By Mahtab Alam for TwoCircles.net
Meghnath Bhattacharya-ji, popularly known as Meghnath Da, is a well know alternative filmmaker based in Ranchi and teaches Film at the city’s prestigious St. Xavier’s College. This is what I would have said, if I had to introduce him in short, until a few days back. He is an alternative filmmaker of International repute and my word of appreciation for his work would be no more than showing light to the sun. But this is not what has prompted me to pen down this write up. Then what is the reason, you would certainly ask. Of course it is not his work but something else, as I am not the right person to comment on his work.
Meghnath Bhattacharya
A few days back, he called me up with an invitation for an Iftar get-together at his home. I was told that this event was basically for his working friends along with a few others. I could not really understand what he meant by “Working Friends” back then. To the best of my ability, I could only think of working friends as those with whom Meghnath Da worked. It was only after I had Iftar at his place could I understand the meaning of working friends.
For Meghnath, his working friends essentially include people without whom; his daily life would come to a standstill. And that ranges from the Vegetable Seller, the Mason, the Carpenter, the Motor Mechanic, and the Plumber to the Domestic help. Hence, for the Iftar, most of the invitees consisted of them. “I am a practising Communist by belief and ideology”, he declares. “But, we communists have also failed to give real importance to the working class in our everyday lives”, confesses Meghnath while showing me some pictures of his recent trip to Germany. “These statues in Germany at public places clearly show how much respect they have for the working class,” he says, pointing at a picture of the statue of a Ticket Collector, outside a railway station of Germany. “He was believed to be very honest and hardworking”. “Unfortunately, we Indians couldn’t do anything similar to this and the Communists are no exceptions to this. They made Marx, Angles and Jyoti Basu their own Gods, and installed their statues wherever they could, despite the claims of them being the liberator of the working class.”, he adds.
Iftar at Meghnath Bhattacharya ji’s home.
It was the best Iftar get-together I had ever been a part of, I must confess. The arrangement was such that for a moment, I felt as though I was having Iftar at my own house. He had arranged for delicious stuff (all prepared at home by his life partner, Kanta and other family members), keeping in mind the needs of a Rozedar (a person who observes a fast). Moreover, he had made special arrangements for Maghrib prayer despite being an atheist himself.
But Meghnath does not stop here. He observes Roza (fasting) whenever he has to be a part of an Iftar. So that day too, he was fasting. In fact, a few days back when he came for an Iftar at my place, he had observed Roza. “For me, it seems immoral to be a part of an Iftar without fasting,” he asserts. This was not the first time he had organized an Iftar at his home. He has been doing it ever since he settled in Ranchi with a discontinuation of four years. And he promises now that he wouldn’t discontinue it any cost.
Meghnath was introduced to the practice of fasting during Ramdhan, in the last quarter of the seventies during his days at the Jamia Millia Islamia Campus, where he was editing some of his films. “My friends used to invite me for Iftar and it was a new experience for me”, he recalls. “But after a few days, I resolved that I would not go for an Iftar unless I observed Roza as well,” he adds. When asked if it was a difficult decision, he replied, “Yes, it was. But I also did not want to miss the Iftar get-togethers”. And, a practice he started some thirty years back is still observed by him with the same zeal and spirit. Now, after knowing all this about him, if anybody asks me about Meghnath Da, I would say, He is A rozedar Communist.
Link: http://www.akhra.in