Panjim, (UNI) Veteran actor Sharmila Tagore on Wednesday said auteur Tapan Sinha was a man of few words and a very good listener.
Underlining the human characteristics that Sinha possessed, she said: “There are people who don’t have anything to say and that’s why they are quiet. But Tapan Babu had many things to say, though he didn’t need to. He was a man of few words and a very good listener.”
Rabindranath Tagore’s profound influence on Tapan Sinha’s writings was also discussed in detail by Tagore, according to a Press Information Bureau release.
Tagore was taking part in a panel discussion titled “Tapan Sinha-Centenary Session-The Spectrum and the Soul” on Wednesday at the 55th IFFI here in Goa as part of the centenary celebration of Sinha.
Drawing references from his titles like ‘Jatugriha’, ‘Kshudhita Pashan’, ‘ Atanka’ and ‘Ek Doctor Ki Maut’, Prof. N. Manu Chakravarthy, described the unparalleled dedication Tapan Sinha has shown to encapsulate and convey the social reality.
Chakravarthy also mentioned that Sinha used to describe himself as a committed humanist and all his films revolved around that very ideology.
While replying to a question on why Sinha’s work did not get evaluated to the extent of his contemporaries like Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak or Mrinal Sen, Chakravarthy said “It’s an absolute failure of critics that they didn’t evaluate Tapan Sinha’s work properly during his lifetime.”
He concluded, “The profound intellectual dimensions that films like ‘Sagina Mahato’ and ‘Atanka’ captured, are simply timeless.”
The other panellist Arjun Chakraborty, Sinha’s actor in five of his titles, fondly recollected the story of “Nirjan Saikate”. After going through the script, Chakraborty in utter disbelief asked Sinha how he would pitch such a story to a producer. Sinha’s simple yet remarkable reply was, “I don’t need to go to producers, they come to me.”
The session was moderated by Ratnottoma Sengupta.
