The Magnum Opus of the Bengal Partition and Its Aftermath: Motifs and Antinomies (original) (raw)

2020, Ritwik Ghatak and the Cinema of Praxis

This chapter further examines the structure of Ghatak's oeuvre that follows the structure of an epic: for instance, as almost all the films are divided into episodes, they are integrated through recurrent thematic and formal motifs. Since these motifs are common to all his films, Ghatak's films never appear to end with the formal ending of their specific narrative that varies in each case. At the level of discourse, each film flows into the other. Thus, each film is an aperture, a point to be continued, an episode loosely knit within the broader framework of Ghatak's epic structure. The argument that the chapter develops is that Ghatak's entire work can be perceived as an epic, and each film as an episode within this vast epic of the exodus that is constantly on the move, in search for a praxis which will bring about a new existence based on an egalitarian world view. The chapter traces themes related to the grand betrayal of India's independence which resulted in the partition of India. It explores themes of exile, homelessness, displacement, loss, unemployment, class deterioration, struggle, nostalgia, myopia and amnesia. These themes are developed across motifs and antinomies in Ghatak's cinema. The chapter thus attempts to establish Ghatak as an auteur, who through his cinema constructed the grand epic of the partition and its aftermath, by depicting the numerous ways in which the experience of partition impacted upon the lives of people in Bengal, whether these were external factors such as displacement, homelessness or unemployment or deeper struggles related to survival, in terms of coming to terms with one's loss through remembering and constantly mourning or still deeper psychic defences and devastations that resulted in the loss of relationships at a psychic level through becoming unmindful and myopic or resulted in amnesia, and the deeper loss of self. The chapter also focuses on the subtle discourse of unity in Ghatak's cinema, as a manifestation of an intense desire for unification of the two divided nation states. This discourse of unity also becomes a symbol of defiance against the division of the country.