Satyajit Ray made Nayak: The Hero in 1966. A restored version of the original is now being screened in movie halls. After restoration, the print is crystalline. It also makes film buffs realize how attractive films were in the black and white era of film making.
Ray depicted in the film a slice of life captured in an unusual setting. A Bengali matinee idol is travelling to Delhi to receive a national award. To go to Delhi was a last-minute decision on his part and thus, unable to get a plane ticket, he goes by train – the new vestibule corridor train which made the journey a shade under 24 hours. For the hero – Arindam Mukherjee – the train trip turns out to be something of a journey into his own heart and emotions stoked by a chance encounter.
A still from Satyajit Ray’s ‘Nayak: The Hero’.
Ray, together with his outstanding art director, Bansi Chandragupta, recreated the train as a set in the studio. To give the appearance of realism, he used back projection (the work of Ray’s cinematographer Subrata Mitra) of the changing landscape and the sounds of the moving train with telling effect. Viewers did not have to suspend their disbelief as they yielded to the illusion, possible only in good cinema, that they were watching episodes unfolding on a real moving train.
The film had an extraordinary title sequence: a series of black iron rods hitting the screen. Within a few seconds, it is clear that behind the rods is the back of a moving human head – thus the impression that the rods are hitting the head. As the titles finish – with the familiar declaration ‘Story, Screenplay, Music and Direction, Satyajit Ray’ – the back of the head becomes clear – it is the hero, played by Bengal’s movie idol, Uttam Kumar, with his back to camera, shaving with an electric shaver and then combing his hair. He is wearing a vest tucked into his trousers and he proceeds to put on a white shirt. This is the viewers’ first sighting of the hero. He is getting ready to go to the station to catch a train.
On the train, quite unexpectedly, Arindam meets one Aditi Sengupta, played by Sharmila Tagore. She is a rather attractive woman whose attractiveness is veiled by heavy tortoise shell spectacles. She edits, almost singlehandedly, a serious women’s magazine named Adhunika. She is outspoken, brooks no nonsense and has no interest in the world of Tollywood. She knows Arindam by reputation. She is travelling on the chair car and Arindam is in the first class in a four-berther.
A still from Satyajit Ray’s ‘Nayak: The Hero’.
Their encounter takes place in the dining car and is initiated by her asking for his autograph on behalf of her cousin. Arindam remarks that Aditi doesn’t look the type to take autographs. There follows a verbal thrust and parry about Bengali films in which Aditi clearly has the last word. Arindam is amused and curious. Aditi returns to ask for an interview for her magazine. The request is turned down by Arindam. But at lunch time, Arindam chooses to sit at the same table as Aditi, saying that it is safest to sit with her, since she has no interest in the tinsel world.
This lunch-time meeting turns a chance encounter into a close one. In the course of a mid-morning nap, Arindam has had a horrible nightmare which has left him rather shaken. He asks Aditi what she knows about dreams and from that dream (more about the two dream sequences later), prodded a little by Aditi, he begins to talk about his early life – his entry into films, his memory of his first shoot, his success, fears and loss of old friends. Aditi takes notes knowing that Arindam is speaking about facets of his life that have long lain deeply hidden in his heart. Arindam’s recollections are interspersed with banter and teasing as well as appreciation of her honesty, perception, intelligence and even of her good looks when she takes off her glasses.
A still from Satyajit Ray’s ‘Nayak: The Hero’.
It could have ended there. In the course of his post-prandial snooze, Arindam has another unpleasant dream. He wakes up, pulls out a bottle of whiskey from his suitcase and in the toilet pours its contents down his throat. Completely sozzled, standing by the open compartment door, watching the railway lines zipping by, he tells the ticket collector to go to the chair car and fetch Aditi. She arrives and he confesses, he is drunk but wants to talk to her about a scandal involving him which has appeared in that day’s newspaper.
Arindam expresses his desperate need to talk but he has no one pour out his heart to. He wants to do so to Aditi, who tells him that there is no need, as she has understood everything through empathy. Arindam asks that if she understands, can she explain why his current film will flop. Aditi replies that his performance was below par because he was not attentive at work. Arindam almost sotto voce says, you are quite frightening. He dismisses her. But she stands her ground saying, she will go only after he returns to his room. She fears that he may be contemplating suicide in his inebriated state. The director almost suggests this in the few shots of Arindam drunkenly staring at the moving train tracks from the open doorway. Arindam staggers to his room but before that he tells her, “You can write anything you want. I don’t give a damn.”
Also read: Revisiting Nayak, Satyajit Ray and Uttam Kumar’s Film on the Frailties of Stardom
Nayak, however, is not a conventional story; in fact, it has no story line. What makes the film is Ray’s directorial craft – his small touches, framing of scenes and the dialogue. Some of these bear explication. In the first meeting between the hero and his counterpoint, almost his conscience, the camera is placed close to Sharmila, who is standing; the viewers see Uttam sitting; the conversation, while Arindam is giving his autograph, is about the lack of realism in Bengali cinema. Arindam fails to sign in the first attempt as the ink in the pen is not flowing. He signs only after dipping the nib into water to dilute the ink.
