The world of Rituparno Ghosh: texts, contexts and transgressions

Abstract

In this article we introduce the queer Bengali auteur Rituparno Ghosh (1961–2013), who had a significant role in reviving the Bengali film industry that was going through a dark phase for a little more than a decade. As an iconic feminist film-maker and queer cultural figure, Ghosh has been an influential icon within Bengal and more widely in India and the diasporas. In seeking to examine his vast oeuvre of work we focus on its various elements. First, we examine Ghosh’s feminist position, and how he shocked his middle-class audience through his transgressive discourses. Second, we investigate the influence and inspiration he received from figures such as Satyajit Ray and Rabindranath Tagore. We argue that Tagore’s sensibility and philosophy imbued all his films. In doing this he was also uncritically referencing the other great Bengali film-maker Satyajit Ray. Third, an examination of Ghosh is incomplete without referencing his uninhibited performance of queerness both in his films and in the public domain. Over here we look at his final queer film trilogy but also the impact he left on Calcutta’s LGBT community. Finally, this article ends by focusing on Ghosh’s legacy on other Bengali film-makers.

Keywords:

• Rituparno Ghosh
• queer
• auteur
• Bengali cinema
• Rabindranath Tagore
• Satyajit Ray

Notes

1. We are using the term bhadrolok following Sumit Sarkar’s explication of the term. See, Sarkar, A Critique of Colonial India.

2. For a detailed study of Dahan, see Mukherjee, “Feminism in a Calcutta Context.”

3. Datta, “Several Roles Converging.”

4. Datta, “Life, Death and an Elsewhere.”

5. Datta, “Life, Death and an Elsewhere,” n.p.

6. For a discussion on Indian films made on queer subjects, see Ghosh, “The Wonderful World of Queer Cinephilia”; Bakshi and Sen, “India’s Queer Expressions on Screen,” 174–5; and Dudrah, Bollywood Travels.

7. Bakshi and Sen, “India’s Queer Expressions on Screen,” 174.

8. Bakshi, “My City Can Neither Handle Me Nor Ignore Me,” 11.

9. Bakshi, “Chokher Bali: Unleashing Forbidden Passions,” 6–7.

10. This quotation is transcribed (and translated into English from Bengali) from the talk show Ghosh & Company hosted by Rituparno Ghosh for a Bengali entertainment channel Star Jalsa.

11. Ghosh, “First Person,” October 31, 2010a, 4.

12. Ghosh, “First Person,” April 24, 2011, 4.

13. Hazra, “Amra Rituparnora,” 5.

14. See Dasgupta, “Launda Dancers,” 442; and Dasgupta and Moti Gokulsing, Masculinity and Its Challenges in India.

15. Mukherjee, “The Impossibility of Incestuous Love,” 408.

16. Interview with Shakuntala Sinha, Kolkata, October 9, 2013.

17. Interview with Sanjay, Kolkata, September 15, 2013.

18. Interview with Rita Sengupta, Kolkata, December 14, 2013.