Abhijan (The Expedition)

Andrew Robinson, Satyajit Ray’s biographer, described Abhijan as “proof of Ray’s capacity to communicate with a mass audience when he wants.” Released in 1962, Abhijan (The Expedition) was Ray’s biggest commercial success in his native Bengal. Set in a small town on the Bengal-Bihar border, the film revolves around a potpourri of characters, who ‘by their very nature act more than they talk’. (Ray in conversation with Robinson; Andrew Robinson, Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye) Ray originally had no plans of directing Abhijan. A producer friend, Bijoy Chatterjee, who along with some other friends was planning to direct a film, had requested him to write the script for Abhijan, a novel by acclaimed Bengali writer Tarashankar Bandopadhyay (the author of Jalsaghar). After the completion of the script, Ray got busy with the writing and shooting of Kanchenjunga, his first color film, which also showcased his first original screenplay and full-length music composition. Following the release of Kanchenjunga in 1962, he was at a loose end, and was persuaded by his friends to help with the pre-production of Abhijan. Ray attended the first day’s shooting as a “friendly gesture” and soon found himself directing the first scene. By the end of the day, his friends had successfully managed to persuade him to take over the reins of direction. As Ray puts it, “They lost their nerve…It was a kind of distress call – SOS!” (Ray in Andrew Robinson’s Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye)

Ray decided to cast his regular Soumitra Chatterjee as the film’s hero, Narsingh. Chatterjee’s penchant for different kinds of Bengali slang convinced the director he would be able to carry off the role of the hot headed and proud taxi driver, with a passion for his vehicle, a 1930 Chrysler. With his height and refined features, the actor seemed to embody the Rajput (a North Indian warrior caste) Narsingh perfectly. Rabi Ghosh, a Bengali stage actor who had acted only in one film prior to Abhijan, was cast as Rama, Narsingh’s sidekick and comic foil. The actor later became immortal as Bagha Byne of the musical duo of Ray’s Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne musicals. Ghosh’s stellar performance in Abhijan played a significant role in the film’s success. In fact, his feelings for the car seem more genuine than even Narsingh’s. After days of careful observation of taxi-cleaners at a taxi stand near his Calcutta home, Ghosh could imitate not only their mannerisms and ways of talking (which often leave words indistinct) but also their distinctive wolf-whistling. His only worry was that the audience might not accept him when, at the end of the film, he turns serious and pleads with Narsingh not to sell the car. However, the transition seemed to have ‘worked very well’. As Ray recalls, ‘There was no titter from the audience; the hall was absolutely in the grip of the film at that point. Rabi was so happy; he said, “All right, I have passed the test.”’ (Ray in Andrew Robinson’s Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye) Charuprakash Ghosh (Nanda Babu of Aparajito), a non-professional actor, was also “superb in his mixing of the comic and the sinister” as Sukhanram, the Marwari merchant whose piety was equaled only by his unscrupulous business practices. (Marwaris are a mercantile caste from Marwar in the desert state of Rajasthan who now control most of the businesses in eastern India)

The two other pivotal characters in the film are female and make a strong dramatic contrast. Ruma Guha Thakurta plays Neeli, the Catholic schoolteacher who Narsingh falls in love with and who inspires him to reform his ways. In his shooting notebook Ray described Neeli as ‘a quiet reserved girl who has completely outgrown – through education and her own strength of will – the traces of her low-caste origin. She has pride, dignity and intelligence.’ In spite of his disinclination for casting relatives, Ray chose Guha Thakurta, his wife, Bijoya’s cousin, for the role of the quiet and reserved Neeli. Hindi film actress Waheeda Rehman makes her first (and only) appearance in a Bengali film as the warm and demonstrative prostitute, Gulabi, who is in love with Narsingh. Ray, who was initially hesitant about casting Rehman, later described her as “a rare talent…an extremely sensitive artist”. The actress who made her debut as a vamp in the Guru Dutt film noir classic C.I.D. (1956) was one of the rare Bombay film heroines who combined mass appeal with critical acclaim. Though her usual fee was more than the budget of any of Ray’s films, she agreed to do Abhijan for a nominal sum since she was so eager to work with him. Abhijan was the first Ray film with a mainstream Hindi film star – a feat he would repeat later with Shatranj ke Khilari (The Chess Players, 1977) and Sadgati (Deliverance, 1981). Waheeda Rehman co-starred with Soumitra Chatterjee recently in Aparna Sen’s English film, 15 Park Avenue (2006) and also plays a pivotal role in the Oscar nominated Water (dir. Deepa Mehta, 2006).

