If there was any Indian film-maker who never repeated himself,someone who’s awe-inspriringly wide body of work can only be compared with someone like Satyajit Ray, someone whose repertoire spans 5 decades & 40-odd films to his credit ,he is none other than Tapan Sinha, the grand old man of Indian Cinema.
Though it remains a catastrophe, that very few people actually know properly about this master of movie-making as is evident from the lukewarm celebrations today, ie his birthday. However, this lack of awareness can be attributed to his long ouvre of work itself & the lack of branding of the same done by the connoisseurs of cinema that leaveas an audience confused whether films like Kabuliwala, khaniker Atithi, Jhinder bandi, Nirjan Saikate, jatugriha, Galpo Holeo Satyi,Apanjan,Sagina mahato,harmonium,Safed haathi,Bancharamer bagan ,Atanaka, Ek Doctor Ki maut,Antardhan,Wheelchair,Ajob gayer ajob kotha all belong to the same director. Writer Nabanita Deb Sen has rightly said,”Perhaps we like watching his films, but somehow forget the man behind them”.
But it’s not just the audience, but the critics have also perhaps failed to categorize him as a film-maker sometimes he’s included in the same bracket with Satyajit Ray,Mrinal Sen,Ritwik Ghatak ,some other times with his more commercial copunter-parts like Tarun Majumder,Ajoy Kar,Asit Sen while some other times in neither of the two. The reason behind this probably is that Tapan Sinha is the real father of “Middle Cinema”, films which are thought-provoking & entertaining at the same time ,a genre which unfortunately is credited to someone like Hrishikesh Mukherjee, who has actually been a plagiarist of Sinha’s films at times, yet managed to win the Dadasaheb Phalke Award 10 years before Sinha.
Tapan Sinha was not just a man, an institution. Not just a film-maker, he was a music-director, lyricist, script-writer & story-writer as well. But, it’s really disheartening to see why even after his demise he has not got his deserved respect & recognition.
