Kumar Shahani, the pole star of the parallel cinema movement in India, passed away in Kolkata on Sunday at 83 due to age-related illness. Always a critic’s choice, the influential filmmaker strived to capture the truth in every frame and his distinct portrayal of the changing human condition in Maya Darpan (1972), Tarang (1984) and Kasba (1990) has withstood the test of time.
Having resisted the temptations of popular taste, he would build half the bridge, offer his hand, and then expect his audience to embrace his unique point of view. For him, it was not just the individuality of a person that had to be respected and reflected but also that of the objects that surrounded him and the events that he was part of. He would often say self-realisation didn’t come from taking a selfie.
Born in Larkana in the Sindh region of undivided India, Shahani’s family shifted to Mumbai after Partition via Karachi. He found his voice at the Poona Film Institute under the guidance of the maverick Ritwik Ghatak and Marxist historian D.D. Kosambi, who helped shape his worldview. A strong critic of the manipulative power of capitalism, his works echoed the concerns and compromises of the working class, without being didactic.
FILE: The Making of An Information Society: The new Information Society with profound implications for the way people will work and live is fast impinging on us. India can no longer afford to ignore the rapid developments in the field of information and communications technology, argue the panellists. Photo shows one of panellists Mr. Kumar Shahani. (Photo taken December 06, 1980) PHOTO: THE HINDU ARCHIVES | Photo Credit: V_RAMAMURTHI
Shahani went to Paris on a French government scholarship and assisted Robert Bresson on Une Femme Douce (1969). He experienced the student unrest of May 1968 against capitalism, consumerism, and American imperialism. Strictly against the commodification of emotions, he was inspired by the minimalism of European masters but did not shun decorative metaphors that defined the Indian tradition altogether. Having studied the epic tradition in Hindu and Buddhist mythology and iconography as part of the Homi Bhaba scholarship, the amalgam of European formalism and Indian mythology and music resulted in a unique visual signature where no ism screamed for attention. Against putting cinema into brackets of parallel and commercial, Shahani often praised the contribution of Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar but maintained that popular cinema should make an effort to look beyond the image.
The connoisseurs of cinema loved to engage with his contemplative imagery, brought to life by his friend and trusted cinematographer K.K. Mahajan, that was not bound by geographical boundaries. When he emerged on the scene with Maya Darpan, his distinct voice was recognised as a breakthrough in cinematic language in the European and American circuits. Though the film that dealt with a woman’s desire caught in a feudal society won him the National Film Award, he found resistance on his home turf and it took him 12 years to mount his next film, Tarang, where he astutely examined the class struggle in a capitalist society functioning under the garb of democratic socialism.
Kumar Shahani (right) with K.K. Mahajan shooting “Kasba”.
In love with literary sources, for Maya Darpan, Shahani drew from Nirmal Verma’s short story but gave it his interpretation, which the author took time to come to terms with. In Tarang, Janaki’s character recalls the mythical Urvashi analysed by Kosambi in Myth And Reality. In Kasba, he reimagined Chekov’s In the Ravine in the Indian milieu to tell the tale of a local businessman who indulges in malpractices, and Char Adhyay was based on Rabindranath Tagore’s novel. However, the availability of funds proved to be a lifelong hurdle, as many of his ambitious ideas, including an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, could not fructify.
Another remarkable feature of his work is the seamless integration of Indian classical music, dance, and visual arts in his storytelling. In Khayal Gatha, he traces the history of the Khayal genre of Indian classical music. His seminal documentary Bhavanatarana, on the legendary Odissi exponent Kelucharan Mohapatra, continues to inspire, and so does The Bamboo Flute, his tribute to the Indian flute.
Shahani introduced talents like Rajat Kapoor and Mita Vashisht, and worked with mainstream actors Amol Palekar, Girish Karnad, Smita Patil, and Shatrughan Sinha without pandering to their star image.
When cinema is reduced to just a utilitarian device, Shahani will be missed but then his ideas will live on through his students, including Rajat Kapoor, Fareeda Mehta, Paresh Kamdar, and Gurvinder Singh.
