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Dekha : Gautam Ghose’s next
GAUTAM Ghose has begun his new feature film, Dekha, after a long hiatus since Gudia, which had a rather lukewarm reception from both the masses and critics when it was released some years ago. In fact, this Plus Channel production starring Mithun Chakravarty, Pran and Nandana Sen did not get a proper release at all and was rejected by the selection panel for an Indian Panorama screening. Yet, it was based on a story by Mahasweta Devi.

Somewhere between Gudia and Dekha, Ghose did two significant films. One was a short telefilm, Fakeer, in Hindi, and the other, an ambitious and long documentary on filmmaker Satyajit Ray.
Fakeer, based on a story by Bibhuti Bhusan Bandopadhyay, bagged for its main actor Pawan Malhotra, the Critics Award for the Best Actor last year at the National Film Awards. Dekha is being produced by Ramesh Gandhi of Rainbow Movies, the numero uno production house for television and satellite software in Bengal.

"With Dekha, I am tackling the middle-class and upper middle-class society for the first time. The subject of the film revolves around the world I have seen and the world I have not seen. For example, there are things that are visible to our vision, our eyes, but there are also many things that lie beyond the frame of our immediate seeing. We are constantly surrounded by incidents and happenings. We like some of them. We don’t like some too. Through this film, I have tried to thread a garland strung together with experiences of my predecessors and my own experiences. The film therefore, does not have a continuing narrative line. It is rather, an attempt to grasp relationships between and among people of different social classes, people within the same class," explained Gautam while talking about Dekha.

Ghose is highly enthused about a small screen producer’s coming forward to produce a feature film, that too, an off-mainstream one. "The fact that Ramesh Gandhi has ventured into producing this film is an interesting development. If you notice closely, you will find that over the past four decades, quality film-making in Europe has been closely linked to television, either through joint productive efforts, or with help from the small screen world in different ways. This entry of small screen producers into feature films is a welcome development. Channel Eight has also produced a feature film before this in Bengal. One hopes these houses for software production will eventually organise themselves to form a team like it has happened in Europe. This helps in sustaining a good bonding and yet maintaining a distance on the part of both television and the large screen". he added.

The first schedule of shooting was in progress at Aurora Studios in Calcutta. Soumitra Chatterjee, Indrani Haldar and Debasree Roy were readying themselves for the next shot. Soumitra Chatterjee is portraying Sashibhushan, an intellectual with Leftist leanings who also writes poetry. He has lost his vision seventeen years ago to glaucoma. The two-story structure at Aurora Studio is being used to represent Shashibhushan’s dilapidated family home. Debasree is playing Sarama, a young divorcee who has taken shelter in Sashibhushan’s house. Indrani Haldar plays Reema, who edits a little magazine called Pragnya.
Sashibhushan’s life forms the central focus of the film.

Sashibhushan was involved with the Leftist revolution in Bengal in the Seventies. However, with time, he realises that he is gradually losing his position and his focus and his life begins to flow differently. Then, he suffers an attack of glaucoma and loses his vision completely. When the film opens, Sashibhushan is already and old man. His dotage is spent mainly in clinging to memories of a bygone era, symbolised by the antiques around his ancestral house - an old clock, old furniture, paintings, the works. Sarama lives with her son in the same house.

Sashibhushan was once a student of Sarama’s father. Sarama is divorced from her husband Nikhil, an artiste.
Sarama’s own story forms another layer of the story. With Sarama’s entry into his life, Sashibhushan’s ’vision’ changes, and he begins to ’view’ the world through Sarama’s and his Man Friday Nibaran’s eyes. Then, one fine morning, Sarama receives a letter from her old parents in North Bengal, who ask her to come and live with them. Sashibhushan goes along with her. The natural environs, the forest surroundings, the birds, the greenery, deeply influence Sashibhushan and Sarama and their thoughts begin to change in certain subtle ways. Here, they meet a young man, Gagan, who is genetically blind. He has arrived from Rangpur in Bangladesh and is residing as a house-guest with Sarama’s parents. He has a mellifluous voice and sings quite well. Sarama feels a strange attraction for Gagan which, with time, transcends the borders of a purely platonic friendship into something more deep, more physical.

By now however, Sashibhushan has begun to depend a great deal on Sarama and her emotional diversion begins to assume the shape of a threat to him. They come back to Calcutta. Gagan comes alongwith them. And then begins this emotional tug-of-war within Sarama. She is trapped in an emotional dilemma she finds difficult to come out of. On the one hand is her strong physical attraction for Gagan. On the other, her emotional response to Sashibhushan’s need for her.

Sashibhushan has also changed, and for the better. He has picked up his love for the muse and has begun to compose poems again. What happens in the end, is best left unrevealed at this point according to Gautam. Other than the three stalwarts of Bengali’s off-mainstream, Soumitra, Debasree and Indrani, others in the cast are Paran Bandopadhyay (Nibaran), Biplab Chattopadhyay (Biplab), Roopa Gangopadhyay (Roopa), Anjan Dutta (Nikhil), Suman Deb (Sarama’s son) and Kamal Kanjilal who makes his film debut in Dekha. Kanjilal incidentally, is a naturally blind person in real life and Gautam has picked him from the Blind Opera in Calcutta. The original storyline created by Gautam himself has been honed and sharpened by none other than Sunil Gangopadhyay himself. Gautam has also done the cinematography and composed the musical score for this film. The film is being edited by Malay Banerjee, with make-up by Anoop Gangopadhyay, and production design by Manik Banerjee. Nilanjana Ghosh is the costume designer and Surajit Dasgupta. Dekha will have six songs sung by Swagatalakshmi Dasgupta, oldtimer Gita Ghatak, Tapan Roy and Sraboni Sen. The film has been shot extensively on location at Chapramari, Jhalang, Malbazar and some of the beautifully picturesque locales of the hilly ranges of North Bengal. SAC.