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Always being born
By accident , a maker of films, I am what I am. My city, mercilessly maligned and dangerously loved, in a way, is a state of mind. Good or bad, yes or no, they know me as an iconoclast. --- Mrinal Sen
Sen, the narrator, always banked on his spontaneity, while experimenting with his chosen medium. An 'agent provocateur', his films have triggered debates, defying the frontiers created and closely guarded by the conservatives. This buoyant social commentator has continued to confront, fight and survive on those very pressures that propelled him to look beyond and dream--- a dream that drew a very fine line between fantasy and reality--- a discerning distinction between fact and fiction....!
In this book Mrinal Sen tells stories of his life and times as personal anecdotes .
Sen, the narrator, always banked on his spontaneity, while experimenting with his chosen medium. An 'agent provocateur', his films have triggered debates, defying the frontiers created and closely guarded by the conservatives. This buoyant social commentator has continued to confront, fight and survive on those very pressures that propelled him to look beyond and dream--- a dream that drew a very fine line between fantasy and reality--- a discerning distinction between fact and fiction....!
In this book Mrinal Sen tells stories of his life and times as personal anecdotes .
310 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 11, 2025
Sen-tenary
Grateful to Seagull Books of Calcutta for republishing this lost gem, Mrinal Sen’s memoir – Always Being Born. On the publisher’s page it reads: “An outspoken memoir by a much-celebrated Indian filmmaker.”
Sen was often described as a radical and rebellious rulebreaker, but “outspoken” is perhaps the best summation of his life and works. An artist who wouldn’t allow the society to dictate the limitations of his art; that’s who Sen was throughout and Always Being Born is the closest glimpse one can get of this maverick genius.
Each chapter of this edition chronologically takes us through Sen’s journey – a loved and protected young boy born in the small town of Faridpur (now in Bangladesh) who came to the city of Calcutta and gradually became one of the most distinguished intellectual minds representing the aesthetics of this city.
From his early failures to unexpected successes, from box office duds to unimaginable international acclaim – one of the few Indian filmmakers who won big at all three major film festivals in the world, viz., Cannes, Venice, and the Berlinale. A lucid self-portrait of his dreams and despair as well as a candid, often brutal inner look at the ever-sharpening, persistently self-critical politics of his cinema.
Sen, an integral part of the holy trinity of Ray-Ghatak-Sen, also devotes some delightful passages to that famous war of words that began after the release of Sen’s Akash Kusum (1965) between Satyajit Ray, Ashish Burman (the author of the story on which the film is based) and Sen in the columns of “Letters to the Editor” in the Statesman – Sen admitting in the end how no one particularly gained anything from this skirmish.
It’s this anecdotal nature of the volume, which showcases Sen as an artist who always wore his fame lightly and never took his own myth too seriously that has made it such an all-time personal favourite. The appropriacy of this book’s title reminds me of a Bob Dylan song which begins with the line: “That he not busy being born is busy dying”. Sen, like Rajesh Khanna’s Anand, shall always be so busy being born that he’ll never die.
Grateful to Seagull Books of Calcutta for republishing this lost gem, Mrinal Sen’s memoir – Always Being Born. On the publisher’s page it reads: “An outspoken memoir by a much-celebrated Indian filmmaker.”
Sen was often described as a radical and rebellious rulebreaker, but “outspoken” is perhaps the best summation of his life and works. An artist who wouldn’t allow the society to dictate the limitations of his art; that’s who Sen was throughout and Always Being Born is the closest glimpse one can get of this maverick genius.
Each chapter of this edition chronologically takes us through Sen’s journey – a loved and protected young boy born in the small town of Faridpur (now in Bangladesh) who came to the city of Calcutta and gradually became one of the most distinguished intellectual minds representing the aesthetics of this city.
From his early failures to unexpected successes, from box office duds to unimaginable international acclaim – one of the few Indian filmmakers who won big at all three major film festivals in the world, viz., Cannes, Venice, and the Berlinale. A lucid self-portrait of his dreams and despair as well as a candid, often brutal inner look at the ever-sharpening, persistently self-critical politics of his cinema.
Sen, an integral part of the holy trinity of Ray-Ghatak-Sen, also devotes some delightful passages to that famous war of words that began after the release of Sen’s Akash Kusum (1965) between Satyajit Ray, Ashish Burman (the author of the story on which the film is based) and Sen in the columns of “Letters to the Editor” in the Statesman – Sen admitting in the end how no one particularly gained anything from this skirmish.
