become human again. Bhrigu, in this film is made human over and again, on such returns to the roots. He tells Anasuya why he is so rugged, unemotional today. He tells that on the bank of river Padma, from where he tries to see the other side, his home — another country now, where he can never go back as citizen again.

This grief, this absurdity of partition, tunes up two minds, somehow, on the same note, on the bank of river Padma. One of the most memorable shots in the history of cinema appears there —- Ritwik's famous track shot on actual rail tracks. On the '˜Indian' side of the Padma, railtracks end. The country, a culture, humanity is severed there, brutally, foolishly. a slowly accelerating track shot gets momentum with a high pitched "Dohai Ali" chorus (means '˜on Ali's name'; boatmen used to chant this on the river), and cuts to pitch black screen abruptly for two seconds. Consciousness is severed. We are shocked.

Ritwik Ghatak was almost illogically influenced by Jung's theory of collective unconscious. Perhaps, a mind shocked by partition wanted to find a rational and 'scientific' refuge in the school of Analytical Psychology. He diagnosed the problem of the Bengali nation being collective amnesia, and he tried to solve that with a forced remembrance. Hence, Komal Gandhar is layered with cultural references — urban and folk. Heroes take names from Indian mythology —- Bhrigu, Anasuya ; the theatre group wants to find its essence in a performance of Shakuntala; Bhrigu compares Shakuntala's sorrow in leaving behind her forest with an eviction from someone's own space in Calcutta.

This film is extremely difficult for someone uninitiated in Bengali culture and myths, to understand in its entirety. But, the motivational force is love, and the goal is union. It takes its name from Tagore's Komal Gandhar (and also from Bishnu De's poem of the same name) —- overture of life in Bharavi scale, and also its journey through a vast landscape. After breakup, segmentation and hostilities, individuals, civilization and a theatre group always reconcile. Marriage, union, is the goal for humanity. And it reaches that goal after baring the faults of the power structure and through a remembrance of its past (not necessarily '˜historically'). Ritwik's film ends with celebration of this union.

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Ritwik Ghatak

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Ritwik Ghatak

Born November 4, 1925(1925-11-04)
Dhaka, East Bengal (present day Bangladesh)

Died February 6, 1976 (aged 50)
Kolkata, India

Occupation Film maker and writer

Ritwik Ghatak (Bengali: ঋত্বিক (কুমার) ঘটক, Rittik (Kumar) Ghôţok) (November 4, 1925 – February 6, 1976) was a Bengali Indian filmmaker and script writer. Ghatak's stature among Bengali film directors is comparable to that of Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen.

Contents
[hide]

1 Early life
2 Creative career
3 Impact and influence
4 Filmography

4.1 Feature films
4.2 Short films and documentaries

5 Notes
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Early life

Ritwik Ghatak was born in Dhaka in East Bengal (now Bangladesh). He and his family moved to Calcutta (now Kolkata) in West Bengal just before millions of other refugees from East Bengal began to flood into the city, fleeing the catastrophic Bengal famine of 1943 and the partition of Bengal in 1947. Identification with this tide of refugees was to define his practice, providing an overriding metaphor for cultural dismemberment and exile that unified his subsequent creative work. The 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, which led to more refugees fleeing to India, was to also have a similar impact on his work.

[edit] Creative career

In 1948, Ghatak wrote his first play Kalo sayar (The Dark Lake), and participated in a revival of the landmark play Nabanna. In 1951, Ghatak joined the Indian People's Theatre Association ( IPTA ). He wrote, directed and acted in plays and translated Bertolt Brecht and Gogol into Bengali. In 1957, he wrote and directed his last play Jwala (The Burning).

Ghatak entered the film industry with Nemai Ghosh's Chinnamul (1950) as actor and assistant director. Chinnamul was followed two years later by Ghatak's first completed film Nagarik (1952), both major break-throughs for the Indian cinema.^[1]^[2] Ghatak's early work sought theatrical and literary precedent in bringing together a documentary realism, a remarkable stylized performance often drawn from the folk theatre, and a Brechtian use of the filmic apparatus.

Ghatak's first commercial release was Ajantrik (1958), a comedy-drama film with science fiction themes. It was one of the earliest films to portray an inanimate object, in this case an automobile, as a character in the story.

Ghatak's greatest commercial success as a script writer was for Madhumati (1958), one of the earliest films to deal with the theme of reincarnation. It was a Hindi film directed by another Bengali filmmaker Bimal Roy. The film earned Ghatak his first award nomination, for the Filmfare Best Story Award.

Ritwik Ghatak directed eight full-length films. His best-known films, Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Capped Star) (1960), Komal Gandhar (E-Flat) (1961), and Subarnarekha (1962), a trilogy based in Calcutta and addressing the condition of refugee-hood, proved controversial and the commercial failure of Komal Gandhar (E-Flat) and Subarnarekha prevented him from making features through the remainder of the 1960s. In all three films, he used a basic and at times starkly realistic storyline, upon which he inscribed a range of mythic references,especially of the Mother Deliverer, through a dense overlay of visual and aural registers.

Ghatak moved briefly to Pune in 1966, where he taught at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). During his year at FTII, he was involved in the making of two student films, viz., Fear and Rendezvous.

Ghatak returned to film making only in the 1970s, when a Bangladeshi producer financed the 1973 epic Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (A River Called Titas). Making films became difficult for his poor health, due to extreme alcoholism and consequent diseases. His last film, and perhaps his most unusual, was the 'autobiographical' Jukti Takka ar Gappo (Reason, Debate And Story) (1974).He had a number of incomplete feature and short films in his credit.

He belonged to an illustrious family. His father Suresh Chandra Ghatak was a district magistrate and also a poet and playwright, mother's name was Indubala Devi. He was their 11th and youngest child. His elder brother Manish Ghatak was an acclaimed radical writer of his time, a professor of English and a social activist who was deeply involved with IPTA theatre movement in its heyday and later on headed the famous Tebhaga Andolan of North Bengal. Manish Ghatak's daughter is the legendary writer and activist Mahasweta Devi. Ritwik's wife Surama was a school teacher and his son Ritaban is a film-maker.

[edit] Impact and influence

At the time of his death (February 1976), Ghatak's primary impact would seem to have been through former students. Though his stint teaching film at FTII was brief, one-time students Mani Kaul, John Abraham, and especially Kumar Shahani (among many others), carried Ghatak's ideas and theories, which were further elaborated upon in his book Cinema And I, into the mainstream of Indian art film. Other students of his at the FTII included the acclaimed filmmakers Saeed Akhtar Mirza and Adoor Gopalakrishnan.^[3]

Ghatak stood entirely outside the world of Indian commercial film. None of the elements of the commercial cinema (singing and dancing, melodrama, stars, glitz) featured in his work. He was watched by students and intelligentsia, not by the masses. His students have also tended to work in the art cinema or independent cinema tradition.

Satyajit Ray, commonly held to be the greatest of the Bengali neo-realist directors, succeeded in creating an audience outside India during his lifetime and winning many prestigious international awards. Ghatak was not so fortunate. While he was alive, his films were appreciated primarily within India. Satyajit Ray did what he could to promote his colleague, but Ray's generous praise did not translate into international fame for Ghatak. For example, Ghatak's Nagarik (1952) was perhaps the earliest example of a Bengali art film, preceding Ray's Pather Panchali by three years, but was never released until after his death in 1977.^[1]^[2] His first commercial release Ajantrik (1958) was also one of the earliest films to portray an inanimate object, in this case an automobile, as a character in the story, many years before the Herbie films.^[4] Ghatak's Bari Theke Paliye (1958) had no similarity to François Truffaut's later film The 400 Blows (1959), Ghatak's film remained obscure while Truffaut's film went on to become one of the most famous films of the French New Wave. One of Ghatak's final films, A River Named Titas (1973), is one of the earliest films to be told in a hyperlink format, featuring multiple characters in a collection of interconnected stories, predating Robert Altman's Nashville (1975) by two years.

Ghatak's only major commercial success was Madhumati (1958), a Hindi film which he wrote the screenplay for. The film was one of the earliest to deal with the theme of reincarnation and is believed to have been the source of inspiration for many later works dealing with the theme of reincarnation in Indian cinema, Indian television, and perhaps world cinema. It may have been the source of inspiration for the American film The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975) and the Hindi film Karz (1980), both of which dealt with reincarnation and have been influential in their respective cultures.^[5] Karz in particular was remade several times: as the Kannada film Yuga Purusha (1989), the Tamil film Enakkul Oruvan (1984), and more recently the Bollywood film Karzzzz (2008). Karz and The Reincarnation of Peter Proud may have also inspired the American film Chances Are (1989).^[5] The most recent film to be directly inspired by Madhumati is the hit Bollywood film Om Shanti Om (2007), which led to the late Bimal Roy's daughter Rinki Bhattacharya accusing the film of plagiarism and threatening legal action against its producers.^[6]^[7]

Ghatak's work as a director also had an impact on many later Indian filmmakers, including those from the Bengali film industry and elsewhere. For example, Mira Nair has cited Ghatak as well as Ray as the reasons she became a filmmaker.^[8] Ghatak's impact as a director began to spread beyond India much later; beginning in the 1990s, a project to restore Ghatak's films was undertaken, and international exhibitions (and subsequent DVD releases) have belatedly generated an increasingly global audience. In a critics' poll of all-time greatest films conducted by the Asian film magazine Cinemaya in 1998, Subarnarekha was ranked at #11 on the list.^[9] In the 2002 Sight & Sound critics' and directors' poll for all-time greatest films, Meghe Dhaka Tara was ranked at #231 and Komal Gandhar at #346 on the list.^[10] In 2007, A River Named Titas topped the list of 10 best Bangladeshi films, as chosen in the audience and critics' polls conducted by the British Film Institute.^[11]

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Feature films
Director & Screenwriter

