Subhash K Jha turns the spotlight on the filmmaker of some of the classics of Indian cinema — Asit Sen.
Having grown up watching Asit Sen’s intensely romantic drama, I felt a twinge of regret and rage at the way the film industry forgot the man who made neo-classics like Khamoshi, Safar and Mamta.
Bindiya Dutta had the privilege of working with him in 1983 in a film called Mehndi . Bindiya grew mishti-eyed at the mention of this Bengali Babu’s work. “I saw Asitda’s Mehndi on television the other day. It’s amazing how well the film holds together in spite of the passage of time. I really enjoyed working with Asitda. He was a real actor’s director.”
Not too many actresses of the post-70s generation realize what a boon it was to be directed by Asitda. No matter how great the talent or stardom, every actress from Suchitra Sen and Sharmila Tagore to Hema Malini and Bindiya Goswami came out smelling like a bouquet of roses in this understated and underrated genius’ films.
Asit Sen didn’t need heavy props and elaborate sets to shoot his films. Shot straight on-location in the heart, his cinema exuded eloquent silences, manifested so richly deeply and eloquently in the Hemant Kumar produced Khamoshi. Sanjay Bhansali once told me the title of his debut film was a tribute to one of his favourite films of all times.
Like Sanjay, I can see Khamoshi any number of times. Waheeda Rehman’s lucidly lit face expressing myriad doubts misgivings and confusions. The shrieking protesting silences of a woman on the edge as Hemant Kumar’s haunting ‘Tum pukar lo’ played on the soundtrack, left a deep and indelible impression on my cinematic sensibilities.
The purists said Khamoshi wasn’t half as brilliant as its original Bengali version Dweep Jweley Jai made in 1959. And that Suchitra Sen achieved a lot more as the nurse who loses her head while curing a patient whom she begins to love. But in both versions Asitada achieved an astonishingly high emotive energy. In many ways I believe these two films re-empted Milos Foreman’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. If only Nurse Rached was not so wretched she would have secreted the compassion and sensitivity of the nurse, Radha in Asit Sen’s Khamoshi and Dweep Jweley Jai.
The actors, whether it was Rajesh Khanna in Khamoshi and Safar or Suchitra Sen in Dweep Jwaley Jai , Uttar Falguni, and its Hindi re-make Mamta, actors ceased to be stars once they put themselves in Asitda’s hands. He milked the most compassionate portrayals out of every actor he worked with. In the skilled and searing love triangle Safar ( which was a remake of Asitda’s first Bengali film Chalachal) the director handled Feroz Khan , who played Sharmila Tagore’s husband, with amazing gentleness, bringing out a nuanced and delicate performance from the Khan’s swaggering personality.
To no one’s surprise Khan won the Filmfare award for best supporting actor in Safar. But it would be unfair to say he walked away with the film. No one actor did that in Asitda’s cinema. Only the ladies were given the privilege to lord over the proceedings. Like Bimal Roy’s other disciple Gulzar, most of Asit Sen’s films from Dweep Jweley Jai and Uttar Falguni to Maa Aur Mamta (flagging off Nutan’s foray into mum’s world) and Sharaafat (one of Hema Malini’s earliest and best works ) were female-centric.
The impact that Asit Sen’s cinema made on the romantic drama of the post-Devdas era was deep and far-reaching. Mamta! for which the filmmaker persuaded the elusive Suchitra Sen to reprise her Bengali role, has been remade so many times by so many directors of varying abilities, it has almost become as distinct a reference point as Mehboob’s Mother India. Among the notable clones of Mamta there was director Ambrish Sangal’s Dard in which the protagonist’s gender was changed and played by Rajesh Khanna . In cinematographer turned director Pravin Bhatt’s Bhavna, Shabana Azmi did a modernized version of Suchitra Sen’s immortal part.
Asit Sen’s cinema not only depended on the traditions of classical romantic melodrama to foster a post-Bimal Roy style of mellow-drama, he also made hugely experimental films which split conventions wide open. After Mamta, Asitda made Anokhi Raat which grouped a gallery of unrelated characters, including a harassed father (Tarun Bose) forcing his daughter (Zaheeda) into a loveless marriage and a dacoit (Sanjeev Kumar) who mistakes the woman for his dead wife, under the same roof. Episodic and innovative, Anokhi Raat (and its quasi-followup Anokha Daan four years later) echoed Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Musafir.
Stark and surreal, Asitda insisted on filming Anokhi Raat and his next experimental drama Khamoshi in black and white even though the technicolour era was very much in vogue by then.
Asitda was never comfortable with colourful kitsch. Anari in 1975 (the title paid a tribute to Bimal Roy’s other disciple Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s early hit) with Shashi Kapoor, Sharmila Tagore and Moushumi Chatterjee, was a veritable mess, unworthy of a man who made a series of exquisite dramas throughout the 1950s and 60s.
Bairaag in 1976 which featured Dilip Kumar in three roles, and dragged on for three years, was a nightmare which Asitda never escaped for the rest of his career. There are harrowing stories about how the film’s all-purpose leading man would direct shots while Asitda would sit in a corner in a drunken haze.
The big-budget monster project Bairaag signalled the beginning of the end of Asitda’s career. He was soon forgotten in Mumbai by all his ‘friends’. But Jaya Bachchan who did one of her best film Annadata with Asitda would often speak fondly of this man of supreme silences and how he would make his actors react rather than act on the sets.
Released in 1973 Annadata is an interesting summit in Asitda’s career. Unlike his other great works this one revolved around a male character. That brilliant character actor Om Prakash starred as a disenchanted rich industrialist who leaves home to live life at the grassroot level.
Who can forget Salil Chowdhary songs in Annadata–’Raaton ke saaye ghane’, ‘Niss-din niss-din mera julmi sajan’, ‘Nain hamare saanjh—sakaare’…..There was music in the soul of Asitda’s cinema which manifested itself in unforgettable melodies that man and woman shall hum till time’s gone—Roshan’s ‘Rahen na rahen hum’ and ‘Chupa lo dil mein yun pyar’ in Mamta, ‘Mehlon ka raja mila’ and ‘Miley na phool to kaanton se dosti kar li’ in Anokhi Raat, ‘Tum pukar lo’, ‘Humnein dekhi hai un aankhon ki mehekti khushboo’ and ‘Wohshaam kuch ajeeb thi’ in Khamoshi, ‘Zindagi ka safar’, ‘Hum the jinke sahaare’ and ‘Jeevan se bhari ter aankhein’ in Safar and ‘Sharafat chod di maine’mand ‘Main iss paar khadi yeh sochoon’ in Sharaafat….
