Ritwik Ghatak’s birth centenary is this month. Last week a few dozen of us had a wide-ranging Zoom discussion about him, and about my friend Shamya Dasgupta’s new anthology, which I mentioned here. Four of the contributors to the book – Shamya, Amborish Roychoudhury, CS Venkiteswaran, and myself – were present, as you can see from these images (all bearded men - I call it a WolfManel), but other participants weighed in too with thoughts about Ghatak and his work and influence. As did the Westland publisher, Karthika VK.

A few of the talking points included: how a viewer can feel differently about Ritwik Ghatak over time (with personal growth and of course with the availability of better prints/subtitles); a political move in his seemingly least “political” film Bari Theke Paliye; Keralite attitudes to Ghatak; the film teacher who claimed not to care for cinema as a form; humour, playfulness and music in Ghatak’s cinema.

Anyone who would like the link to the Zoom recording, please email me (jaiarjun@gmail.com) and I’ll send it across.

(And thanks to Shillpi Singh for these creatives and for pushing us to keep sharing information about the book.)