Nagarik (The Citizen) (1952)
Ajantrik (The Unmechanical, The Pathetic Fallacy) (1958)
Bari Theke Paliye (The Runaway) (1958)
Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Capped Star) (1960)
Komal Gandhar (E-Flat) (1961)
Subarnarekha (1962/1965)
Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (A River Called Titash) (1973)
Jukti Takko Aar Gappo (Reason, Debate and a Story) (1974)
Screenwriter

Musafir (1957)
Madhumati (1958)

[edit] Short films and documentaries

The Life of the Adivasis (1955)
Places of Historic Interest in Bihar (1955)
Scissors (1962)
Fear (1965)
Rendezvous (1965)
Civil Defence (1965)
Scientists of Tomorrow (1967)
Yeh Kyon (Why / The Question) (1970)
Amar Lenin (My Lenin) (1970)
Puruliar Chhau (The Chhau Dance of Purulia) (1970)
Durbar Gati Padma (The Turbulent Padma) (1971)

[edit] Notes

^ ^a ^b Ghatak, Ritwik (2000), Rows and Rows of Fences: Ritwik Ghatak on Cinema, Ritwik Memorial & Trust Seagull Books, ix & 134-36, ISBN 8170461782
^ ^a ^b Hood, John (2000), The Essential Mystery: The Major Filmmakers of Indian Art Cinema, Orient Longman Limited, 21-4, ISBN 8125018700
^ Chitra Parayath (08/11/2004). "Summer Viewing - The Brilliance Of Ritwik Ghatak". Lokvani. http://www.lokvani.com/lokvani/article.php?article_id=1899. Retrieved 2009-05-30.
^ Carrigy, Megan (October 2003), "Ritwik Ghatak", Senses of Cinema, http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/ghatak.html, retrieved 2009-05-03
^ ^a ^b Doniger, Wendy (2005), "Chapter 6: Reincarnation", The woman who pretended to be who she was: myths of self-imitation, Oxford University Press, pp. 112-136 [135], ISBN 0195160169
^ Ashanti nags Om Shanti Om Mumbai Mirror, August 7, 2008.
^ Shah Rukh, Farah Sued: Writer Claims SRK stole his script for Om Shanti Om
^ "Why we admire Ray so much". Naachgana. April 14, 2009. http://www.naachgaana.com/2009/04/14/why-we-admire-satyajit-ray-so-much. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
^ Totaro, Donato (January 31, 2003), "The "Sight & Sound" of Canons", Offscreen Journal (Canada Council for the Arts), http://www.horschamp.qc.ca/new_offscreen/canon.html, retrieved 2009-04-19
^ "2002 Sight & Sound Top Films Survey of 253 International Critics & Film Directors". Cinemacom. 2002. http://www.cinemacom.com/2002-sight-sound.html. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
^ "Top 10 Bangladesh Films". British Film Institute. 17 July 2007. http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/imagineasia/guide/poll/bangladesh/index.html. Retrieved 2009-03-14.

[edit] References

Carrigy, Megan (October 2003), "Ritwik Ghatak", Senses of Cinema, http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/ghatak.html, retrieved 2009-05-03

[edit] External links

This article contains Indic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text.

Ritwik Ghatak at the Internet Movie Database
Interview with Ghatak at Indian Auteur
at calcuttaweb
Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
Biography
Film AnalysisAcquarello
Kinship and History in Ritwik Ghatak by Moinak Biswas
The Film We Accompany by Raymond Bellour
Ritwik Ghatak-Reinventing the Cinema by Jonathan Rosenbaum
A special issue on the Cinema of Ritwik Ghatak

Persondata

NAME Ghatak, Ritwik

ALTERNATIVE NAMES

SHORT DESCRIPTION Film maker

DATE OF BIRTH November 4, 1925

PLACE OF BIRTH Dhaka, East Bengal

DATE OF DEATH November 4, 1925

PLACE OF DEATH Kolkata, India

[show]

v • d • e

Films written and directed by Ritwik Ghatak

Written & Directed

Nagarik (1952) · Ajantrik (1958) · Bari Theke Paliye (1958) · Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960) · Komal Gandhar (1961) · Subarnarekha (1962/1965) · Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (1973) · Jukti Takko Aar Gappo (1974)

Written
Madhumati (1958)

[show]

v • d • e

Cinema of Bengal

History

Billwamangal · Dena Paona · Dhirendra Nath Ganguly · Hiralal Sen · Kanon Bala · J.F. Madan · Madan Theatres · Minerva Theatres · New Theatres · Pramathesh Barua · Royal Bioscope · Star Theatres · more

Directors
Debaki Bose · Nitin Bose · Buddhadev Dasgupta · Ritwik Ghatak · Gautam Ghose · Rituparno Ghosh · Morshedul Islam · Tarun Majumdar · Tareque Masud · Hrishikesh Mukherjee · Satyajit Ray · Zahir Raihan · Bimal Roy · Aparna Sen · Hiralal Sen · Mrinal Sen · Tapan Sinha · more

Actors
Pramathesh Barua · Bobita · Chhabi Biswas · Victor Bannerjee · Supriya Devi · Sabitri Chatterjee · Soumitra Chatterjee · Rabi Ghosh · Uttam Kumar · Madhabi Mukherjee · Prasenjit Chatterjee · Abdur Razzak · Suchitra Sen · Sharmila Tagore · Konkona Sen Sharma · more