A still from Satyajit Ray’s ‘Nayak: The Hero’.
All the meetings between Arindam and Aditi, save one when Arindam is drunk, take place in the dining car – Arindam is revealing his private self in a relatively public space. To reinforce this sense of growing trust and momentary closeness, Ray frames the two of them in profile against the glass window of the train compartment.
Ray uses spectacles with telling effect. In Uttam’s case it is his shades; in Sharmila’s the heavy frames. The first time we see the former put on his sunglasses is very early in the film when he is about to leave for the station. There is a phone call: it is the heroine of the film that has just been released. Before he puts the receiver to his ear, Ray makes Uttam don sunglasses – the human being is shaded by the hero. There is the hint, no more, that all is not well between Arindam and his heroine. At the two stations, Howrah and New Delhi where he is surrounded by fans, Arindam has his shades on. But on the train, during his conversations with Aditi he has his sunglasses off. He does not feel the need to cover his eyes which are invariably the best transmitters of emotions. The sunglasses become the symbol that demarcates the hero and the human being. Similarly, when Aditi is the no-nonsense editor/journalist, she has her spectacles on. But in the sequence where Arindam is drunk, she does not even carry her glasses let alone wearing them. It is a meeting between two individuals – one anguished, the other concerned and full of empathy.
There is also a fleeting, if poignant, moment: dawn is breaking as the train is rushing to its destination. Ray’s camera passes over all the characters, most of them are asleep, some are just waking up. The only person awake is Aditi – her head inclined on one side, she is gazing pensively through the window and she is without her glasses. Ray’s camera does not dwell on her but viewers cannot forget the image.
The dream sequences
The two dream sequences unlock Arindam’s memory and fears, thus enabling him to talk to a stranger like Aditi. Both dreams are nightmares. In the first, Arindam sees himself exulting on hillocks of currency notes; then the light darkens and phones begin to ring; the receiver of those phones are on skeletal hands sticking out of the money hills. Suddenly Arindam begins to sink; the notes have become like quicksand. At a little distance sits his mentor, Sankarda, heavily made up, who was virulently against Arindam joining the movies and had warned him of the dangers. Arindam cries out for help. Sankarda sits there smiling. This dream triggers the first long conversation with Aditi in the course of which Arindam recalls aspects of his past, his regrets, especially losing the respect of a dear and old friend and his fear of failure.
A still from Satyajit Ray’s ‘Nayak: The Hero’.
In the second, Arindam dreams of how a completely unknown lady (played unforgettably by Sumita Sanyal even though her screen presence was less than a few minutes) called on him at night, pretending to be unmarried and seeking the heroine’s role in the next film. There is the suggestion that Arindam was seduced both physically and by her acting talents. It initiated an affair and resulted in an ugly brawl with her husband that made it to the newspapers. This last bit viewers are left to guess on the basis of that phone call from the heroine. The voice suggests it is the same woman. This dream is disjointed, more stream of consciousness than the first one. But it is more troubling for Arindam and leads to his binge drinking, contemplating suicide and his attempted confession to Aditi.
In that ‘confession’ sequence, Ray places Uttam and Sharmila a little apart. For most of it the camera is placed close to Sharmila and we see Uttam from her vantage point. Only a few shots are focused on Sharmila. When she makes her parting comment – almost a command – that she will not go till he returns to his room – we once again see Uttam from Sharmila’s side. He is surprised, irritated – no one has ever spoken to him with such sternness and compassion.
The next morning, with Delhi approaching, the two meet again in the dining car. Both are without their respective shades and spectacles. Arindam admits that there is something missing within him; he says I will not see you again as you will never come to our ‘line’. Aditi says she is just an ordinary person. Arindam retorts that he too will descend to become an ordinary person if three of his films flop back to back. Aditi reassures him that such a thing will never happen; he will remain at the top. And then delving into her handbag, she brings out a sheaf of papers and says “your interview”. She then proceeds to tear up the papers and dump them. Completely taken aback, Arindam asks if she plans to write from memory. Aditi says, “I will keep it in my memory”. She quickly puts on her glasses and leaves. After that the hero on the platform assumes his celebrity status and Aditi unobtrusively walks down the platform with the relative who had come to receive her. The camera stays on the hero’s face with sunglasses. He is alone again.
Apart from Ray’s direction and the work of Bansi Chandragupta and Subrata Mitra, the film is marked by stellar performances by Uttam and Sharmila. But even the others appearing in cameo roles are unforgettable. Through a chance and close encounter, Ray prises open the dark and fragile sides of stardom. And the stark loneliness of a star.
All these together make Nayak (The Hero) a film that we keep in our memory.
Rudrangshu Mukherjee is chancellor and professor of history at Ashoka University. Views expressed are the author’s own.
