By Nabamita Mitra
The partition of 1947 not only sliced one land into three pieces but left a deep wound in Ritwik Ghatak’s heart, the scar of which would remain for the rest of his life, manifesting its horror in his creations in the later years. The despondency that grips a person when he is thrown out of his home and country, the rage against the monolithic system and its outburst have recurred in Ghatak’s films and plays.
The destitutes who came in hordes to Kolkata after the partition with the hope of finding a refuge against a hostile government at home were only Gadarene hogs, meeting an end they never saw was coming.
The collection of five plays, which have been translated from Ghatak’s Bengali works, relives the pain of partition and the years of conflict, both internal and external, that followed.
Ghatak, whose masterpieces on silver screen denounced servility and celebrated revolution, was an equally gifted playwright. He was a member of the Communist Party of India as well as the Indian People’s Theatre Association and an uncompromising artiste. Often regarded as the rebel director of Bengali cinema, Ghatak never cowered from speaking the truth through his creations. His characters — Padma, Swarno, Sagar, Jaba, Shankar, Mohsin, Purno, Bodhu and many more — in the collection of plays are lesser mortals who struggle to rise above the squalor, created by political crisis, to become humans.
The five plays — Charter (Dalil), Communication (Sanko), Agony (Jwala), Ablaze (Jwalanta) and That Woman (Shei Meye) — not only focus on the partition but also its aftermath, including the famine of 1944 and the communal violence, as well as reflects on Ghatak’s experience as an asylum inmate.
Charter focuses on the time before and immediately after the partition. Two families, a Hindu and a Muslim, who had lived in harmony for years and toiled the same land in undivided Bengal now feel the heat of communal tension in East Pakistan. The play starts with the usual scenes of a village household and goes on to unfold the trauma of partition. The family of six leaves their home for Kolkata and tasks an old neighbour, Kalim, to take care of their land. But Kolkata, the city in West Bengal, disappoints Mahinder and his family who have to spend months on Sealdah platform with barely a square meal a day.
The story of Mahinder, his wife Swarno and son, elderly father, brother and sister is representative of millions of refugees who lived and died on Kolkata footpaths.
Mahinder’s sister Padma is enamoured by the buzz and wants to go with the flow. But her excitement ends with the death of a protester. Mahinder also loses his son in the heartless city. The family’s hope to go back to the motherland shatters with Kalim’s letter, “Chacha, the fight for life, language and land has become Bangla’s crusade. That’s all the news I have about this place.”
“Bangla re katicho kintu dile-re katibare paronai (You can divide Bengal but not our hearts),” is Ghatak’s conscience speaking through the characters.
Communication, the longest among the plays, is about the communal violence that broke out in Kolkata and its victim, though not literally, Sagar, a singer. The tumult on two sides of the Bengal border has not only created communal disharmony but has turned humanity into demonism and Sagar is part of it. His fear of losing his sister in Bangladesh prompts him to facilitate the killing of a young Muslim singer, Mohsin, from Bangladesh. Years after, his conscience takes him to Mohsin’s village. He wants penance but fails to find a way out of the web of love and affection that Mohsin’s parents shower on him unknowingly. Finally, Sagar musters his courage to confess his guilt and still finds himself accepted in the family. His only way of finding penance is in dedicating his life to the cause of the freedom fighters of East Pakistan.
Of all the plays, Agony, written in 1950, is the most hard-hitting with all its characters being based on real life stories of penury and dejection. The lunatic in the play is Ghatak’s signature.
All characters in the play are ghosts. They meet in another world after they commit suicide owing to poverty. Many people in Kolkata committed suicide in a span of a month before the play was written.
The ghosts search for a utopian world where there is peace and no poverty. They crave for a place where their loved ones, whom they have left in the violence-torn world, can be at peace. But where is the place? How can they ensure that? Will their loved ones meet the same destiny as they did? No, they have to stop the suppression and inspire their progenies to take up the gauntlet and sow the seed of class struggle. And the lunatic is their only contact with the world. The playwright and director uses surrealism to express realism with a finesse that only a genius like him can do.
Ghatak never gives up and so his characters. They don’t give up hope, they don’t stop fighting. Revolution is the only answer to a corrupt system. “Now fasten your armour/And be ready, all brothers,” is Ghatak’s clarion call.
The same spirit burns in Ablaze, which focuses on a Bangladesh that is in the grip of complete lawlessness. Rape and loot are daily affairs. But Bishnupriya’s indomitable spirit lives even after she is set on fire after being raped.
The last play, That Woman, is more about the taboo attached to mental illness, especially of a woman.
Inspired by real life, Ghatak’s characters in the plays easily fall into debauchery, give into rage and insecurity, lose sanity at child’s death and mindlessly talk about the world around when law and order is breaking down at home.
Ghatak, an auteur, drew his inspiration from renowned Bengali playwright Bijon Bhattacharya, husband of novelist Mahasweta Devi. However, with time, Ghatak drifted towards cinema and left an indelible mark. The master playwright in him suffered. In fact, only a handful of Ghatak fans know about his plays.
The translated work by Amrita Nilanjana is a commendable effort to popularise his plays among the youth. True that the plays in the original language have more impact and the essence of Bengal is lost in translation. Also, the editing mistakes are disappointing. Nonetheless, the book is an essential medium to know the master and about the time and life during and after the 1947 partition.
For readers in Shillong, the book holds equal importance as Ghatak had a deep connection with the place. One of his masterpieces was shot at Reid Chest Hospital. Ghatak’s wife, Surama Ghatak, was from the hill city. She died recently in Kolkata.
The book is a tribute to the great master on his 93rd birth anniversary on November 4 this year.
Book: Ritwik Ghatak: Five Plays, Translated from the Bengali original by Amrita Nilanjana; Publisher: Niyogi Books;
Pages: 312; Price: 495