Films
By year · A-Z · 36 Chowringhee Lane · Apu Trilogy · Bankubabur Bandhu · Bari Theke Paliye · Billwamangal · Calcutta trilogy · Charulata · Chokher Bali · Dena Paona · Deep Jwélé Jaai · Feluda series · Ghare Baire · Hansuli Banker Upokotha · Harano Sur · Jibon Theke Neya · Matir Moina · Meghe Dhaka Tara · Mukh O Mukhosh · Neel Akasher Neechey · Saptapadi · Tahader Katha · Titash Ekti Nadir Naam · Titli · Unishe April

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritwik_Ghatak"

Categories: Bengali film producers | Indian film producers | Bengali film directors | Indian film directors | Bengali film actors | Indian film actors | Bengali writers | Indian screenwriters | Indian writers | Film theorists | Indian film score composers | Indian People's Theatre Association people | Bengali-language writers | Kolkata culture | University of Calcutta alumni | People from Dhaka | 1925 births | 1976 deaths | Film directed by Ritwik Ghatak

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritwik_Ghatak
'Maoists ready for ceasefire, won't give up arms': Kishenji

Tue, Nov 10 10:45 PM

Kolkata Nov 10 (PTI): The Maoists are ready for a ceasefire with the government, but they will not accept Centre's demand to abjure violence, top Maoist leader Kishenji said today.

Reacting to Home Secretary G K Pillai's statement that there was a possibility for dialogue with Maoists if they abjured violence, Kishenji told PTI over phone, "Abjuring violence is not on our agenda. We believe in armed struggle."

However, if the government took the initiative the Maoists were ready for a ceasefire, he said.

"The government can initiate a ceasefire unilaterally. We are also ready to declare a ceasefire," the elusive leader said.

"We can fix some modalities and after which we can declare ceasefire. If the government is honest and really willing to speak with us then we will co-operate."

PTI

RTI harassment: Nitish asks DGP, Chief Secy to probe

Wed, Nov 11 05:56 AM

Four days after an Indian Express report on the alleged framing of false cases against RTI applicants in Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has asked the Chief Secretary and Director General of Police to look into the cases and initiate departmental proceedings against information officers if they are found guilty of "harassing" RTI applicants.

Nitish, who called a meeting of Chief Secretary Anup Mukherjee, DGP Anand Shankar, as well as principal secretaries and senior police officers, asked Mukherjee and Shankar to ensure that RTI applicants were not harassed. Asking the DGP to "identity errant information officers", he also instructed the Chief Secretary to initiate departmental inquiries against those found guilty.

"Let RTI applicants call Jankari call centre to register their complaints against information officers. We will soon have a devoted helpline to take up RTI complaint cases soon," said the Chief Minister. Bihar, incidentally, is the first state to start an RTI call centre.

Nitish said that any laxity in dealing with RTI complaints would not be tolerated and has also asked Chief Information Officer Ashok Choudhary to personally supervise such cases.

The Bihar Human Rights Commission on October 29 had asked the state government to explain why information officers should not be suspended for "framing false cases" against 42 RTI applicants. The state government has to reply to the BHRC by mid-December on its action taken report on RTI harassment cases.

Santosh Singh

Maya works her magic; Cong grabs Firozabad seat

Wed, Nov 11 05:56 AM

Tuesday's bypolls results show two things: One, Mayawati's BSP remains the dominant force in UP, even after its not-so-impressive show in the Lok Sabha elections. Two, the SP is getting edged out of the space of main Opposition by the Congress which won Firozabad Lok Sabha seat, where Raj Babbar defeated Mulayam Singh Yadav's daughter-in-law Dimple. That is not all. The SP drew a blank in the bypolls, losing five seats. The BSP won nine of the 11 Assembly seats. Among its victories were Bharthana, Padrouna, Jhansi.

The Congress snatched Lucknow West from the BJP. The victory is significant because the seat had become synonymous with BJP's Lalji Tandon, who had vacated it after his election to the Lok Sabha.

Like the SP, the BJP also drew a blank. In Kolasala, the other seat it had won in 2007, BJP rebel Ajay Rai won.

The BSP also wrested Isauli, Hainsar Bazar, Etawah and Powayan from the SP.

Buoyed by its success in Firozabad, the Congress termed it as the "beginning" of people's assertion of their faith in the party in UP and said it will form the next government in the state after the 2012 elections. The Congress also downplayed its poor performance in the Assembly bypolls in which it won only one seat.

Shocked over his party's dismal performance, Mulayam Singh Yadav said the SP leaders would meet to discuss the reasons behind the defeat.

Of the Assembly seats where bypolls were held, the BSP had won only one in 2007, the SP five, the BJP two, the Congress two and one had gone to JD(U) whose MLA later joined the BSP.

