In a rare interview, Roshan Kumari, part of the feted Kathak trinity with Sitara Devi and Damayanti Joshi, speaks of her devotion to dance, the iconic performance in Satyajit Ray’s Jalsaghar, and what her journey steeped in Kathak has given her
Looking For Past In Satyajit Ray s Films outlookindia.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from outlookindia.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Satyajit Ray combined in himself the spirit of the traditional and the mind of the modern. For a long time, Indian cinema was synonymous with him to the world outside.
Chhabi Biswas in Jalsaghar (1958) | Satyajit Ray Productions
Astonishingly, folded in between the films that comprise the celebrated Apu Trilogy
, are two movies inspired by Bengali literature and Satyajit Ray’s association with two outstanding Bengali character actors: Tulsi Chakraborty in
Parash Pathar and Chhabi Biswas in
Jalsaghar. The first is perhaps minor (in spite of Chakraborty’s phenomenal performance) and is now mostly forgotten. However the latter is among the three or four greatest films in Ray’s oeuvre,
and Chhabi Biswas’s performance is unsurpassed in his own illustrious career.
Elegiac in tone,
Jalsaghar (The Music Room) is, to quote John Russell Taylor, “an atmospheric piece”. It occasionally reminds one of Orson Welles’s