Latest news with #Ghosh
Mint
19 minutes ago
- Entertainment
- Mint
An exhibition spotlights Nemai Ghosh, Satyajit Ray's ‘photo-biographer'
The study in the Bishop Lefroy Road apartment grew in proportion over the years with the stature of its occupant. For generations of Bengalis, Satyajit Ray's study at his residence in Kolkata was a compelling idea, for here sat the director, in a low chair, thinking, reading, talking, scripting, drawing storyboards, costumes or sets, composing music: visualising the films that would transform Indian cinema. Ray in his study—and outside it, filming—was photographed ceaselessly for 25 years by Nemai Ghosh, called Ray's 'photo-biographer" by Henri Cartier-Bresson. A selection of 150 of these photographs are now on display at the Alipore Museum, Kolkata. The exhibition, titled Light and Shadow: Satyajit Ray Through Nemai Ghosh's Lens, organised by DAG, opened on July 18 and will run till September 13. DAG has the largest collection of Ghosh's photographs. 'This must be one of the largest such collections of a single photographer in India," says Ashish Anand, CEO and managing director, DAG. Ghosh, shadowing Ray always, captures him outdoors with the same intensity: focused on the camera, or cupping his hands close to his eyes as frames, an image of concentration. This looks like meditation, as does Ray's stillness in his study. Thought is also action, and action, the continuation of thought. Ghosh's lens captures this internal process and gives it a form, as it does to the outward process of filming. The photographs of Ray are portraits of an artist at work. And what a figure he is: tall, with arresting features and a towering personality, a 'giant of cinema" according to Cartier-Bresson —set against the chaos of life, yet always distinct, in command. A telling image has Ray asking the crowd at a Varanasi ghat to clear the space during the shooting of Joi Baba Felunath. His stretched left arm seems to have silenced the crowd. But portraying a 'giant" such as Ray can be a tricky business, as is curating an exhibition from a vast body of work shot on film. 'Nemaida used film for his shoots and abstained from the use of flash. This made the task even more difficult because there were variations of each frame that differed in both sharpness and mood," says Anand. Ray's stature presented another problem. 'He was a towering personality but we didn't want that to overpower the image selection…(we needed to show) the filmmaker in a way that would be a homage without being hagiographic," Anand adds. The line between the two can be thin. Ghosh's own words on his subject are revealing. He was a Ray devotee. Ray himself had called Ghosh his 'Boswell", after the celebrated biographer of the English writer Samuel Johnson. But Ghosh out-Boswells Boswell in self-effacement and humility. Ray, the 'master", Ghosh would say, was everything for him. 'As the moon is illuminated by the light of the sun, very many people have come into the light because of Ray. It was my good luck that one day my stars shone on me too. Whatever inspiration and education I have received in my life are like pebbles I have collected from the shores of the sea called Satyajit Ray," writes Ghosh in the preface to Satyajit Ray: A Vision of Cinema, a book with his photographs of Ray. Unadulterated adulation from an audience is one thing, but for an artist, a photographer, the clouding of vision is dangerous. Fortunately, Ghosh seems to look at words and images differently. He was a master of photography, which chose him as much as he chose it. In the 1960s, when Ghosh was a stage actor working in Utpal Dutt's group in Kolkata, he was gifted a camera left behind in a taxi, 'a fixed-lens QL 17 Canonet". With this camera, but without any knowledge of photography, in 1968, Ghosh visited the shooting location of Ray's film Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne at Rampurhat in West Bengal, about 200km from Kolkata. Seeing Ray rehearse, Ghosh began to click away. 'I just used my intuition. I didn't know much about the camera, about the aperture or other features," he says in an interview. When Ray saw the photographs, he told Ghosh: 'Sir, you stole my angles!" Appointed the still photographer on Ray's sets, Ghosh took photographs of Ray and his work from Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne to Ray's last film, Agantuk. Ghosh was a natural. For him the moment, the light and the drama had to come together. Not for nothing was he from theatre. He shot only with an analogue camera, with a Nikon. 'My father took candid shots," says photographer Satyaki Ghosh, Nemai's son. Ghosh's subjects are hardly ever looking at the camera. Later, Ghosh learnt about the use of light from the stalwart lighting designer Tapas Sen. Most of Ghosh's photographs are in black and white—and they are his best work. They have a depth, a lyrical quality and a humanity that resonate with Ray's films. Ghosh did not shy away from colour, either, and there are a few gems in those too, such as Amjad Khan as Walid Ali Shah in Shatranj Ke Khiladi looking through the loops of the hookah coils with a lit cigarette in his hand. 'Out of 150 works in this show, around 65 coloured works are being showcased for the first time and the rest are black and white, which we have shown earlier," says Anand. Satyaki is upset that newer images from the mammoth collection are not being shown. Besides, he says, Nemai worked with several other subjects, from stalwarts of Bengali theatre like Sombhu Mitra and Utpal Dutt to artists such as Ramkinkar Baij, Benode Behari Mukherjee, Paritosh Sen, M.F. Hussain, K.G. Subramanyan, Anjolie Ela Menon and Jogen Chowdhury. After Ray's death in 1992, Ghosh began to photograph tribal communities, visiting remote corners of Kutch in Gujarat, Dantewada, now in Chhattisgarh, Koraput in Odisha and Ziro in Arunachal Pradesh. Perhaps one day we will see these in an exhibition. Meanwhile, at the Alipore Museum, we have remarkable portraits in colour of Smita Patil and Amjad Khan. A delightful black and white image shows Sharmila Tagore at a Kolkata beauty parlour, her hair in curlers, her face bright and amused. She is reflected in a mirror that also shows Ghosh taking the picture—a rare glimpse of the photographer. Chandrima S. Bhattacharya is journalist based in Kolkata.