The BSP wrested the Powayan seat from the SP, where its candidate Dhirendra Prasad trounced his Congress rival Chetram by over 27,000 votes. In Hainsar Bazar, BSP's Dashrath Singh Chauhan trounced his nearest rival Neelmani of the Congress by over 8,000 votes. BSP's Chandra Bhadra Singh defeated Jain Narain Tiwari of the Congress by a margin of over 49,000 votes in Isauli.

Dynastic politics led to SP defeat: Maya

Lucknow: Describing the BSP's victory in the bypolls as the success of the party's policy of sarvajan hitay, sarvjan sukhay, Chief Minister Mayawati said the results showed her party has support of every section of society. In a press release issued by the BSP, the CM said the success of Congress candidate Raj Babbar in Firozabad Lok Sabha seat was the result of the people's ire against former CM Mulayam Singh Yadav's "dynastic politics". ENS

Express News Service

Left humiliated in West Bengal, Kerala citadels, Mamata also settles a personal score with Cong

Wed, Nov 11 05:56 AM

The Left's miserable electoral run continued as the Trinamool Congress, surging ahead with a vote-share larger than it had in the Lok Sabha polls, handed another humiliating defeat to Left Front major CPM which drew a blank in the bypolls in West Bengal. In Kerala, the other Left citadel, the Congress won all three seats, defeating the Communists.

Of the ten seats where bypolls where held in West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress, which fielded candidates in seven, made a clean sweep, winning all. Ally Congress, which contested three, won only one when it retained the Sujapur seat in Malda.

The Forward Bloc was the only Left Front outfit to win a seat. A stunning outcome was the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha-backed Independent's victory in Kalchini in Jalpaiguri district. The RSP was the loser there. The CPM drew a blank in all the six seats it contested.

Jubilant, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee told reporters in Delhi: "The CPM should give up now and take rest. They are paying for the sins they committed in the last 32 years."

In 2006, seven of the ten seats went to the Trinamool Congress and Congress while the remaining three were held by the Left Front two by the CPM and one by RSP.

The West Bengal results, while reflecting the trend of growing support for the Trinamool Congress, also sent out some hard messages.

For one, Mamata Banerjee exacted sweet revenge for the hurt the Congress caused the Trinamool earlier in Siliguri this time, the Congress was defeated by the Forward Bloc in Goalpokhor, a seat in Uttar Dinajpur which had been vacated by Banerjee's adversary within the alliance, Deepa Dasmunsi, wife of Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi.

During the formation of the Siliguri municipal board, Deepa Dasmunsi played a key role in mustering Left support in favour of a Congress chairman, much to the annoyance of Banerjee.

Banerjee settled scores in Goalpokhor, ensuring it went out of Dasmunsi's control. Not only did the Forward Bloc candidate bridge the 2006 deficit of 8,000 plus votes but surged ahead with a margin of over 14,000 votes over the Congress candidate. In short, some 22,000 voters switched allegiance this time a large section of the Congress-TMC support base voted for the Forward Bloc.

Banerjee rubbed it in, telling reporters that "Congress lost one seat but altogether the alliance performed well".

An upset Deepa Dasmunsi said: "This result is unexpected. We are analysing how it happened. We have been able to partly identify the reasons. The facts will be placed before the right persons at the right moment." State Congress leaders too said an inquiry would be held into the Goalpokhor defeat.

For the stunned CPM, the worst shock was in Belgachia East where the late Subhas Chakraborty's wife Ramola Chakraborty lost to Trinamool's Sujit Bose by a margin of over 28,000 votes. CPM state secretary and politburo member Biman Bose admitted "people have voted against us, we will have to analyse the results."

In Kerala, the LDF suffered a blow in politically sensitive Kannur where Congress candidate and former CPM MP Abdullakutty emerged victorious by 12,000 votes over M V Jayarajan of CPM. Abdullakutty, who represented Kannur twice in the Lok Sabha on a CPM ticket, was expelled from the party a few months ago following serious differences with the Left leadership. He then joined the Congress.

Congress candidates Dominic Presentation trounced CPM's P N Sinulal in Ernakulam by over 8,000 votes while his colleague A A Shukur retained Alappuzha seat by defeating G Krishaparasad of CPI by 4,000 votes.

The results showed that UDF had been able to repeat its Lok Sabha performance when it bagged 16 of the 20 seats in the state. The current round of elections were seen as a dress rehearsal for the 2011 Assembly polls to be preceded by civic elections in Kerala next year.

Express News Service

10/11/2009
Indian warships yet to join world's top 10 league

Warships cruising at breakneck speed, guns firing and shells sizzling into the aquamarine water - the scene seemed straight out of a war film as the Indian Navy conducted an exercise in the Bay of Bengal off this port city.

Seven ships of the Eastern Fleet - Landing Platform Dock INS Jalashwa, guided missile destroyer INS Ranjit and five missile corvettes - participated in the exercise on Sunday as part of the Navy Week celebrations.

The warships also displayed their manoeuvring skills, including intra-ship coordination, transfer of men and materials from one ship to another and rescue operations during war. There were also high-speed missile shows, underwater replenishment (from INS Jalashwa to two other ships simultaneously), close-range anti-aircraft firing exercises and flag-past by naval aircraft and helicopters.

