Remembering Bimal Roy
By Abhilaksh Likhi

MOST successful Indian filmmakers have treated the film’s form and content in their own personal style. And with them has grown and evolved Indian cinema in its various dimensions. While some filmmakers have attempted to make entertaining films, others have focused on making socially relevant films with a touch of realism. Thus, the craft of narrating a story on screen has wholly depended upon the treatment meted to it — be it social realism or pure entertainment.

Very few filmmakers, however, have been able to synthesise a treatment that combines entertainment, realism and social relevance. While filmmaker Satyajit Ray pioneered a style that was conscious, delicate and authentic to the core, Raj Kapoor fashioned a treatment that highlighted the magnificence of the music melodrama.

Within the above cinematic milieu, Bimal Roy moulded a cinema that was touching and struck a deep human note. He is remembered till date for his films that were not only wholesome, and engrossing but also thought-provoking. He developed a style where his social perceptions were expressed through the medium of cinema. This is very much evident in all his films from Udayer Pathey (1944) to Bandini (1963).

Udayer Pathey was one of the most phenomenal films of the talkie era whose impact, strength and success was to be felt not only in its enormous mass appeal but in terms of its importance in the annals of trend setting cinema.The film that focused on swiftly changing social values amidst massive feudal decay, launched Bimal Roy as a filmmaker with a distinctive style. What was striking was the remarkable way it was shot with incredibly precise movements of the camera.

This was followed by the internationally acclaimed Do Bigha Zamin (1954) which received glowing critical comments from the West, USSR and China. The film that highlighted the struggle of a poor peasant in a city was sent to Cannes in 1954 and received an award in Karlovary for‘social progress’. More importantly, the film brought forth Bimal Roy’s extraordinary quality of telling a story with simplicity. Besides, his directorial treatment was spontaneous. The most valid social statements in his films were expressed through his protagonists but with dignity and honour.

In the same vein, films like Parineeta (1953), Sujata (1959) and Bandini (1963) outlined Bimal Roy’s quest for a lasting answer to the recurring human tragedy of social inequalities in a moribund, superstitious society. But what is distinctive is that he does not indulge in any platform moralising as there was always the danger of the same in his themes. He has approached his themes with an exceptionally intuitive visual sense and very restrained histrionics. Evolution of such a subtle and normal mood has contributed enormously to a realistic treatment of all Bimal Roy films.

Though most of his films have consciously concerned themselves with reform or social morality, Bimal Roy’s personal viewpoint has always been of an sympathetic outsider. Whether it is Shambhu, the poor peasant in Do Bigha Zamin,Kalyani, the prison inmate in Bandini or Sujata the untouchable orphan in Sujata, the director observes them and makes a sympathetic contact with their problems. His reformist sensitivity thus always had a liberal outlook.

Such a liberal reformist attitude provided each of Bimal Roy’s film with a good plot construction, convincing characterisation, truthful yet dramatic situation and crisp dialogues. Consequently, his sense of framing and smooth camera movements provided a perfect balance to the narration.

Watch for instance, the sequences between Kalyani and the prison doctor in Bandini as she decides to accompany her ailing friend, rejecting the security and social status as the doctor’s wife. These are striking shots that fine tune the pace of the film, making it an engrossing as well an emotionally satisfying experience.

Within the ambit of such skilled craftsmanship Bimal Roy used ‘lighting’ significantly as the foremost creator of mood in all his works. This is vibrantly visible in Sujata and Bandini where he extensively uses the ‘source of light’ to place sequence in time and space in recognisable ways from life. As a result, one could easily relate to the situation whether shot during the day or at night. Such shots in Bimal Roy’s films are remarkable yet they never dominate the content nor do they draw attention to themselves.

Thus, his language was always painted in every possible shade of grey and black/white and one never thought of colour even in pastoral romances like Madhumati (1958). Another important and never neglected aspect of Bimal Roy’s language were songs. His musical ear is evident from the extremely fine musical score of Madhumati.

