‘I’m an admirer and fan of Rituparno Ghosh’

I have known Rituparno right from his early days as a filmmaker and his very first feature film Heerer Angti (1992) made me sit up and take notice. He took me to the theatre with him to watch the film and its brilliance surprised me. I realised in that moment itself that a great filmmaker  of the next generation had arrived. Barring the last few films made by Rituparno, I have watched almost all of his works and we were in touch with each other throughout. I am an admirer and a fan of his talent and his cinema.

My wife and I shared a deep love for Rituparno till the very end. From what he said about me and what I said about him, it is clear that we had a deep respect for each other. The loss is personal so far as we are concerned.

I’d rate Rituparno as one of the most important Indian film makers of our  times.  Audiences, though, know him for his popular and national award-winning films like Dahan, Utsab, Dosor,The Last Lear, Shob Charitro Kalponik and Abohoman. But almost all his films were remarkable.

For audiences outside Bengal, Rituparno was known for getting Aishwarya Rai to pay the female lead for his films like Chokher Bali and Raincoat. Chokher Bali based on Tagore’s novel, also starred Prosenjit and Raima Sen and the film won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Bengali while Raincoat featuring Ajay Devgn won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi that year.

If I remember right, Rituparno had won the Special Jury award at the National Film Awards this year for Chitrangada, a film based on the story of Chitrangada from the Mahabharat, who struggles with his sexual identity. He was making a new film, Satyanweshi, but left us  before completing his last work.