The exercise, which showcased the navy's prowess, began with a flag past by combat ships with INS Jalashwa at the centre and the other ships flanking her. This was followed by the landing of Chetak helicopters on the ships and rescue operations.

Warships not only see battle, but in many cases they have such an impact on the course of a conflict that they either mean the difference between victory and defeat. Recently, the military.discovery.com rated the top 10 warships worldover.

MSN, India brings to you top 10 warships of our times.

Iowa Class - Fast Battleship; United States

The Iowa class battleships were a class of six fast battleships ordered by the United States Navy in 1939 and 1940 to escort the Fast Carrier Task Forces that would operate in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Four were completed in the early to mid-1940s; two more were laid down, but they were canceled prior to completion and eventually scrapped. The Iowa class was the final class of U.S. battleships to be built.

Like a cat, the the Iowa class fast battleship seems to have many, many lives. Mothballed at the end of World War II, the Iowas were soon recalled for action in the Korean War.

Again mothballed, they were once more called for the Vietnam War. In 1991, the Iowas answered the call again - when they went into action during operation Desert Storm.

10/11/2009

Indian glaciers retreating, we don't know why: Ramesh

New Delhi: Most glaciers in the Indian Himalayas are retreating, but there is "no conclusive scientific evidence" to link this to global warming, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said here Monday.

Releasing a discussion paper that puts together recent studies on glaciers by Indian scientists, Ramesh said: "The scientists may debate the causes, but the health of the glaciers is very poor and the level of debris has reached alarming proportions."

The paper says that while most of the 9,500-odd glaciers in the Indian Himalayas are retreating, some, like the Siachen Glacier, are advancing, while some, like the Gangotri glacier, have reduced their rate of retreat. Most of the glaciers in trouble are the small ones.

Ramesh said there was serious lack of data on the Himalayan glaciers -- only about 10 of them have been studied at all, and long-term temperature data is available only in Srinagar. The environment ministry is now sanctioning Rs.14-15 crore in the first phase of three studies -- Rs.3 crore for 15 new weather stations, Rs.7-8 crore to monitor the glaciers from satellites and Rs.4 crore for a study on the effects of soot on glacier melt.

Former Geological Survey of India official V.K. Raina, who put the discussion paper together, said that while glaciers were retreating, "we cannot say if it is abnormal, because we don't know what is normal". He hoped that with the new studies being started, the level of knowledge would improve in the next five-ten years.

While glaciers contribute only about ten percent of the water flow in south Asian rivers -- with the rest coming from rainfall -- they are vital in ensuring perennial water flow in these rivers. With 1.3 billion people dependent on them, the Himalayas have been called the water tower of Asia and sometimes the third pole.

Source: IANS

Image: Reuters

China criticises India for ignoring its 'concerns'

Hindu - Ananth Krishnan - ‎4 hours ago‎

BEIJING: The Chinese government on Tuesday accused New Delhi of "disregarding China's grave concerns" by allowing the Dalai Lama to visit Arunachal Pradesh and said it was "strongly dissatisfied" about the Tibetan leader's visit to the State, ...

Video: Media Kept From Dalai Lama The Associated Press

Tharoor hopes Chinese rhetoric will end after Dalai Lama's visit Times of India

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guardian.co.uk

Text of Obama's Remarks at the Fort Hood Ceremony

New York Times - ‎2 hours ago‎

By AP The latest on President Obama, his administration and other news from Washington and around the nation. Join the discussion.

Video: First Person: Fort Hood Memorial 'Uplifting' The Associated Press

Obama salutes Fort Hood victims, promises justice The Associated Press

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Times Online

Mastermind of Washington area sniper attacks executed

Reuters - Jonathan Ernst, James Vicini - ‎17 minutes ago‎

Jarratt, VIRGINIA (Reuters) - John Allen Muhammad was executed on Tuesday for masterminding and carrying out with his teenage accomplice the 2002 sniper shootings that killed 10 people and terrified the Washington, DC region a year ...

Video: 'DC Sniper' To Be Executed CBS

Sniper Who Killed 10 Is Executed in Virginia New York Times

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The Hindu

Now, college unions on Mamata's radar

Times of India - Mukherjee Pandey - ‎2 hours ago‎

KOLKATA: After riding the wave of change that has swept through Bengal, Mamata Banerjee is ready to ignite young minds with her mix of hope, rhetoric and realpolitik.

Didi one step closer to becoming CM Economic Times

BSP, Trinamool score major wins in by-elections Hindu

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Indian Express

CM asks Centre to ban MNS

Times of India - ‎1 hour ago‎

PATNA: Taking strong exception to the Maharashtra legislative assembly incident in which Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) MLAs on Monday attacked Samajwadi Party (SP) MLA Abu Azmi for taking oath in Hindi, chief minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday ...

Raj's bail conditions come under scrutiny Expressindia.com

'Do not force Marathi down people's throat' Daily News & Analysis

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Business »

BBC News

Branding issues remain for Bajaj small car?