In any Bimal Roy film the lyrics were very beautifully and sensitively written and composed. O jane wale ho sake to laut ke ana in Bandini, rendered on screen by actress Nutan, was an enchanting melody that had a terrific visual impact and remains vivid in memory even today.

Bimal Roy’s canvas thus combined the rich poetry and power of human beauty with the intensity and varied splendours of human emotions. His filmmaking was indeed, an effortless synthesis of social realism, emotional lyricism and skilled craftsmanship.

 
Memories of whistling in the dark

By Ruskin Bond

IT is almost at the full. Bright moonlight floods the road. But I am stalked by the shadows of the trees, by the shadows of crooked oak branches reaching out towards me — some threateningly, others as though they needed my companionship.

Once I dreamt that the trees could walk, that on moonlight nights like this they would uproot themselves for a while, visit each other, talk about old times (for they had seen many men and happenings, the older ones); and then, before dawn, they would return to the places where they had been condemned to grow. Lonely sentinels of the night. And this was a good night for them to walk. They appeared eager to do so: a restless rustling of their leaves, the creaking of branches in the still of the night, these were sounds that came from within....

Occasionally other strollers passed me in the dark. It was still quite early, just eight o’ clock, and some were on their way home. Others were walking into town, for a taste of the bright lights, the shops and restaurants. On the unlit road I could not recognise them. They did not notice me. I was reminded of an old song from my childhood. Softly, I began humming the tune, and soon the words came back to me:

We three,
We’re not a crowd;
We’re not even company —
My echo,
My shadow,
And me....

I looked down at my shadow, moving silently beside me. We do take out shadows for granted, don’t we? There they are, the uncomplaining companions of a lifetime, mute and helpless witnesses to our every act of commission or omission. On this bright moonlit night, I cannot help noticing you, Shadow, and I am sorry that you had to see so much that I am ashamed of; but glad, too, that you were around when I had my small triumphs. And what of my echo? I thought of calling out, to see if my call came back to me; but I refrained from doing so, as I did not wish to disturb the perfect stillness of the mountains or the communion of the trees.

The road wound up the hill and levelled out at the top, where it became a ribbon of moonlight entwined between tall deodars. A flying-squirrel glided across the road, leaving one tree for another. A nightjar called. The rest was silence.

The old cemetery loomed up before me. There were old graves, some large and monumental; and there were a few recent graves too, for the cemetery was still in use. I could see flowers scattered on one of them — a few late dahlias and scarlet salvia — but further on , near the boundary wall, part of the cemetery’s retaining wall had collapsed due to the heavy monsoon rains. Some of the tombstones had come down with the wall. One grave lay exposed. A rotting coffin and a few scattered bones were the only relics of someone who had lived and loved like you and me.

Part of the tombstone lay beside the road, but the lettering had worn away. I am not normally a morbid person, but something made me stoop and pick up a smooth round shard of bone, probably part of a skull. When my hand closed over it, the bone crumbled into fragments. I let them fall to the grass. Dust to dust.

And from somewhere, not too far away, came the sound of someone whistling.

At first I thought it was another late evening stroller, whistling to himself much as I had been humming my old song. But the whistler approached quite rapidly; the whistling was loud and cheerful. A boy on a bicycle sped past. I had only a glimpse of him, before his cycle went weaving through the shadow on the road.

But he was back again in a few minutes. And this time he stopped in the road, a few feet away from me, and gave me a quizzical half smile. A slim dusky boy of 14 or 15. He wore a school blazer and a yellow scarf. His eyes were pools of liquid moonlight.

"You don’t have a bell on your cycle," I said.

He said nothing, just smiled at me with his head a little to one side. I put out my hand, and I thought he was going to take it; but then, quite suddenly, he was off again, whistling cheerfully though rather tunelessly. A whistling schoolboy. A bit late for him to be out, but he seemed an independent sort.

The whistling grew fainter, then faded away altogether. A deep, sound-denying silence fell upon the forest. My shadow and I walked home.

Next morning I woke to a different kind of whistling — the song of the whistling-thrush outside my window.

