Rituparno Ghosh was indeed a talented director and his untimely death is unfortunate, but it is difficult to accept that he was a “worthy inheritor” of the heavy mantle of Satyajit Ray (“A gutsy filmmaker whose craft transcended narrow confines,” May 31).
Although Ghosh started well by making thought-provoking films like Unishe April , Dahan , Asukh and Utsav , post-2003, he just played to the gallery by corrupting his films with “bold” sexual scenes. Despite the presence of innumerable gifted artists in Bengal, Ghosh succumbed to the glamour of Bollywood and “imported” its stars into Bengali screens.
While Ray, Mrinal Sen or Tapan Sinha made films on practically all topics, Ghosh preferred to confine himself to the shallow themes of extra-marital and/or same-sex relationships. Ghosh might have made his films commercially successful, but he also assaulted the cerebral quality of Bengali cinema.
Kajal Chatterjee,
Kolkata
The death of the award-winning filmmaker is a great loss to the Indian film industry.
Ghosh was well known for his realistic depiction of interpersonal relationships and problems of the urban-educated middle class.
D. Kishan Prasad Rao,
Karimnagar
