Probashi- Cover Story
Probashi- Cover Story
Interview with Goutam Ghose
Gautam Ghose as a child: Leading from the front.
12yr old my uncle gifted me with a Kodak box camera. Looking through the view finder I suddenly realised that I had a choice of what I wanted to see in the frame and what to discard. That was very liberating. Exposure to music and photography in childhood significantly influenced my career in film making.
I was lucky to have experienced a very liberal atmosphere during my formative years in school. Till kinder garden I was in St John’ s Diocesan School, Calcutta, a girls school which then allowed boys till KG, incidentally Sharmila Tagore was my senior there. Then I shifted to Cathedral Missionary Boy’ s School where I was exposed to Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu culture. My parents would gift my friend Akhtar with new clothes during Puja, and I would get a set of new clothes from Akhtar’ s parents during Id. With Chinese classmates we would celebrate the Chinese New Year. Secularism and respect for different cultures got ingrained in me at school.
Today in an academic fuelled childhood how do we bring back culture and creative pursuits into the family setting?
The orientation towards creative pursuits for a child starts at home. Today while children have excessive information through technology and nothing is left to imagination. they have forgotten to dream of the unknown. In our times Jules Verne’ s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea would bring forth imagination of the world water. That need to dream has somehow got lost. Also today the children are self centered, the sense of sharing is completely missing. Our generation was brought up on the concept that happiness can never be bought through money.
Your father Prof Himangshu Kumar Ghose was a respected professor. How did your family react to your choice of becoming a theatre person and a film maker?
Feature Films Directed Maabhoomi in Telugu( 1979) Dakhal in Bengali( 1981) Paar in Hindi( 1984) Antarjali Jatra in Bengali( 1987) Padma Nadir Majhi in Bengali( 1992) Patang in Hindi( 1993) Gudia in Hindi( 1997) Dekha in Bengali( 2001) Abar Aranye in Bengali( 2003) Yatra in Hindi( 2006) Kaalbela in Bengali( 2009) Moner Manush in Bengali( 2010) Shunyo Awnko in Bengali( 2012)
Select Documentaries Directed 1973: New Earth 1974: Hungry Autumn 1976: Chains of Bondage 1980: Film on irrigation projects 1984: Indian Classical Music 1986: Land of Sand Dunes,
A Tribute to Odissi, 1987: Ek Ghat ki Kahani 1989: Documentary on Bismillah Khan 1990: Documentary on Utpal Dutt 1991: Documentary on Kanika Bandhapadhyay 1994‐95: Silk Route 1999: Documentary on Satyajit Ray 2001: Kalahandi 2001: A documentary on Asia’ s upland poor for IFAD 2002: A Treasure in the Snow, A documentary on Sikkim 2004: Documentary on Dalai Lama 2005: Documentary on Jyoti Basu 2007: Ramkrishna Mission 75 years of Service 2008: A film on Raja Ram Mohon Roy 2009: A film on Asiatic Society 2011: A film of Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics
My father was an adventurist with a history of failed business ventures. When I was 11, my father became totally bankrupt, and many of our possessions had to be sold off. My maternal grandfather advised my father that he was a man of letters and it would be good if he sticks to