This is the centenary year of acclaimed filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak, and among the first to celebrate it in West Bengal happens to be a society of Hindi speakers in the State, which claims that, unlike other Bengali filmmakers who mostly depicted Hindi-speaking people as “doormen or drivers,” Ghatak portrayed them as proper characters.
On June 8, Paschim Banga Hindi Bhashi Samaj (West Bengal Hindi Speakers’ Society), will hold a screening of Ghatak’s film Subarnarekha and also a commemorative discussion on the director who was born in November 1925 and died at the age of 50, much of his iconic status being built posthumously.
“If you see Satyajit Ray’s films or Mrinal Sen’s films, you will usually find Hindi-speaking people shown as either drivers or doormen. In Ray’s film Sonar Kella, for example, you find Bengalis travelling in a train to Rajasthan not having much conversation with a Marwari co-passenger, but the same Bengalis are shown to be so comfortable in Rajasthan,” Ashok Singh, general secretary of the Society and former head of Hindi department at Surendranath Evening College, told The Hindu.
“Whereas if you watch Ghatak’s Bari Theke Paliye, you will see a boy running away from his village to the big city of Calcutta being shown kindness by a Hindi-speaking man selling sattu on the road. Such a humane portrayal of the meeting of two migrants!” Mr. Singh said, explaining why Ghatak meant a lot to the society of the Hindi-speaking.
Extended tribute
The June 8 event will be held at Rammohan Library and attendees will include academics and filmmakers from Kolkata, Delhi, and Mumbai. Some of the names mentioned are Kamaleshwar Mukherjee, Sanjoy Mukherjee, Sanchita Sanyal, Mohammed Salim (former MP), and Sonamani Tudu (Santhali lyricist and singer).
Why only Subarnarekha? “That’s only to begin with. Our tribute to him will go on for months and we will show all his films. We are starting with Subarnarekha because it is very relevant today. It is an explosive experiment with mythology. The political questions raised in Ghatak’s films are more important today than ever,” Mr. Singh said.
The Paschim Banga Hindi Bhashi Samaj was established in March 1999 with the aim, according to Mr. Singh, of promoting the educational and cultural development of Hindi-speaking people in West Bengal and protection of their democratic rights. The body has over 1,000 members and has district committees in Kolkata, Howrah, Hooghly, West Bardhaman, South 24 Parganas, and North 24 Parganas.
He said that even though the Hindi-speaking community makes up 15% of the population in West Bengal, it has had no representation in the government for decades. “When the Congress was in power, there was a Hindi-speaking minister, but after the Left Front took over and ever since then until today, there has been no Hindi-speaking minister in West Bengal. Even in Nandan, which is such an important cultural centre in Kolkata, they have completely stopped showing Hindi films,” Mr. Singh said.
Published – June 06, 2025 08:53 am IST
