Journey of a poet
Shoma A. Chatterji

Rituparno Ghosh’s documentary on Rabindranath Tagore Jeebon Smriti offers a glimpse into the creative life of the Nobel Laureate

Rabindranath Tagore wrote Jeebon Smriti (1913) when he was 51. It was published just before he won the Nobel Prize. This free-flowing, unconventional narrative spanned memories from the first 27 years of his life. Rituparno Ghosh, who passed away recently, made an 80-minute documentary on Tagore called Jeebon Smriti. For the first 27 years, Ghosh visually creates images drawn from the book. After that, Ghosh allows his script to take over with voiceover by eminent persons to enrich the fabric of the narrative and strip it of monotony.

Like Tagore’s book, the descriptions are vivid, with Tagore, played by four different actors to represent four different age-spans, interspersed with still photographs of the poet, his children, with his family, with great personalities like Albert Einstein and Mahatma Gandhi and so on. The voice over informs that it was Tagore, who gave the title ‘Mahatma’ to Gandhi.

Ghosh insisted "my documentary on Tagore will not remain confined within the achievements of Tagore as a Nobel Laureate. My aim is to project the real personality of Tagore as a human being. For me, he remains the one and only global icon."

Jeebon Smriti was commissioned by the special panel headed by the Prime Minister to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Tagore. The film has been produced by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

The 80-minute documentary visually creates images drawn from the book

What role did Tagore play in the life of filmmaker-actor-lyricist-production designer-scriptwriter Rituparno Ghosh? "For me, Rabindranath is someone I can laugh and cry with. I can hug him and can also touch his feet," said Rituparno in one of his interviews.

Though actors like Samadarshi, Raima Sen and Sanjoy Nag have been cast as real characters, their action is presented through their facial expression and body language. His recreation of the ‘period’ flavour is tinged with his feel for aesthetics on the one hand and his commitment to authenticity on the other. The camera wanders across the Jorasanko in Kolkata where Tagore spent a large part of his boyhood. It explores the poet’s relationship with his father, his sister-in-law Kadambari and his low-profile but deep rapport with wife Mrinalini. Prabuddha Banerjee’s theme music blends into the mood and ambience of the film while Saumik Haldar’s camera brings out the finer nuances of this great personality. His travels to Bolpur, Silaidaha and beyond Indian borders offer a glimpse into the creative life of the poet burdened with the grief of having lost his wife and three children during his lifetime.

Jeebon Smriti is far from one of Ghosh’s best films. This was his first feature-length documentary after 20 years in cinema. His decision to intercut the narrative on the poet often with shots of the processes of making the film, visiting locations, zeroing in on images of himself, dressed and made-up elaborately and conversing with his crew members on a silent screen jar within the smooth flow of the narrative. It brings the film down by a few notches aesthetically, and even ethically because a global icon like Tagore should have independent space minus interruptions by a filmmaker making a film on his life. In some way, this approach marginalises the subject, Tagore.

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