Mrinal Sen was 95 when he passed away. He had been ailing for a long time and was understandably lonely after the passing away of his wife Gita Sen in 2017. I remember one evening that I spent in their home – their mutual love and tenderness that infused all of us present, as we spoke about everything under the sun. The conversation was tinged with melancholy, as the shadows lengthened, despite Mrinal babu’s fiery convictions about life and art. When I look back, I wonder what must have gone through his mind and heart in the last few years, as every value that he stood for has been trampled upon by those who have no values.Though I had seen Mrinal babu at public events and film screenings, I really met him for the first time during my interview at Pune’s Film and Television Institute of India in 1971. Though he was on the other side of a long table, in the interview panel, his personal warmth came across the table, reached me and made me relax, even feel cosy. He asked me a number of questions about Mani Kaul’s Ashadh Ka Ek Din that he had seen. I had played the male lead in it. I got the impression that he felt that I wanted to join the acting course. I picked up enough courage and told him that my ‘acting’ in Mani’s film had convinced me that I never wanted to face a movie camera again. In fact, I had a rare luxury, a whole film to prove that I couldn’t ‘act’ to save my life, or anybody else’s.Mrinal babu’s often controversial filmmaking, spread over half a century, has led to an enormous amount of writing. I am too close to his death to do any dissection of his films. They reflect his times as well as the man who made them. Ritwik Ghatak, Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen started making films more or less around the same time. I was fortunate to be a student of Ritwik da and in utter awe of him. Ray always retained his Olympian calm and urbane persona when interacting with young filmmakers, often blowing icy winds. But Mrinal, Mrinal da, Mrinal babu…he was always so close to us. He had a way of putting his arm on your shoulder and walking with you without breaking his flow of words – I teased him about his ‘captive’ audience – and holding forth, passionately on whatever it was that disturbed him, angered him, pained him or amused him.Also read: Filmmaker Mrinal Sen Passes Away at 95Even when Mrinal da was no longer young, there was always something of an ‘angry young man’ about him. The anger against so much that is wrong with our times has found expression in many of his films, but that anger did not embitter him. He knew how to laugh and how to make you laugh. Bhuvan Shome has some hilarious scenes, with an utterly charming, sweet, fresh-as-a daisy Suhasini Mulay and piquantly eccentric Utpal Dutt.Once Adoor Gopalkrishnan, Mrinal babu and I met for a dinner at the Thai restaurant at President Hotel. With a Bengali, a Malayalee and a coastal Maharashtrian dining together, fish flowed smoothly in and glistening empty dishes flowed smoothly out. Mrinal babu spoke a great deal during dinner, regaling us with some terrific stories. One was about his encounter with Mr S.S. Ray, many times the chief minister of Bengal, during the Emergency. Mrinal babu had then started greying at the temples. Mr Ray, with a touch of gentle malice, asked him whether he was really greying or it was a dye. Without batting an eyelid, Mrinal said that if he wanted to dye his hair, he would have a broad white strip in the middle. Mr Ray, a great admirer of Mrs Indira Gandhi, quietly moved aside!Our conversation was like an exciting badminton match, with Mrinal’s smashes, high jumps and quick runs and Adoor’s quiet but deftly placed cross-court drops and deep tosses. It was great going and I didn’t have to say a word most times! It was a win-win match.Cinematographer K.K. Mahajan and Mrinal babu formed a terrific pair. They both were quick to flare up but never held any rancour once they had given vent to their anger. It is indeed rare to come across such caring human beings in our times of selfies. There is an old photograph of K.K. standing on the edge of a terrace and taking a shot with Mrinal da holding him. What that touch tells us about their relationship, it needs no words. Theirs was a cinema on the edge.Unlike Ritwik da’s or Satyajit Ray’s work, Mrinal da’s films did not have a ‘style’ – in the best sense of the word – and changed form often, even tracing zigzags. K.K. responded to every change in Mrinal’s cinematic preoccupations and experimentation. You see it in the carefully composed frames, with planned and trimmed mise-en-scène to the dynamism of handheld camera, matched by abrupt and jumpy découpage and montage, and all this fitting most times. Each shot had its own personality.Once when I was shooting in Calcutta, a light boy – as the industry calls them – overheard Mrinal babu’s name in our lunchtime conversation. He stood listening and then volunteered to say that Mrinal da was the only director who made sure that each member of his unit, even a spot boy was served lunch and only then would he eat. Mrinal da’s humanism was a practitioner’s and not a preacher’s.Well, Mrinal, Mrinal da, Mrinal babu…though the title of your memoir is Always Being Born, neither you nor I believe in life after death and you were never a man to rest in peace. May your smouldering, passionate, fighting, jovial and tender spirit haunt the corridors of all institutions where cinema is taught or at film festivals where glamour scores over cinema, where mobs and muscle rule over sensitivity, intellect, compassion and art. Please show, with your example, how cinema is more than lights, camera, action, cut and computer graphics. Above all, cinema needs that fire in the belly like you had. Que la lumière soit!Arun Khopkar is a filmmaker, film scholar and film teacher, with several national and international awards for his films. He has won the Sahitya Akademi award for his collection of essays. His study of Guru Dutt got the National Award for the best book on cinema.
