Did you know Ritwik Ghatak was the co-writer of Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s ‘Musafir’?

Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s 1957 hit

Musafir

grabbed National Award and was also awarded the Certificate of Merit for being the Third Best Feature Film in Hindi. But, did you know the screenplay of this cult classic was penned by Ritwik Ghatak along with Hrishikesh Mukherjee.
Musafir was the directorial debut of Hrishikesh Mukherjee and had a stellar cast of Dilip Kumar, Kishore Kumar, Keshto Mukherjee, Suchitra Sen and Nirupa Roy. Music for this film was composed by the great Salil Choudhury.
Ritwik Ghatak had already made directorial debut with Nagarik (1952) by then but had to postpone its release due to lack of funds. ‘Musafir’ gave him the chance to add enough resources to start his second directorial Ajantrik (1958).
Many filmmakers have redefined Indian cinema over the years, with some receiving international glory and few others enduring abomination from political circles for narrating stories which reflected the injustice by society and governments. Nowhere was this clearer than in Bengali film history, in which Satyajit Ray was idolized in the first category, while the second saw its torchbearer in controversy’s favourite child Ritwik Ghatak.
Often termed one of the pioneers of parallel cinema movement in India, Ghatak used to tell riveting stories on the Bengal partition, of which he was himself a victim. Ritwik Ghatak’s works are still a testament to the social, personal and political turmoil he faced in life.