Economic Times - ‎3 hours ago‎

NEW DELHI: The branding of the $2500 ultra low-cost car threw up more differences less than 24 hours after Nissan Renault boss Carlos Ghosn and his Bajaj Auto MD Rajiv Bajaj settled all pending issues in a one-on-one meeting.

DHL, Renault, Wal-Mart Bet on India to Fill Potholed Roads Bloomberg

Bajaj-Renault-Nissan low-cost car by 2012 Indian Express

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Rediff

Dual tax structure for goods

Business Standard - ‎2 hours ago‎

Laying the roadmap for the introduction of a goods and service tax (GST), state governments today proposed a dual GST structure, with two rates for goods and a single rate for services.

GST: Get states on board, tie up loose ends Economic Times

Baby steps to GST rollout Calcutta Telegraph

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Business Standard

Boosters to stay till West sees robust growth: Pranab

Economic Times - ‎4 hours ago‎

NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who has begun work on the budget for the next fiscal, said on Tuesday his government would continue with the stimulus sops till developed economies and wealthier nations see robust growth.

FM sees 9-10% growth in FY13 Business Standard

No rollback in fiscal incentives till recovery is visible: Pranab Financial Express

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PepsiCo board meet in India a historic event: Nooyi

Economic Times - ‎2 hours ago‎

NEW DELHI: Terming the board meeting of her company in Mumbai on Wednesday as a historic event, PepsiCo chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi said India was one of the top three markets for the beverages maker.

PM's visit to US will set a new course in Indo-US economic ties: Nooyi Sify

Problems aplenty, solutions scarce: CEOs to Chidambaram Indian Express

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guardian.co.uk

Analysis: France-Germany ties fade

The Associated Press - Deborah Seward - ‎1 hour ago‎

PARIS - Throughout the Cold War, Germany was the steadfast trans-Atlantic ally - and France the perpetual skeptic. Paris snubbed NATO, booted allied soldiers off its soil and sought a privileged relationship with Moscow.

Video: Berlin Wall anniversary: Border guard's story TelegraphTV

Recession Upends German Zeal for Fiscal Prudence New York Times

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Straits Times

RIM pushes Blackberry software development

Inquirer - Ian Williams - ‎10 hours ago‎

BLACKBERRY MAKER Research in Motion (RIM) is extending a helping hand to programmers with the launch of a software development platform.

RIM woos developers with new apps V3.co.uk

Urbanspoon Expands To The Urban Workforce With A blackberry App TechCrunch (blog)

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SantaBanta.com

Saif's unwell

Times of India - ‎9 hours ago‎

Karan Johar's plans to promote his forthcoming film Kurbaan have gone haywire just a week before its release. The film's lead actor Saif Ali Khan is not part of Kurbaan's promotional events due to acute food poisoning.

"Our love making scene is done aesthetically"- Kareena Kapoor Oneindia

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Kamal to chair media and entertainment conclave

Times of India - ‎1 hour ago‎

CHENNAI: Chennai will from November 18 play host to a two-day Media and Entertainment Conclave (MEC) that will see over 500 participants, including central and state ministers.

Expect star-studded FICCI media conclave Express Buzz

Filmmakers facing dearth of stories take real life incidents: Hassan Daily News & Analysis

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5 reasons to watch Tum Mile

Times of India - ‎5 hours ago‎

Bhatts are back with their latest offering 'Tum Mile'. In trademark Bhatt style, the film might seem small in star-value but is big in content.

The Real Shots Behind Tum Mile Deluge IndiaGlitz

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World Bank: need to cooperate on easy policy exit

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Reuters - 09:30 AM

World Bank President Robert Zoellick said on Wednesday the world needed a cooperative approach to exit from easy fiscal and monetary policies and the timing for Asian central banks would depend on markets.

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NXR and NXG, two stunners from Reva

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India, China leading Asia out of global downturn

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Here's a look at the best states for business

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Ford Motors to step into small cars with the Figo

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General

Malaysia''s Airasia offering one million free seatsPTI - 07:27 AM
Kuala Lumpur, Nov 11 (PTI) Malaysia's popular low cost carrier is giving away a million free seats from today to more than 70 destinations including Trichy in India.
Pay restrictions could hurt GM - chairmanReuters - 06:53 AM
General Motors Co could be hurt by pay restrictions on senior executives set by the U.S. government as it looks to hire from outside as part of a push to profitability and the repayment of government loans, the automaker's chairman said on Tuesday.
Stake sale plans push PSU index, NMDC up 20 pcIE - 05:56 AM
Even as the Sensex closed down 58.16 points at 16,440.56, PSU stocks continued to make waves on Dalal Street following the government's bold plans on the disinvestment front.
Brokers not pleased with longer trading hoursIE - 05:56 AM
Blame it on the human nature to be averse to changes or real operational issues, marketmen don't seem to be quite pleased with the approval by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for extension of trading hours in the stock markets.
House panel to review impact of slowdown on trade, industryFE - 02:27 AM
The Parliamentary Consulative Committee on commerce and industries, at its maiden meeting scheduled for November 11, will discuss the Foreign Trade Policy and the current economic crisis and its impact on trade and industry.

