Ghatak's daughter to launch his official website

Kolkata: Forty years is a long time. Yet, it is too short for Samhita, Ritwik Ghatak's daughter, to erase the trauma of seeing him pass away at the SSKM hospital on February 6. As Samhita prepares the first official website on the legend, she can't forget how her father used to tell her "When an artist's work is finished, he has no right to live any longer."
Work on the website is on in full swing.If all goes well, it should be functioning by the end of February. Manuscripts are being re-read, letters penned by the icon are being sourced and rare photographs are procured from family albums.
Titled 'Ritwik THE NAME', this is the first website to offer authentic archival material on the director. "While the website will be presented by the Ritwik Memorial Trust, the project is being initiated by me," said Samhita.
Samhita says this time of the year has always been painful for her. "I can't forget February 4, 1976. His condition had deteriorated so much that I, merely 19 then, almost bundled him up in a taxi while taking him to SSKM Hospital,"she said.
She had assured her father of speedy recovery.
"At that point, Baba resembled Neelkantha Bagchi - a character in his film 'Jukti Takko Aar Gappo'. There were blood stains on his chest and stomach..." She spoke about how helpless she felt trying to get blood for her father from the Medical College. "It was raining and I couldn't get a taxi. So I walked. When I reached SSKM, I saw Baba lying in the general ward."
The day after was Saraswati Puja. "I approached many seniors for help. But nobody understood the seriousness of the situation. On February 6, when I went back to the hospital, he was lying sideways in a corner bed, hands tied because he was a restless patient. There were stains of his blood all over the wall," Samhita said.
Ghatak's last words before he slipped into a coma were in reply to a bell clanging near the hospital.
"The sound had registered and he just said: 'Maa maa'. I don't know, if he was referring to me or my grandmother," Sanhita adds.
He passed away in the night. "He perhaps had a premonition of his death and had asked me whether we would mourn him."
About the website, Sanhita says, "It is my responsibility to ensure that the world gets authentic information about my father through this website. I invite contributions from people who might have his rare photographs."
Among the photographs that she will upload on the website are candid shots from Ghatak's FTII days, his childhood moments, as well as snaps of him penning scripts in Kolkata or working in Mumbai. One rare group photograph has Ghatak with Balraj Sahni and AK Hangal. But the rarest content will be the director's note for his finished and unfinished films. "The site will have an audio clip from his film and also include a logo of the Ritwik Memorial Trust," Sanhita says.
But before that happens, Samhita will visit Dhaka for the first Ghatak retrospective in Bangladesh. From February 12 to 17, the Ritwik Memorial Trust, Chalachitram Film Society and Bangladesh National Museum in association with High Commission of India, is organising a retrospective.
"I had accompanied Baba to Dhaka in 1974 when he had gone there to show 'Titas Ekti Nodir Naam'. Forty-two years later, it feels good to be going there again," she said.
"Baba was not born in suitable times. In future, his works will remain. Nothing else will."