At 100, Ritwik Ghatak is so contemporary

On February 7, 1976, the day Ritwik Ghatak died, Calcutta saw a spontaneous outpouring of grief. Thousands of people thronged the streets and accompanied the funeral procession, paying homage to the director who had died at 51 of tuberculosis. “It was a unique funeral of a unique man,” wrote Safdar Hashmi in his 1981 essay, ‘The Genius That Was Ritwik Ghatak’. Yet, the profound public mourning stood in sharp contrast to the neglect Ghatak endured in his lifetime. Despite being one of the pioneers of India’s New Wave cinema, he had not received the kind of recognition his contemporaries Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen enjoyed. His first film, Nagarik, would release only after his death. Several others, including Titas Ekti Nadir Naam, would run into difficulties.

If Ghatak’s lifetime was marke