Ritwik Ghatak: Life, Works & Philosophy ― (Part 4 of 4)

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

Ritwik joined the Pune Film and Television institute as a visiting professor at the end of 1966 and later became a vice principal. He was attached to two cinemas named 'Fear' and 'Rendezvous' during the tenure of his teaching here. Ritwik placed his teaching life over his film career. He says, 'I feel, the few films that I made in my life, if kept in one side of weighing balance and the teaching on the other, then the teaching would be heavier. Because today my students are everywhere, Kashmir to Kerala, Madras to Assam. The little contribution I could make for them was much important than making my own cinema.'

প্রিয়তমা তোমার জন্য

চেয়ে দেখ প্রিয়তমা,

কত বছর গেল কেটে,

হাতে হাত রেখে―

ভালবাসা দিয়েছি জমা।

তোমায় নিয়ে জলকন্যা,

স্বচ্ছ পানিতে পা ডুবিয়ে,

চোখে চোখ রেখে―

থেকে গেছি দু'জনের দুজনা।

Ritwik Ghatak: Life, Works & Philosophy ― (Part 3 of 4)

PART 1 | PART 2

Ritwik used to say about the philosophy of cinema, 'Film-making is not an esoteric thing to me. I consider film-making – to start with – a personal thing. If a person does not have a vision of his own, he cannot create'. The personal experience is evident in his cinemas, he wished to express in very many ways his inner agony of becoming refugee as a result of partition. In own words of Ritwik ,'I could neither accept the partition of Bengal in any ways― Nor do I today. Whatever happened in 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'.

Ritwik Ghatak: Life, Works & Philosophy ― (Part 2 of 4)

PART 1

Ritwik made three documentaries in 1955. The life journey of Oraon tribal community 'Oraon', the life of the tribal of Bihar 'Adivasiyon Ka Jeevan Srot' and the spectacular places of Bihar 'Bihar Ke Darshaniya Sthan'. He married Surma Devi after returning from Bihar. She was also a theatre worker and they came to know each other through theatre. After some days, Ritwik found a job at Filmistan Studio of Bombay with the help of Salil Chowdhury. To start with, Ritwik used to stay with Hrishikesh Mukherjee and wrote the screenplay of the cinema 'Musafir' under his direction. The best commercial success of Ritwik's life came from the screenplay of the cinema 'Madhumati' made by Bimal Roy in 1958. It was the first line cinema made with the concept of reincarnation. Later he wrote screenplays for some other films that includes 'Swaralipi'(1960), 'Kumari Mon'(1962), 'Dwiper Naam Tiarong'(1963), 'Rajkonna'(1965) and 'Hirer Projapoti'(1958). In spite of his business in writing essays and screenplays the constant pressure of writing screenplays for commercial style cinemas of Bombay gradually became unbearable for Ritwik. So he left the job of ensured income of Bombay and reverted to Calcutta.