Ritwik Ghatak’s 100-Year Timeless Tragedy Triumphs

🖊️Roopsa Ganguly

The air at Boimela Prangan is thick with nostalgia and reverence. A century after his birth, Ritwik Ghatak’s name still ignites passion among cinephiles, scholars, and dreamers. The 48th International Kolkata Book Fair has become a temple of tribute to this cinematic maestro, where a dedicated stall, shimmering with posters of his films and excerpts of his scripts, draws visitors into the haunting, evocative world he once captured through his lens.

Ghatak’s films were never just stories; they were laments, battle cries, and lullabies woven into frames of light and shadow. Born on November 4, 1925, in Dhaka, his work chronicled the pain of a fractured land, the echoes of lost homes, and the resilience of those left behind. His Partition Trilogy—Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960), Komal Gandhar (1961), and Subarnarekha (1962)—are elegies of displacement, their dialogues still rippling through time. The stall at the fair, curated by a publishing house soon to release a book on his life, stands as an intimate homage to the man whose vision transcended mere storytelling.

A bookseller, surrounded by stacks of literature dissecting Ghatak’s genius, smiles as he recounts visitor reactions. “People step in, and their eyes light up. They speak of scenes they cannot forget, characters that feel like family. His films didn’t just depict reality; they seared themselves into the soul.”

The Kolkata Book Fair, an annual literary carnival, pulses with voices from around the world, bringing together authors, poets, and philosophers. Amid the flurry of book launches and panel discussions, Ghatak’s centenary celebration is a beacon of remembrance. His artistry, ahead of its time, broke conventions and defied silence, forcing audiences to confront harsh truths. Even today, in a world still grappling with displacement and identity, his vision remains strikingly relevant.

February 6, 1976, marked the end of his mortal journey, but his influence only deepened in the decades that followed. His experimental use of sound, his raw, poetic imagery, and his fearless social commentary set him apart. Now, as Kolkata loses itself in the labyrinth of words and stories at the fair, Ghatak’s essence lingers—etched in the grainy reels of his films, in the yellowed pages of critiques, in the hushed reverence of those who step into this tribute, whispering his name like a prayer.

Ritwik Ghatak did not just make films; he sculpted emotions. And as his centenary is celebrated at the book fair, one truth is undeniable—his story is far from over.