Remembering Tapan Sinha

the stones remained hungry
as palaces and kothis overturned
a night crossed over from guarding
an extinct royalty
to streets of Kolkata
where the youth tore off
its resplendence
stabbed by a fury
of political landscape
yet the night survived
its heart throbbed
images grew from
white and black
fact and fiction
summer and winter
and crowded the birds
once despondent of
hope
Tapan Sinha merged
with this
night today
days of untoward resolute
in its finery
crystal eyed
he continues to show
us all.

FimmakerTapan Sinha born on 2 October 1924, left us today. He was arguably the most uncompromising filmmaker outside the orbit of parallel cinema. This poem is inspired by his two movies Khudito Pashan (Hungry Stones) based on a story by Rabindranath Tagore and Aapon Jon, a film about the Naxalite Movement in Kolkata.

January 15 2009

Charcoal Drawing and Poem by Amitabh Mitra