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IN what may come as a rude shock to the country’s film buffs, some of the pioneering works of Dada Saheb Phalke awardees Mrinal Sen and Tapan Sinha have been either destroyed or missing from the archives. Master prints of Sinha’s 1954 debut venture Ankush have been destroyed in the archives of Pune’s National Film Institute. Mrinal Sen said one of his master print was lost due to alleged negligence of distributors. "My father is deeply attached with Ankush since it was his first movie as a director. He is really hurt that we lost the master print. Actually we have been informed about this by the institute," Sinha’s son Anindya said. Soumitra Chatterjee and Kanika Majumdar starrer Punashcho (Once Again), directed by Sen, was preserved in the archives of National Film Institute while the master print of Pratinidhi (Representative) was with the distributor of the film since its release in 1964. Ankush is believed to have been burnt in a fire in the Pune institute. According to Anindya, the original print of Kalamati is also missing. Maker of classics like Bhuvan Shome, Raat Bhor and Mrigya, in which Mithun Chakrabarty made his debut and won a national award, Sen is equally disturbed. "Yes, the master prints are missing or destroyed. I tried to find them but did not succeed. This is indeed painful," said the veteran filmmaker, who is considered a pioneer of parallel cinema in India. Sen came to know about the fate of Punashcho from the Pune Institute. Sen also apprehended that sound quality of Padathik, Akash Kusum and Calcutta 71 is in danger. Punashcho is about problems faced by a middle class family in which a woman member starts working while Pratinidhi is a revolutionary film on widow marriage. According to Anindya, his father feared about the fate of some of his earlier movies as well. Sinha, contemporary of Satyajit Ray, made classics like Kabuliwala, Sagina Mahato, Aponjan and Ek Doctor Ki Maut. Anindya felt there should be a proper system to preserve these "jewels" of Indian cinema. "It is tragic that in this high-tech era we don’t have a system to preserve our greatest works in the field of cinema. Something needs to be done immediately," he rued. National award-winner Soumitra Chatterjee, who has acted in these movies, felt sad for the legendary filmmakers. "It is unfortunate yet true. I don’t know when cinema will be taken seriously in India. We must have some kind of arrangement to save the beautiful works of Satyajit Ray, Bimal Roy, Mrinal Sen, Tapan Sinha, Guru Dutt and many more," he said. "These movies belong to the most artistic era of our cinema history. We are gradually loosing our treasure." Sen said huge money is required to have an individual preserving system and it is not possible for him to arrange that. — PTI
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