The politics of ‘Ruddhasangeet’

Bratyajoner Ruddhasangeet (Stifled Song of an Outcast) is the autobiography of Debabrata (George) Biswas, a legend in the world of Rabindranath Tagore’s Bengali songs, a form commonly known as Rabindra Sangeet. The musical career of Biswas started way back in the early forties. During the sixties he had already grown into a phenomenon, gripping the ardent Rabindra Sangeet followers with his deep, non-crooning and passionate voice. Biswas had a unique style of singing. Gleamed with enunciated pronunciation and sensitive modulation his performances could bring in life and vivacity into the songs. To many of his fans the sound of his voice resembled the voice of black American singer and civil rights activist Paul Robeson. However, from 1964 onwards, the ostensive purists of the Vishwabharati Sangeet Board had started raising objections about his presentation style on the ground that Biswas was altering the conventional tune-notations with melodic excesses and wrong tempo. He was also accused for overusing western instruments in the prelude and interlude section of the songs. As the copyright owners of Tagore’s works, the Vishwabharati Sangeet Board was authoritatively controlling all Rabindra Sangeet recordings at that time. It was compulsory for every artist to get their sanction before commercially producing any Rabindra Sangeet record. Deeply hurt by the dictates, an uncompromising Biswas was reluctant to bow down before the so-called exponents and experts of this puritan establishment. Initially he had braced himself to fight with the Board but later decided on his own to stop recording any more songs. The detailed story of this famous conflict was unfolded in his fascinating autobiography published in 1979. The following year on August 18, Debabrata Biswas was dead.

Remembering Ritwik Ghatak: 32 years after his death

Ritwik Ghatak was once diagnosed as a patient suffering from duel personality. This was the time when he was frequently been admitted to hospitals as a result of his relentless drinking and eccentric lifestyle. An utterly shattered man, he passed away on 6 February 1976 at the age of 51. His admirers recall that he looked thirty years older than his actual age. They also speak about his strange nature to ‘allow mean and vicious people to hurt him repeatedly’ and ‘to hurt those who loved him the most and tried to help him’. In his swansong film Jukti Takko Aar Gappo made in 1974, Ritwik in a honest way tried to portrait himself through the protagonist Neelkantha Bagchi, the name suggesting the Hindu god Shiva, who according to Hindu legend had acquired the name ‘neelkantha’ or ‘blue throat’ after swallowed all the poisons of the world during the churning of the ocean. Similar to Ritwik, Neelkantha was also a middle class leftist intellectual but unorthodox, battered and isolated by the mainstream left and the society in general. His demeanor alienated him from his family and friends but by the sparkling insights, high optimism for life and honesty to the core, Neelkantha in many ways resembles Ritwik.