Apart from its Bombay star, Abhijan also marks another first in a Ray film – a fight scene. But Ray was disappointed with the scene – ‘The fight in Abhijan wasn’t staged very well…We were shooting in the height of summer. The temperature was 114 degrees in the shade and it was supposed to be winter, so they were all wearing warm clothes. It was physically an excruciatingly difficult scene to shoot…I would have wanted more shots, more close-ups, more of the business of the fight…I’d have very much liked a John Ford-type rough-and-tumble.’ (Ray in conversation with Andrew Robinson; Robinson, Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye) This would also be the last time that a fight scene was staged in a Ray film, with the exception of some fisticuffs in Pratidwandi (The Adversary, 1970).

Though Abhijan was one of Ray’s most popular films, it failed to emulate the critical success of the Apu Trilogy, Jalsaghar (The Music Room), or Teen Kanya (Three Daughters). For noted film critic Chidananda Das Gupta, the film was symbolic of Ray’s “periodic urge to break out of the confines of what he is best reputed to do, and try his hand at something unfamiliar.” (Das Gupta, The Cinema of Satyajit Ray) Andrew Robinson regards Abhijan more as a “conscious response” to box-office failure that prompted him to make a film with “popular elements” without resorting to the excessive melodrama of commercial Bengali cinema. Abhijan is regarded as a departure from his usual style of filmmaking, and was also criticized for it’s ‘miscasting’ of the suave, urbane Soumitra Chatterjee as the semi-literate Rajput taxi driver. Though Marie Seton was impressed with Chatterjee’s transformation – “(with) a convincing beard and moustache…his sensitive personality (was) wholly submerged in the mature and roughened image of Narsingh” (Seton, Portrait of a Director) – she seems to be the sole voice of assent. For Das Gupta, “Chatterjee’s affinity to the urban literati is so marked that to make him put on a long beard, a permanently afflicted expression and false accent is one of the most uncharacteristic casting decisions Ray ever made. It simply does not ring true, ever.” (Das Gupta, The Cinema of Satyajit Ray) But as Robinson points out, maybe the weakness in Chatterjee’s performance was not simply a matter of miscasting, but more of “a subtle problem” – “The fact that Ray himself did not drive a car, meant that he was probably unable to enrich Narsingh’s love for his vehicle with telling details, as he successfully could do with the zamindar’s love of music in The Music Room (Jalsaghar). Somehow, Narsingh never convinces us that he is capable of tuning his own carburetor or adjusting his points, say; his love for the car seems always a bit artificial.” (Robinson, Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye) However, in spite of the critics’ verdict, Abhijan remains till date one of Ray’s most popular films in Bengal. Abhijan received the President’s Silver Medal from the Indian government (New Delhi, 1962).

Jalsaghar (The Music Room)

Jalsaghar (The Music Room), released in 1958, was made in the interim period between Aparajito (The Unvanquished) and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu). Based on a short story by the acclaimed Bengali writer, Tarashankar Bandopadhyay, the film is considered one of Ray’s masterpieces and enjoys a cult status. Derek Malcolm, writing in 1975, described Jalsaghar as Ray’s ‘most perfect film’.

Set in the 1920s, Jalsaghar poignantly portrays the decadence and fading glory of the Bengali zamindar (feudal landowner). Unable to accept the success of his nouveau riche upstart neighbor and still clinging to the remnants of his past grandeur, the protagonist, Biswambhar Roy (Chhabi Biswas) is a pathetic and pitiful figure. Andrew Robinson compares Roy to another character from a later Ray film – Nawab Wajid Ali Shah in Shatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players) – “Both are irresponsible men whose faults typify their class, but both are redeemed by a genuine love of music and dancing.” Shatranj Ke Khilari’s Nawab and Jalsaghar’s Bengali zamindar are emblematic of the feudal elite, anachronistic and powerless, besotted with their aristocratic past and struggling to survive against forces of modernity and change.