India

SingTel Q2 profit, up 18.8 pct, broadly in lineReuters - 06:16 AM
Singapore Telecommunications, Southeast Asia's biggest telecoms firm, reported an 18.8 percent increase in second quarter profits as core markets performed well and its associate in Indonesia showed strong revenue gains.
Chamber event to bring together expatriatesIE - 05:56 AM
The Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA) is organising 'Pune Unplugged- welcome week for expatriates' from November 16-22. The seven-day event is an effort to assimilate more than 1,600 expatriates in Pune from countries like Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, America, Finland, Holland, Britain, Korea, Japan and so on.
Now, Jet seeks ministry's help for concessions from oil firmsIE - 05:56 AM
In the wake of mounting losses, the country's largest private airline, Jet Airways, is again knocking on the government's door looking for some reprieve.
GST: States come out with ideas, but April 1 deadline seems out of reachIE - 05:56 AM
Even as the Empowered Group of State Finance Minister today released the much-awaited first discussion paper on Goods and Services Tax (GST), the implementation of the new indirect tax regime by the scheduled April 1, 2010 deadline looks like a distant goal.
Adanis begin oil, gas explorationIE - 05:56 AM
The Adani Welspun Exploration Limited (AWEL), has started oil and gas exploration at its Mumbai offshore block — MB-OSN-2005/2— a press release from the company said on Tuesday.

International

Global energy use to fall in 2009, says reportIANS - 07:50 AM
London, Nov 11 (IANS) The global energy use will fall this year for the first time since 1981 due to the financial crisis, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its latest report.
Advik Group joins hands with German firm to manufacture auto componentsIE - 05:56 AM
Advik Group of Companies, a manufacturer of auto components, has entered into a technical collaboration with Trochocentric GmbH of Germany for manufacturing auto components for four-wheelers.
US stocks mixed on poor earnings, financials rallyIANS - 03:35 AM
New York, Nov 11 (DPA) US stocks were mixed Tuesday as some companies posted disappointing quarterly earnings but financial firms gained.
Sri Lankan trade unions protest delay in pay hikeIANS - 03:32 AM
Colombo, Nov 11 (IANS) Sri Lankan trade unions Tuesday decided to go ahead with their planned three-day strike to protest against the delay in pay hike.
Google's holiday gift to travellers in US - free airport Wi-FiIANS - 01:50 AM
San Francisco, Nov 11 (DPA) Internet giant Google is offering travellers in the US a generous gift for the holidays. The Silicon Valley company said Tuesday it would provide free Wi-Fi service at 47 major airports throughout the US until Jan 15, 2010.

Personal-Finance

Johnson & Johnson to cut 8,000 jobsIANS - Wed, Nov 4
New York, Nov 4 (DPA) US consumer goods and pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson said Tuesday it would cut around 8,000 jobs in a bid to trim costs in the wake of the recession.
Sensex ends at two-month lowIANS - Tue, Nov 3
Mumbai, Nov 3 (IANS) A benchmark index of the Indian equities markets fell sharply by 491 points to touch a two-month low Tuesday, with investors dumping stocks especially of realty, metals, energy and power companies.
US stocks gain on Ford profits, positive economic newsIANS - Tue, Nov 3
New York, Nov 3 (DPA) US stocks started the week stronger Monday amid a surge of positive economic news and surprising profits for carmaker Ford.
Sensex falls fifth day straight, ends below 16,000 pointsIANS - Fri, Oct 30
Mumbai, Oct 30 (IANS) A key Indian equity index Friday closed 0.97 percent down for the fifth consecutive day to end below 16,000 points.
Sensex ends below 16,000 pointsIANS - Fri, Oct 30
Mumbai, Oct 30 (IANS) A key Indian equity index Friday closed 1.07 percent down for the fifth consecutive day to end below the 16,000 points.

Markets

SingTel says has made no decision to list unitsReuters - 08:30 AM
Singapore Telecommunications, Southeast Asia's biggest telecom firm, has made no decision to list any of its businesses such as Australia's Optus, its chief executive said on Wednesday.
Nikkei edges up, but gains capped by strong yenReuters - 07:18 AM
Japan's Nikkei stock average edged up 0.6 percent on Wednesday, helped by a surprisingly large jump in domestic machinery orders for September and after manufacturers forecast a rise in the fourth quarter.
HSBC Asia CEO: no timeframe yet for Shanghai listingReuters - 06:42 AM
HSBC's Asia-Pacific chief executive said on Wednesday that the bank had not yet set a timeframe for the planned listing of its shares on Shanghai's stock market.
ANALYSIS - Why is Oracle fighting so hard for Sun's MySQL?Reuters - 06:32 AM
Oracle Corp has allowed regulatory approval of its $7 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc to drag on for months due to controversy over a database that most users get for free.
Nikkei up as machinery makers gain, yen hits exportersReuters - 06:21 AM
Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 0.5 percent on Wednesday, boosted by machinery makers such as Hitachi Construction after machinery orders jumped 10.5 percent in September and manufacturers forecast a rise in the fourth quarter.