Aparna Sen’s 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981) was a landmark in my formative years as a film buff. I am not sure where I watched it. But what has stayed with me till date are Jennifer Kendal’s eloquent presence as the quiet and secluded Anglo-Indian teacher Violet Stoneham, and Ashok Mehta’s camera that captures the many shades of loss and solitude that imbue the film, and the textures of a fading world it is set in. It was about underscoring the tenuousness of a community as well as the vulnerability of an individual.
The film was my initiation into fearless female filmmaking. In an ageist film industry and society, Sen was radical in pivoting her debut on the taboo theme of ageing, that too with a senior woman as the protagonist. There was empathy in capturing the mundane, routinised habits of Stoneham as well as her sheer joy in striking a bond with the young former student Nandita.
There was grace in portraying her stagnancy as opposed to Nandita’s liveliness and sensitivity in the pain of the eventual rupture in their relationship, that too on Christmas. There was also the artistic astuteness in alluding to Shakespeare and crafting the narrative arc from Twelfth Night to King Lear.
Since that introduction to Sen, there has been much to admire about her, personally and professionally. The multi-hyphenate renaissance woman has been both influential and awe-inspiring with her immense talent, intelligence, commitment, and drive—as actor-writer-director-magazine editor-activist—that have shown no signs of waning as she turned 80 on October 25.
Legend has it that Shyam Benegal had initially offered his directorial debut Ankur (1974) to Sen. It was when she declined that Shabana Azmi stepped in and another icon was born, as inspiring and formidable as Sen in being a vital, robust, nuanced personality, and in becoming many such characters on screen. Azmi celebrated her 75th birthday earlier on September 18.
In the year of the deserved hubbub around the birth centenaries of filmmaker-actor-choreographer Guru Dutt, filmmaker-writer Ritwik Ghatak, musician-writer Salil Chowdhury, and the trinity of Khans turning 60, the landmark birthdays of Sen and Azmi also call for hearty celebrations.
I am struck by the alikeness in their strong personalities and obvious individuality. The two are close friends. Both have contributed to the flowering and progression of the independent, rooted-in-realism parallel cinema movement while flirting with the mainstream.
Azmi also went international with her work in John Schlesinger’s Madame Sousatzka (1988) and Roland Joffe’s City of Joy (1992), among others. Both have been sure of what they’ve wanted in their respective careers and lives, and have been in total control, often making unconventional choices in relationships as well as films.
Most so, both have been a stupendous mix of the feminist and the feminine. Their filmographies would form a major chunk in any research or review of the progressive representation of women in Indian cinema. Azmi’s characters and performances have ensured her an integral place in Indian cinema history as one of our best actors of all time.
Sen’s screen presence in films aside, it’s her work behind the camera that’s of more weight. The films directed by her have not just centred on women, but have also had mature women protagonists alongside the young. Like her exploration of the beautiful friendship of a woman with her ex-mother-in-law in Paromitar Ek Din (2000).
The portrayal of intimacy in Sen’s film was ahead of its time. Captured through the woman’s gaze, it was neither awkward nor exploitative, but more a metaphor for assertion of identity, liberation, and self-realisation. Like adultery as a transformative force for a middle-class housewife in her 40s, in Paroma (1985).
Sen, however, has placed women’s lib in a larger ambit. “I don’t believe in any ism other than humanism. Women’s issues are to me a part and parcel of humanism itself. Something I believe in and try to live by,” she says in Rajshri Dasgupta’s monograph Aparna Sen Calls the Shots.
It gets reflected in one of her most celebrated films, Mr and Mrs Iyer (2002), with a traditional Tamil Brahmin housewife rising above religious divides to protect a fellow passenger from a communal mob.
The professional paths of Sen and Azmi coincided in Sati (1989), Picnic (1989), 15 Park Avenue (2005) and Sonata (2017), with Azmi acting under Sen’s baton.
Intellectual and artistic legacies have shaped the course of both lives. In Azmi’s case, it was the inheritance from poet-father Kaifi Azmi and theatre-artiste mother Shaukat Azmi, combined with a stint at the Film and Television Institute in Pune.
For Sen, the exposure to good cinema came early, having legendary critic-filmmaker Chidananda Dasgupta for father and costume designer Supriya Dasgupta for mother.
The inheritance also ensured that cinema has not just been about craft, but socio-political awareness and ideology as well. Azmi continues to support and work for the Mijwan Welfare Society for the girl child and women in rural India that her father had set up in 1993 with education and skill training as its focus.
In a 1998 interview, when Sen was asked for her advice to young women, she said: “To read. To see. To be interested in people. To experience life to the fullest.” Azmi's Instagram account is a testimony to that.
There has been passion for cinema, but there is more to life than just movies. They are not spread thin in the media. They are not stuck in the rut of stardom. With Sen and Azmi there has been a wholeness to accomplishments and a mellow abundance to life itself.
(Views are personal)
Full article on newindianexpress.com
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Namrata Joshi
Consulting Editor
Follow her on X @Namrata_Joshi