Why Bengali films are giving trams a pass now

A six-year-old West Bengal tourism commercial had shown the city through the lens of a foreigner. Its last sequence featured a tram car chugging past the Maidans by night on route 36. The climax was the spectacular entry of Bengal’s brand ambassador, Shah Rukh Khan, singing Tagore’s "Ami chini go chini tomare ogo bideshini" (I know you, o the lady from abroad). When the tram car finally chugged out of the frame, the camera zoomed on the words — Experience Bengal: The sweetest part of India. Six years and a pandemic later, this once-ubiquitous mode of transport is itself chugging out of the city. The sound design of contemporary Bengali cinema no longer uses the chimes of tram bells to capture Kolkata’s essence. Contemporary Bengali cinema is just a step away from bidding farewell to this streetcar named nostalgia.Shah Rukh Khan promoting trams in Bengal tourism ad medium nocaptionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwCTpdeuVe8Of title cards and tram carsBengali cinema’s tram connection meandered from Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar (1963) to Amitabha Chaterji’s Manohar & I (2018) via Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s Kaalpurush (2005), Atanu Ghosh’s Abby Sen (2015), Nandita Roy and Shiboprosad Mukherjee’s Praktan (2016), Srijit Mukherji’s Ek Je Chhilo Raja (2018), and Raj Chakraborty’s Parineeta (2019). Not just films, even their opening credits celebrated this connection. Subrata Mitra filmed the two-minute-long title sequence of Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar by only focusing on a moving tram cable. Once Ray’s credits for the film’s screenplay, music and direction have rolled, the camera then moves inside the tram car to freeze on Anil Chatterjee’s tired face.“Ray used just the electric cable to depict the big city. In the background score, he also changed the tempo and volume of violin, flute and cello to heighten the drama of everyday life,” said Riddhi Goswami, a member of the Ray Society.Satyajit Ray's Mahanagar medium nocaptionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjhjDLeQNH8Criss-crossing tram wires form the backdrop for the opening title card of Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s Kaalpurush. It removes the setting of this Mithun Chakraborty-Rahul Bose-Sameera Reddy starrer from Dasgupta’s familiar barren rural landscape to urban Bengal. “My father loved everything quaint and old that stood witness to time and defined his Kolkata in its purest form. The wires in the dusk remind me a lot of 'The Prelude’ by one of Baba’s favourite poets, TS Eliot,” said Dasgupta’s daughter and music director, Alokananda Dasgupta. medium98293567The plot thickensLater in the film, Dasgupta uses the tram as a space to explore his favourite ‘extended realism’ when Bose falls asleep inside a compartment. “He has imaginary conversations with his father about his love, hatred, regret and memories. It is such a vulnerable and sensitive scene. What better than the long lost ‘tram’ to act out this metaphor of extended realism in his film,” she added.Ritwik Ghatak used trams in Bari Theke Paliye as a metaphor for the city’s mechanical transport. “The difference between Ray and Ghatak’s use of the tram as a metaphor of modernity stems from their inherent difference of perception of urbanity. In Apur Sansar, the tram becomes a space where dreams turn into reality when Apu reads the editor’s letter. In contrast, the tram in Bari Theke Paliye symbolises crude mechanisation and not fantasies,” said film scholar Sanjoy Mukhopadhyay. Trams also appear in Mrinal Sen’s Interview. “The protagonist nabs a pickpocket in a tram. That was more of an emblem of day-to-day life and living in 1970s Kolkata,” Mukhopadhyay said. “Uttam Kumar, disguised as a Kabuliwala in Chiriakhana, travels in a tram while chasing the villain. In Kapurush Soumitra Chattopdhyay and Madhabi Mukherjee get introduced to each other in a tram. Those are part of the plot,” Goswami pointed out.Ritwik Ghatak's Bari Theke Paliye medium nocaptionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWzNxJjYPuwModernity versus old world charmFrom being an emblem of modernity and metropolitan mind, trams now symbolise old-world charm. “People who joined college in the mid or late 1980s remember how romantic tram rides were during noon, especially if a couple got the front seats just behind the driver’s cabin. The soft breeze from the open wooden-framed window and less from the fan above, the gentle chimes of the tram bell and the vehicle’s languorous pace made it seem like a journey to eternity. In those days, the world wasn’t this rushed. As a tribute to my fond memories, I devised the tram ride scene as a metaphor for nostalgia and romance in Abby Sen. In the story, Abby travels 33 years back in time to 1980 from 2013 and meets his wife in an illusion scene inside a tram,” said director Atanu Ghosh.Poet-turned-filmmaker Srijato penned "Chol rastae saji tramline" for Srijit Mukherji’s Autograph (2010) that highlighted the word tram. Despite the song’s popularity, Mukherji didn’t use a tram shot for its picturisation. He waited for eight years to use the tram as the setting for the conversation between Aparna Sen and Anjan Dutt in Ek Je Chhilo Raja. “Tram for me is quintessential Kolkata. I use trams to portray a character of the city which is traditional, old-world, slightly laidback with its own rhythm or something very intimate, quaint and personal,” Mukherji said. medium98294223Where have all the trams gone?Too few contemporary Bengali films use trams for nuanced portrayal of urban loneliness. One rare exception is a 13-minute-long scene from Manohar & I, which is among British Film Institute’s 10 great films set in Kolkata. Instead of a speeding bus, two strangers-turned-acquaintances hop on to a tram car. The languid pace and the empty space of a tram car allow a lot of time for the characters to communicate. The camera is placed up, close and personal, effectively using the huge windows to visually capture the hoardings and wall graffiti while the protagonist garnishes his narrative with half-truths and yearnings. “In between their conversation, I deliberately kept some top shots of a serpentine tram negotiating the traffic. The tram becomes a metaphor of Kolkata’s indifference that alienates migrants from suburbs. The metropolis shuts them up inside boxes. Their existence resonates with tram cars moving around the city like long matchboxes in motion,” Chaterji said.Most other contemporary Bengali cinema avoids the tracks to get rid of clichés. Besides, their plots have long shifted to highrises where the chimes of tram bells hardly reach. “As a child, I used the tram regularly while commuting. But trams have now disappeared from the cityscape. If I set a realistic film in the city, where is the space for trams since my characters will use the metro and app cabs?” asked director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury.But those who haven’t lived in this city as an insider rely on trams, Howrah Bridge and Victoria Memorial to reinforce a stereotype. From Mani Ratnam’s Yuva (2005) and Guru (2007), Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani (2012), Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Bullett Raja (2013), Shoojit Sircar’s Piku (2015), Dibakar Banerjee’s Detective Byomkesh Bakshy (2015) to Mridul Toolsidas’ Toolsidas Junior (2022), Kolkata’s trams and even tram depots still remain the perfect backdrop for period films and romantic songs.