It’s this anecdotal nature of the volume, which showcases Sen as an artist who always wore his fame lightly and never took his own myth too seriously that has made it such an all-time personal favourite. The appropriacy of this book’s title reminds me of a Bob Dylan song which begins with the line: “That he not busy being born is busy dying”. Sen, like Rajesh Khanna’s Anand, shall always be so busy being born that he’ll never die.
February 4, 2019
Adil hussain once told in an interview that confidence is not your ability to say lucidly what you want to convey but it consists in making that thing get conveyed through your subordinates or person inferior to you with the same amount of clarity and vividness.
The fullest culmination of this thing is observed in this man and his films.
I started watching his films a bit late.
What Marxism was unable to convey in a political,economic,despotic and in a theoretical manner,he conveyed it through a beam of light which dispersed in hues containing familial bonds,human frailities,relationships,frustrations,hopes,desperation,pessimism and a whole lot of other shades.
And these hues were not representative of a single person or a single region,it spoke on behalf of a whole generation and probably the generation which came next to him also.
Thats his greatness.
Probably thats why he neither called himself leninist,revisionist,stalinist or fidelist but a "personal" marxist.
To be frank i am not a specialist in cinema and its ananlysis but Mrinal sen through his personal anecdotes,personal happenings,instances and events tries to give you a confidence so that you can yourself find a meaning/interpretation/analysis of his works.And thats what a scale to judge his broad based canvas.And thats the reason i found alienation in Khandahar,repetition of history(as marx cautioned us) in Akaler shandhaney,repentence and slap of meek in kharij,a non familial,non national,non lingual relationship between a woman of bengal and a salesman from China in Neel Akasher Nichey and a lot more.
His Calcutta trilogy is nonpareil.
This work is replete with his description of Calcutta,his arguments with Satyajit ray,his encounters with world renowned directors and filmmakers and his views on his works in an engaging language.
The fullest culmination of this thing is observed in this man and his films.
I started watching his films a bit late.
What Marxism was unable to convey in a political,economic,despotic and in a theoretical manner,he conveyed it through a beam of light which dispersed in hues containing familial bonds,human frailities,relationships,frustrations,hopes,desperation,pessimism and a whole lot of other shades.
And these hues were not representative of a single person or a single region,it spoke on behalf of a whole generation and probably the generation which came next to him also.
Thats his greatness.
Probably thats why he neither called himself leninist,revisionist,stalinist or fidelist but a "personal" marxist.
To be frank i am not a specialist in cinema and its ananlysis but Mrinal sen through his personal anecdotes,personal happenings,instances and events tries to give you a confidence so that you can yourself find a meaning/interpretation/analysis of his works.And thats what a scale to judge his broad based canvas.And thats the reason i found alienation in Khandahar,repetition of history(as marx cautioned us) in Akaler shandhaney,repentence and slap of meek in kharij,a non familial,non national,non lingual relationship between a woman of bengal and a salesman from China in Neel Akasher Nichey and a lot more.
His Calcutta trilogy is nonpareil.
This work is replete with his description of Calcutta,his arguments with Satyajit ray,his encounters with world renowned directors and filmmakers and his views on his works in an engaging language.
November 4, 2017
Every biography follows a particular format of writing that reflects the thinking of the writer. When a renowned filmmaker like Mrinal Sen is telling a story, it ought to be infused with informal creativity and straightforward ease. He describes his relationship with his city - Kolkata, his movies, actors, national and international directors. His constant search for a story that has simple characters going through the everyday baggage of life and finding themselves suddenly stripped of the cover that they themselves were sometimes deliberately trying to stretch.
A good workbook for theatre enthusiast providing a sketch of a great creative mind thinking, feeling, moving with his time.
A good workbook for theatre enthusiast providing a sketch of a great creative mind thinking, feeling, moving with his time.
February 10, 2025
What a journey I didn't finish a book but I feel like I just completed a journey...a journey that was joyous, exciting, poignant, hopefull and at times morose but in a nutshell wonderful...I say 'a' journey because this is one of the findings from the book that one journey ceases for the next to begin...to reevaluate, to learn something to not be stagnant because whosoever has read the book will agree that stagnation is death and We the ones who've come across this book know that we'll never cease never stop on this journey or on any endeavour as we're like the Man said, Always Being Born
October 10, 2020
I read translation Tamil. An epic.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews