My Mirror column:
In honour of Satyajit Ray's 98th birthday last week, here's a look back at one of his least-watched but loveliest films: Kanchenjungha (1962).
What action there is in it is hedged around with conversation. Quite often, conversation is the action. And yet this is simultaneously a film full of moments of quiet, of letting the visual speak.
A lot of that visuality comes from the setting: the still-colonial hill station of Darjeeling, where a well-off Bengali family is on the last day of their vacation. We learn from the suited, cigar-smoking patriarch Indranath that they have been there seventeen days — a time that speaks both of the length of holidays in the 1960s, and of the leisure this family enjoys.
At one level, this is a film about the hidden costs of arranged marriages – most often paid by women, but often also by men. Sankar is the example that the film offers of this: a man who feels that fate has dealt him an unlucky hand, a wife who doesn't love him. One of the earliest lines spoken in the film is Sankar's unsolicited advice to Moni: to not marry without love, and the film keeps us, till the end, on that path of possibility.
At a more profound level, though, Kanchenjungha is about being true to the self even when it seems foolhardy, about courage and independence of spirit pitted against the pragmatic and secure option. And that courage, interestingly, enters the narrative from a most unlikely source: an impoverished young man who has been introduced to Indranath and who almost snags a job offer from him before his self-esteem gets in the way. “Aren't you unemployed?” demands the haughtily insensitive big man. “No,” Ashok finds himself saying. “What do you do?” “I give tuitions.” “How much does that fetch you?” “Fifty rupees a month.” “Don't you need more than that? “I do.” “And how do you propose to get it?” “By my own efforts,” says Ashok, and turns away from the stumped older man.
One of the film’s most memorable moments comes just a little later, when Ashok, having come upon Monisha on a winding hill path, marvels at his refusal of her father’s patronage. Perhaps it is these misty mountains, these amazing tall trees, the grandness of all this, which made me feel like a giant, he muses. “As if I was special. As if I could do anything at all... If it had been in Calcutta, I wouldn’t have had the courage.”
In honour of Satyajit Ray's 98th birthday last week, here's a look back at one of his least-watched but loveliest films: Kanchenjungha (1962).
Born on May 2, 1921, Satyajit Ray burst upon the scene with Pather Panchali in 1955. But his first original screenplay was for Kanchenjungha (1962). Apparently written by Ray in ten days at Darjeeling's Windamere Hotel, Kanchenjungha is a glancing, elliptical sort of film. I remember first watching it as a pre-teen and coming away unsure of what had just unfolded. Like the elusive snow-capped Himalayan peak for which it is named, Kanchenjungha does not reveal itself at first glance.
What action there is in it is hedged around with conversation. Quite often, conversation is the action. And yet this is simultaneously a film full of moments of quiet, of letting the visual speak.
A lot of that visuality comes from the setting: the still-colonial hill station of Darjeeling, where a well-off Bengali family is on the last day of their vacation. We learn from the suited, cigar-smoking patriarch Indranath that they have been there seventeen days — a time that speaks both of the length of holidays in the 1960s, and of the leisure this family enjoys.
But the mood is not leisurely. What there is instead is a sense of expectation, of things preparing to come to a head. The ornithologist uncle is searching for an as-yet-unseen bird; a suitor has hunted down a particular flower; the patriarch is eager for an unobstructed glimpse of the peak to round off the holiday properly. The sole grandchild, too, wants to wrench what she can from her last day in the hills. “I'm going to take many, many rounds [on the pony],” she announces. Even the little girl, otherwise oblivious of adult business, senses that time is running out. A highly eligible bachelor called Mr Banerjee is expected that day to propose to the family's younger daughter, Monisha. (It is part of Ray's brilliant detailing that no-one ever refers to Banerjee by his first name. N Viswanathan's character remains, despite all his sophistication, a hazy, distant outline – while his intended bride is so identified with her nickname, Moni, that another character in the film has to imagine her full name.)
Nineteen-year-old Moni is still at university, but her father Indranath has approved Banerjee, and since no one ever challenges Indranath, everyone assumes that the marriage will be fixed by day's end. Ray uses this prospect of wedding bells to cast into relief the lives of the other two couples: Monisha's parents Indranath and Labonyo, and her elder sister and brother-in-law Anima and Sankar. The older couple's relationship is a case of male obliviousness, even in the face of clear disquiet. Indranath asks his wife for her opinion, but it is clear that her only possible role is to support his decision. Labonyo (played by Karuna Banerjee, famously cast by Ray as Apu and Durga's mother Sarbajaya) has lived long enough with her husband to know when silence is the only option. With a man who is used to getting even smiles on demand, perhaps her best one. She sings her heart out, but cannot speak it.
At one level, this is a film about the hidden costs of arranged marriages – most often paid by women, but often also by men. Sankar is the example that the film offers of this: a man who feels that fate has dealt him an unlucky hand, a wife who doesn't love him. One of the earliest lines spoken in the film is Sankar's unsolicited advice to Moni: to not marry without love, and the film keeps us, till the end, on that path of possibility.
And yet, this is still Ray: he will not reject the social contract wholesale, even as he holds it up for us to peruse, gently suggesting that there might be some holes in the fabric. “Are you suggesting that all marital partnerships must be based on an exact match of qualities and interests between a man and a woman?” asks Banerjee pedantically. “No, that would be absurd,” snaps Moni, using the English word.
At a more profound level, though, Kanchenjungha is about being true to the self even when it seems foolhardy, about courage and independence of spirit pitted against the pragmatic and secure option. And that courage, interestingly, enters the narrative from a most unlikely source: an impoverished young man who has been introduced to Indranath and who almost snags a job offer from him before his self-esteem gets in the way. “Aren't you unemployed?” demands the haughtily insensitive big man. “No,” Ashok finds himself saying. “What do you do?” “I give tuitions.” “How much does that fetch you?” “Fifty rupees a month.” “Don't you need more than that? “I do.” “And how do you propose to get it?” “By my own efforts,” says Ashok, and turns away from the stumped older man.
One of the film’s most memorable moments comes just a little later, when Ashok, having come upon Monisha on a winding hill path, marvels at his refusal of her father’s patronage. Perhaps it is these misty mountains, these amazing tall trees, the grandness of all this, which made me feel like a giant, he muses. “As if I was special. As if I could do anything at all... If it had been in Calcutta, I wouldn’t have had the courage.”
There could be no greater tribute to the Bengali’s love of the mountains.
Published in Mumbai Mirror, 5 May 2019.
Published in Mumbai Mirror, 5 May 2019.
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