Ray had initially planned Jalsaghar as a more frivolous film, with lighter, less austere music. Following the commercial failure of Aparajito in Bengal, he was in desperate need of a winner. In a letter to Marie Seton in May 1957, Ray describes the film as “a rather showy piece about a decadent music-loving zamindar and his fantastic efforts to uphold family prestige”. However, in the course of writing the screenplay, the “frivolous”, “showy piece” was transformed into a “brooding drama”, a “serious study of (Indian) feudalism” and also the first film to employ Indian classical music as an integral element of its narrative. The film’s music by noted sitar maestro, Ustad Vilayat Khan, was more strictly classical than the fluid musical style of Ravi Shankar (who had composed music for the Apu Trilogy).

However, it was during the making of Jalsaghar that Ray became further convinced against using classical musicians as film composers. He felt that none of the musical greats he had worked with – Ravi Shankar, Vilayat Khan, Ali Akbar Khan – could successfully mould their talents to the demands of a film, or indulge in experimentation. In spite of Khan’s strict adherence to Indian classical music, he did convince him to agree to some mixing. In the scene where Roy is gripped by his own impending doom at the sight of the darkening chandeliers, Ray felt that Indian music alone would not be able to convey Roy’s terror. While editing he added to Vilayat’s soulful sitar rendition some Sibelius, thus creating “a sound texture that is more than just a music track”.

Chhabi Biswas as Biswambhar Roy brings to life the decadent and brooding zamindar. Biswas, one of Bengali cinema’s most renowned actors, also essayed pivotal roles in two other Ray films, Devi and Kanchenjunga. “Whether strutting around in sparkling white with a cockade and a riding crop, glancing in private at his meagre ‘purse’ for the dancer with disdainful resignation, subduing the vulgar Ganguli with a flick of his ivory cane, or staggering in drunken elation and depression around the music room, he is a formidable presence.” (Andrew Robinson in Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye)

It is ironic that Chhabi Biswas, playing the role of a music connoisseur, was himself virtually tone-deaf, a fact that Ray discovered rather late. Biswas had assured Ray that he would try to play the connoisseur “by producing the right facial expressions at certain points, saying wah wah, shaking his head, ‘looking dreamy eyed’ and so on.” But Ray would have none of it. He did insist, though, that Biswas learn how to fake the playing of an esraj so that he could be seen accompanying his son’s singing of the scales. He also asked Biswas to do something much simpler: to lift one finger of his right hand while he was listening to the strains of dancing coming from Ganguli’s house. Biswas had no idea why he was doing this, but in fact, to musical connoisseurs, this makes it clear that Roy knows the rhythmic cycle of the dance music. Later, during the mixing, it gave Ray real satisfaction to coincide the lifting of that finger with the precise beat of the music on the soundtrack. (Andrew Robinson in Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye)

Like many of Ray’s other films, Jalsaghar also has its share of interesting anecdotes. The ‘discovery’ of Biswambhar Roy’s palace is a story in itself. Ray and his team had just inspected their thirtieth nobleman’s palace (for the zamindar’s palatial mansion) and rejected it, when an old man in a tea shop overheard them talking and suggested they visit the palace of the Chowdhurys at Nimtita on the border of Bangladesh. Without much hope, they agreed to go. Recounting the experience in his article, “Winding Route to a Music Room”, Ray wrote – “Nimtita turned out to be everything that the old man had claimed – and more. No one could have described in words the feeling of utter desolation that surrounded the palace.” The owner was a seventy-year-old zamindar who knew one of Ray’s grand-uncles and who was the antithesis of Biswambhar Roy; he neither drank alcohol nor listened to music. But he had experience of that kind of behavior through his late uncle, Upendra Narayan Chowdhury, who had build the palace music room. Incidentally, Upendra Narayan was the same zamindar on whom Tarashankar had based his decadent protagonist.

Jalsaghar was a commercial success in Bengal, but received mixed reviews when released in the US in 1963. For Stanley Kauffman, it was “a deeply felt, extremely tedious film” while Bosley Crowther (who had earlier dismissed Pather Panchali) waxed eloquence about “the delicacy of the direction…the performance that Chhabi Biswas gives as the decaying landowner…the eloquence of Indian music and the aura of the mise en scene.” Ray himself had regarded the film as incapable of appealing to a Western audience – “I didn’t think it would export at all” – and was faintly surprised at its international success. (Satyajit Ray in conversation with Andrew Robinson; Robinson, Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye)