Unmechanical: Ritwik Ghatak in 50 Fragments

About the BookFIFTY ESSAYS ON ONE OF INDIAS MOST CONSEQUENTIAL AND CONTROVERSIAL FILM-MAKERS-A MAN UNDERAPPRECIATED IN HIS TIME AND UNDERSTUDIED AT HOME.Who saidyou cannot wound flowing water?Here the river itself was the weaponto break a big home. Jayant KaikiniRitwik Ghatak died a broken, ravaged man. Almost every film he made failed at the box office at the time-if they were released at all-and his life and family were in a shambles, his partitioned Bengal was no closer to healing, no rapprochement with the left parties was in sight. But Safdar Hashmi describes the day he died, 6 February 1976, thus: hundreds of people thronged the hospital he lay in, and as the funeral procession began in the afternoon, thousands joined in, singing all the way to the burning ghat.If he wasnt feted in his time, Ghataks relevance has only grown globally since: the bold innovations of his humanist cinema, the depth of his engagement with the lives of the people and his uncompromising vision for true revolution steeped in the history and culture of the land. And all the while, the mystique that had always surrounded him only swirled more fiercely.Unflinching and even ruthless, alcoholic and irresponsible, an irrepressible genius, a master of the craft of film-making and a relentless innovator: these fifty essays-by his collaborators and family, academics who study him and writers who admire him-celebrate Ghatak on his centenary through reflections and expressions of love.About the EditorShamya Dasgupta is a sports journalist by profession, currently working as deputy editor with ESPNcricinfo, and a cinema enthusiast. Hes the author of Dont Disturb the Dead: The Story of the Ramsay Brothers (2017), and two books on sports, Bhiwani Junction: The Untold Story of Boxing in India (2012) and Cricket Changed My Life: Stories of Hope and Despair from the IPL and Elsewhere (2014). He translated Mahasweta Devis Laayl-e Aasmaner Aayna into the English (Mirror of the Darkest Night, 2019). He lives and works in Bangalore.