One hundred years ago, Naresh Mitra, an eminent Bengali theatre director, approached Rabindranath Tagore with a request to adapt one of Tagore’s short stories to film.
Tagore agreed and Manbhanjan (1923) was made. (The story would later see many adaptations, including recent ones available on Netflix and Hoichoi.) Back then, it was still the silent era and mythological stories were the standard cinematic fare, but the audience loved the romantic drama of Manbhanjan, with its sensitive portrait of marriage and womanhood.
Tagore was already a literary giant at the time. He now became a favourite of filmmakers. The last decade of the silent film era saw as many as six films based on different short stories by Tagore, directed by luminaries from Calcutta stage and screen including Sisir Kumar Bhaduri, Madhu Bose and Premankur Atarthi. (For many of these, Tagore was involved in the adaptation.)
Rabindranath Tagore in Cinema
Tagore was among those who recognised cinema was developing its own language, independent of the legends and literary works that inspired directors of early films. In 1929, he wrote, “I believe that the expected emergence of cinema as an art form is yet to take place. . In art, the aim is independence.
The fact that cinema has so long been subservient to literature is due to the fact that no artist has been able to redeem it from slavery by dint of his genius . It has not been so partly due to the lack of talent and partly due to a muddle-headed public. .”
Tagore, the Frustrated Scriptwriter
Ever curious, but also cautious about this new medium, Tagore made it a point to watch Russian masterpieces like Battleship Potemkin (1925) during his visit to the Soviet Union in 1930. He also went to film studios and exchanged ideas with local film-makers and technicians. That same year, at a small town near Munich, Tagore watched a film that depicted a traditional passion play (about the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ) and was so moved that he virtually locked himself up for the next couple of days to write a film script titled “The Child”.
A reputed German studio was ready to produce a film based on this script and even shot a few reels of Tagore performing the script. These were screened in Calcutta’s cinema halls in 1931 and Himanshu Rai of Bombay Talkies (the real-life inspiration for Prosenjit’s Roy babu in Jubilee) was brought on board as a collaborator.
The project ultimately fell through and Tagore also lost interest after the production team demanded multiple changes. Instead, he chose to turn his script into the genre that he was famous for and was a master of – poetry. Thus was created “Shishu Tirtha”, a poem that is also inspired by T. S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi”.
The popularity of Tagore’s works as base material for films continued into the talkies’ era. From 1931, when the first talkie film was made to the present, there have been more than 60 film adaptations of Tagore’s works. There are also television serials and web series. Few writers can claim to have remained relevant, even as society, the medium and technology of cinematic storytelling changed.
Tagore is one of them. There is, of course, the allure of him being internationally-recognised, a national icon and a Nobel laureate, but more important perhaps is the emotional heart of Tagore’s writing, which makes his characters and their feelings still seem relatable.
A Literary Icon, But Not a Director
Although “Shishu Tirtha” remained in the realms of poetry, there were other poems of Tagore that transitioned into cinema. Subha O Debatar Gras (1964)made by Partha Pratim Chowdhury in 1964 was a film in two parts – one was the story of the deaf-mute Shubha who features in a short story by.
Tagore and the second part was based on the poem titled “Debotar Grash”, in which Tagore describes the frantic desire for a dip in holy waters during the Ganga Sagar pilgrimage as well as the selfishness of pilgrims. In 2012, filmmaker Buddhadev Dasgupta had tried to adapt Tagore’s poem “Mukti”, but he did not meet with much success.
Tagore himself became more cautious about cinema after the late 1920s. When his British biographer, Edward Thompson, recommended Tagore’s dance drama “Chitrangada” to director Alexander Korda, Tagore was not particularly excited. After some initial overtures, Korda too backed off, saying the drama lacked conflict.
However, we know that Tagore was excited by the idea of making a film out of his hit play “Natir Puja”. Birendranath Sarkar, the founder-owner of New Theatres – then a leading film producer in Calcutta – had offered to back a film adaptation of any of Tagore’s works, helmed by Tagore. The 71-year-old Tagore picked “Natir Puja” and put together an impressive team.
The film had art direction by Abanindranath Tagore and costumes by Protima Devi. It was shot in the lawns of the New Theatres studio, but despite all this, the end product was reportedly a disaster. The film was subsequently gutted in a freak fire. Later, some reels were restored and 1o minutes of the film are available for those interested. The surviving fragment offers consolation to humble mortals like us that even Tagore could fail!