Hans India
7 hours ago
- Politics
- Hans India
Another controversy hits RG Kar, irregularities in house staff appointment
Kolkata: State-run R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, where a woman doctor was raped and murdered last year and multi-crore financial irregularities were detected, is in the midst of a fresh controversy again. This time, the controversy is over the irregularities in the appointment of house staff for the institute, where the main allegation is the abrupt creation of additional seats. West Bengal Junior Doctors' Front (WBJDF), which was leading the mass movement on the R.G. Kar rape-murder issue last year, has flagged this issue of irregularities in house staff appointment in the institute. The additional seats created were allotted to one particular department, they said.. WBJDF pointed out that till the recent past, the number of house staff seats in R.G. Kar, combining the new and old batches, was 105, with 84 seats allotted for new candidates, while 21 seats were allotted for the supplementary batch candidates. However, this year, the controversy has erupted as 12 additional seats under this category were created, and surprisingly, all these additional seats were allotted not only in quota for the supplementary batch candidates but also for a single department of cardiology. WBJDF alleged that the creation of these additional seats, under the supplementary batch candidates and all for the same department, smells of foul play in the process. According to Dr Aniket Mahato, one of the leading faces of the R.G. Kar movement last year, although the request for an increase in the number of house staff seats in the hospital came from the junior doctors, they never expected that the increase would be done in such an arbitrary manner. 'It is surprising to see that 12 seats have been increased in just one department, and all under the supplementary batch quota. How could the seats be increased for one particular department overnight?" he questioned. Trinamool Congress-backed rival junior doctors' body, West Bengal Junior Doctors' Association (WBJDA), had been cautious in giving its reaction on the matter. 'There should not be a controversy on this issue. The principal has assured us that the authorities would look into the matter. If any irregularities have taken place, then the matter should be probed and resolved," said WBJDA office-bearer Sourav Das. R.G. Kar's medical superintendent-cum- vice-principal (MSVP), Saptarshi Chatterjee, has assured that a proper clarification in the matter would be provided to the institute authorities at the right time. It was during the tenure of the former principal of R.G. Kar, Sandip Ghosh, that corruption in the appointment of house staff in the cardiology department surfaced first time. Ghosh, as well as a junior doctor and leader of Trinamool Congress student wing, Ashish Pandey, were arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for their involvement in the multi-crore financial irregularities at R.G. Kar. Both Ghosh and Pandey are currently in judicial custody.