It was a wonderful day, the sunshine warm and sensuous, and I longed to be out in the open. But there was work to be done, proofs to correct, letters to be written. And it was several days before I could walk to the top of the hill, to that lonely, tranquil resting-place under the deodars. It seemed to me ironic that those who had the best view of the glistening snow-capped peaks were all buried several feet underground.

Some repair work was going on. The retaining wall of the cemetery was being shored up, but the overseer told me that there was no money to restore the damaged grave. With the help of the chowkidar I returned the scattered bones to a little hollow under the collapsed masonry, and I left some money with him so that he could have the open grave bricked up. The name on the gravestone had worn away, but I could make out a date — November 20, 1950 — some 50 years ago, but not too long ago, as gravestones go....

I found the Burial Register in the church vestry and turned back the yellowing pages to 1950, when I was just a schoolboy myself. I found the name there — Michael Dutta, and his age, 15, and the cause of death: Road accident.

Well, I could only make guesses. And to turn conjecture into certainty I would have to find an old resident who might remember the boy or the accident.

There was old Miss Marley at Pine Top. A retired teacher from Woodstock, she has a wonderful memory, and she had lived in the hill-station for more than half a century.

White-haired and smooth-cheeked, her bright blue eyes were full of curiosity as she gazed benignly at me through her old-fashioned pince-nez.

"Michael was a charming boy — full of exuberance, always ready to oblige. I had only to mention that I needed a newspaper or an aspirin, and he’d be off on his bicycle, swooping down these steep roads with great abandon. But these hill roads, with their sudden corners, weren’t meant for racing around on a bicycle. They were widening our road for motor traffic, and a truck was coming uphill, loaded with rubble, when Michael came round a bend and smashed headlong into it. He was rushed to the hospital, and the doctors did their best, but he did not recover consciousness. Of course you must have seen his grave. That’s why you’re here. His parents? They left shortly afterwards. Went abroad, I think... A charming boy, Michael, but just a bit too reckless. You’d have liked him, I think."

I did not see the phantom bicycle -rider again for some time, although I felt his presence on more than one occasion. And when, on a cold winter’s evening, I walked past that lonely cemetery, I thought I heard him whistling far away; but he did not manifest himself. Perhaps it was only the echo of a whistle, in communion with my insubstantial shadow.

It was several months before I saw that smiling face again. And then it came at me out of the mist, as I was walking home in drenching monsoon rain. I had been to a dinner party at the old Community Centre, and I was returning home along a very narrow, precipitous path known as the Eyebrow. A storm had been threatening. The sky blossomed with sheet lightning and thunder rolled over the mountains. A heavy mist had settled on the hillside. It was so thick that the light from my torch simply bounced off it. The rain became heavier. I moved forward slowly, carefully, hugging the hillside. There was a clap of thunder, and then I saw him emerge from the mist and stand in my way — the same slim dark youth who had materialised near the cemetery. He did not smile. Instead he put up his hand and waved me back. I hesitated, stood still. The mist lifted a little, and I saw that the path had disappeared. There was a gaping emptiness a few feet in front of me. And then a drop of over a hundred feet to the rocks below.

As I stepped back, clinging to a thorn bush for support, the boy vanished. I stumbled back to the Community Centre and spent the night on a chair in the library.

I did not see him again.

But weeks later, when I was down with a severe bout of flu, I heard him from my sick-bed, whistling beneath my window. Was he calling to me to join him, I wondered, or was he just trying to reassure me that all was well? I got out of bed and looked out, but I saw no one. From time to time I heard his whistling; but as I got better, it grew fainter until it ceased altogether.

Fully recovered, I renewed my old walks to the top of the hill. But although I lingered near the cemetery until it grew dark, and paced up and down the deserted road, I did not see or hear the whistler again. I felt lonely, in need of a friend, even if it was only a phantom bicycle-rider. But there were only the trees.

And so every evening I walk home in the darkness, singing the old refrain:

We three,
We’re not alone,
We’re not even company;
My echo,
My shadow,
And me....