Canvas Kolkata Ratnottama Sengupta

Music album pays centenary tribute to Bimal Roy Saregama's launch of the music album Remembering Bimal Roy', at an exhibition of New Theatres film and music memorabilia, hosted by Oxford Bookstore, brought alive Yesterday Once More. Memory wafted me back in time, to January 8, 1999, when Sunil Dutt had reminisced about the legendary director on his 33rd death anniversary.
The actor had acquired a new status of "respectability" by acting in Sujata', he'd said. "The role of a professor was quite different from the senselessly brawny roles I was doing simply to earn money." One of the millions of lives dramatically affected by the Partition, Dutt had no compunctions about those roles. "Working with Bimalda changed all that." It made him realise that cinema was a medium that can be used to avert the tragedy of the human situation.
And then, the actor had gone on to say that he was "jealous" of Dev Anand. "No, not because he paired with the newest heroine but because he had S D Burman to compose for him!" In Sujata', Dutt had got a taste of what songs like Jalte Hain Jiske Liye', Suno Mere Bandhu Re', Kali Ghata Chhaay', or Nanhi Kali' could do to a film. "These songs became hits before the film released, and people would flock to see it because music has always been the soul of Indian cinema."
Bimal Roy realized this truth early in life, when he was cinematically nurtured at New Theatres. Set up in 1931, with the advent of talkies in India, NT boasted the association of musicians like Raichand Boral, Pankaj Mullick, Timir Baran, Pramathesh Barua, Kanan Devi, K L Sehgal. Thus, besides the first Bengali talkie, the pioneer organization claims credit for introduction of the playback system.
When Bimal Roy debuted with Udayer Pathey', he set the box office on fire, set new trends with its socialist content, he also used Tagore songs to evoke the flavour of the period, 1944. The song? Jana Gana Mana'. Some years down, the song would become the National Anthem, and people would be required to stand up when it played on the screen!
The new experience of enlightened entertainment that dawned with Udayer Pathey' continued with the films he made in Bombay: Maa', Baap Beti', Parineeta', Do Bigha Zamin', Devdas', Biraj Bahu', Yahudi', Naukri'... Artistic pleasure blended with social conscience became the hallmark of the director, of whom Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi wrote: "Bimal Roy neither mimicked nor mocked life. He took films along life's grain... That is why his films strike chords, and always will."
Along with this, though, music continued to be a strong point of Bimal Roy films. Just think of Hariyala Sawan Dhol Bajata Aaya', Aaja Re Pardesi', Dil Dhadak Dhadak Ke Keh Raha', Meri Jaan Meri Jaan', O Sajana Barkha Bahar Aayi', Ore Maajhi, Mora Gora Ang Laile', O Jaanewale', Ai Mere Pyare Watan'...
Doesn't matter whether you recall where they're from: Do Bigha Zamin', Yahudi', Madhumati', Bandini', Parakh', Kabuliwala'... Nor whether you remember who they were written, or composed by: SD Burman, Shankar Jaikishen, Salil Chowdhury, Majrooh or Gulzar. And certainly you need not be in the class of Lata Mangeshkar, Talat Mehmood, Mukesh or Manna Dey... Just hum them to yourselves, and you'll be transported to a faraway world, where songs underscored the joys and sorrows of the protagonists, the mood of the situation, of the year and the place in which they were being sung!
What better way to remember Bimal Roy during his centenary year?