New Indian Express
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
Judging The Covers
Cinema on the cover Over the years, he has amassed nearly 10,000 records from across the world, especially from the US and Germany. While his collection includes everything from Western classical and Latin guitar to folk and Indian classical music, the exhibition focuses solely on film soundtrack covers. The covers have been arranged chronologically, starting from the 1950s. One of Ghosh's favourites, the 1959 Charlton Heston-starrer Ben-Hur cover, displays the film's monumental scale through its massive, colossal architectural typography, against an ochre background. 'You can see the lettering; it's designed in such a way that just by looking at it, you feel like you're watching a 70mm movie,' he says. Among the Hollywood highlights is The Godfather (1972), featuring the famous puppet-string logo in black and white. Another standout is Superman: The Movie (1978), with its gleaming 3D logo and an inner sleeve that shows Christopher Reeve in mid-flight, cape billowing behind. On the other hand, Doctor Zhivago (1965) has a softer, wintry appeal; its split portrait of the lead lovers played by Omar Sharif and Julie Christie depicting the tragic romance set against the backdrop of the Russian revolution. The Indian section of the exhibition is equally enchanting. Leading the row is Satyajit Ray, with four soundtrack covers of his films–designed by his son, Sandip Ray–put under spotlight. These include Shatranj Ke Khiladi, with a chessboard-like bordered pattern; and Ghore Baire, with the saffron wash and a flame motif placed atop the title. The exhibition also displays lesser-acknowledged gems like the 1979 Meera album featuring Hema Malini framed within a quatrefoil border, or Oliver! (1968) with its vintage-inspired oval frame.
Time of India
3 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
‘Atrocious' linguistic terror unleashed by BJP: CM before ‘Bhasha Andolan'
Kolkata: Sharing a 47-second video from July 26, of a migrant from Malda narrating the injuries Delhi Police inflicted on his one-year-old child and wife, CM Mamata Banerjee on Sunday said the linguistic terror unleashed by BJP against Bengali-speakers was "atrocious" and "terrible". The CM will lead a statewide 'Bhasa Andolan' from Birbhum on Monday. Posting the video on X, Banerjee said: "Atrocious! Terrible! See how Delhi police brutally beat up a kid and his mother, members of a migrant family from Malda's Chanchal. See how even a child is not spared from the cruelty of violence in the regime of linguistic terror unleashed by BJP in the country against the Bengalis! Where are they taking our country now?" Farida Biwi, who lives in Delhi's Geeta Colony, told TOI over the phone that the video was of her son's wife and child. "They were detained by Delhi Police despite showing EPIC, Aadhaar and ration cards. We have been working in Delhi for the past six years. We are Indian, not Bangladeshi. They are deliberately targeting Bengali-speaking Muslims." You Can Also Check: Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata Banerjee is expected to reach Birbhum late on Sunday. Ahead of the protests, Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh told reporters: "The videos reaching our party leaders (from migrants facing harassment) are nothing short of medieval brutality. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like This Simple Online Trick Makes Me $100 Every Day Try Now Undo This is hellish torture. In one video that has reached me, the person narrating his ordeal says he has been working in Haryana for the past two decades. People are being subjected to torture, denying them the right to show their valid documents and illegally packed off to detention centres without notices. " Ghosh said: "What is worrisome is that even Matuas and Rajbanshis are being targeted by BJP-governed states. BJP has unleashed an atmosphere of terror. How can speaking Bengali — a constitutionally scheduled language — be a crime?" Responding to BJP's claims that the drive was meant to flush out illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingya, Ghosh said: "Rohingya have a different geo-political context. It involves Myanmar, Delhi (Centre) and the United Nations. And if you talk of illegal Bangladeshis, whose task is to stop them? The answer is BSF. For either, why are Bengali-speaking Indian citizens being harassed even when they are showing legally accepted documents. " State finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya also launched a blistering attack on the Centre, accusing it of carrying out a "systematic and shameless assault" on Bengali identity across the country. "BJP-run states have turned the harassment of Bengalis into a strategy. But Bengal—and the global Bengali diaspora—will resist this with dignity and strength," she said. "The Centre will be held accountable at the right time. Bengal has never insulted people from neighbouring states like Assam, Odisha, Bihar or Jharkhand. Yet, across the country, Bengalis are being humiliated, attacked and even killed—simply because they speak Bengali. Bengal knows how to respond," Bhattacharya added.
Time of India
6 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Murshidabad TMC worker hacked to death
1 2 Behrampore: A TMC worker was hacked to death in Sialai village in Murshidabad's Bharatpur on Wednesday night. Two persons, including a TMC gram panchayat member, were detained for questioning. Preliminary probe suggests that Shasthi Ghosh's murder might have been linked to an old rivalry. The 56-year-old had recently questioned accounts of a local Puja committee. His family alleged that this demand for transparency led to Ghosh's murder. He was followed by attackers on two bikes and attacked with sharp weapons at a riverbank, said the family. Cops said Ghosh was a "known rowdy" and several criminal cases — including robbery, dacoity and murder — were pending against him. He was required to report regularly to the local PS. You Can Also Check: Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata While Ghosh's nephew claimed the murder was the result of TMC's factional troubles, the party's district president Apurba Darkar denied any infighting.
