THE MASTER'S MISSION AND ITS MIGHTY MISTAKES MADE ... 1

THE MASTER'S MISSION AND ITS MIGHTY MISTAKES MADE ... 1

Christ was never followed by the Church which went into the imperial mode of conquest of the heathen's land and culture, quite antithetical to the Master's message of universal love and peace.

Buddha's disciples tore the teachings of the Tathagata out of shape to cast a new religion contradisposed to the Vedic Dharma, which gradually brought in a despicable cultural degeneracy from which we, Indians, yet suffer.

We must be wary that the same mistakes are not repeated by the grand disciples of Ramakrishna as the Master's Mission expands and invariably tends to degeneration creeping in tortuosly but surely, nonetheless.

End of Part 1
To be continued...

Written by Sugata Bose

THE FILM 'GUMNAMI' ... 5

THE FILM 'GUMNAMI' ... 5
(Cigarette smoking is injurious to health.)

The film is heavily tilted towards the Gumnami Baba angle despite pretensions to the contrary. For the 'evidence' and 'instances' cited in savour of the monk incognito narrative are a plethora compared to that of the Aircrash version. The Russian angle, for lack of evidence, has been omitted altogether barring a flashy representation of torture in incarceration.

The shooting of the film was triggered by the publication of the book 'Conundrum', so it was initially claimed by its authors and left uncontested by the film-maker Srijit Mukherjee. However, when litigation followed against his supposed misadventure, the latter took cover under the Justide Mukherjee Commission Report and saw to the film's safe passage unto release.

End of Part 5
To be continued...

Written by Sugata Bose
(Cigarette smoking is injurious to health.)

THE FILM 'GUMNAMI' ... 4

THE FILM 'GUMNAMI' ... 4
(Cigarette smoking is injurious to health.)

To portray Netaji on the silver screen effectively is almost an impossible task and one must forgive Prasenjit for his failure to do justice to the role on that count. After all, neither does he have the height nor the build of Bose, nor even a semblance of the personality that could stand tall among the greatest leaders of the day. Netaji's deep and resonant voice with its excellent diction in English and Hindi was also lacking in Prasenjit. The hero was stiff and unnecessarily sombre which was not characteristic of Netaji, the fluid regal person that he was. His gait was also a trifle effeminate on an occasion when he, as Supreme Commander of the INA, swayed somewhat effeminately in his own characteristic stylised forward movement while inspecting the army camp. This was in sharp contrast to Netaji's robust and fluid gait.

All this is understandable, though, for who can adequately fit into Netaji's shoes? But despite it, the master director that Srijit Mukherjee is, he brought about a sufficient metamorphosis in his hero Prasenjit so as to help him portray Netaji as best as he could. The film being on Netaji's post-disappearance probable life, these discrepancies may be overlooked. Prasenjit did, thanks to directorial help, bring out the essence of the character he was made to portray in some sense and he must be commended for it.

End of Part 4
To be continued...

Written by Sugata Bose
(Cigarette smoking is injurious to health.)

THE FILM 'GUMNAMI' ... 3

THE FILM 'GUMNAMI' ... 3
(Smoking is injurious to health.)

The cinematography of the film 'Gumnami' is breathtaking and reminiscent of Steven Spielberg's 'Jurassic Park', to my reckoning at least. The shots of Netaji crossing the Burmese rivers overbridge had a giant impact on the viewer. The documentary-type beginning of the film was also captivating and promised much for the rest of the film to follow.

What transpired, though, may be summed up in mainly two phases, namely, the aircrash theory and the Faizabad monk theory. The first phase brought out the director's master craft as it had a strong well-linked narrative whereas the second phase had the director somewhat groping in the dark for connective links which, owing to paucity of credible data, were wanting. The handling of the aircrash phase was, thus, of the first order while the treatment of the Gumnami Baba phase was shabby and the narrative incoherent. Fitted into the monk incognito phase were shown flashes of the Russian angle with Netaji being supposedly tortured in incarceration.

Running through all this is the life of Chandrachur Dhar, a journalist of a newspaper entrusted with fact-finding and reporting about the Netaji disappearance issue, one who becomes so absolutely engrossed in his mission of discovery that his personal life is reduced to ruins.

End of Part 3
To be continued...

Written by Sugata Bose
(Smoking is injurious to health.)

THE FILM 'GUMNAMI' ... 2

THE FILM 'GUMNAMI' ... 2
(Cigarette smoking is injurious to health.)

The film has opened up the Pandora's Box of data suppressed thus far and brought into public reckoning, in so far as the cinematic medium is concerned, the historical heresies that have been perpetrated against our premier patriot over the last seven decades. Srijit Mukherjee has done a yeoman service by bringing alive the Netaji disappearance issue before the Bengalee-speaking world and set millions of Bengalees thinking as to what happened to their beloved leader post 18 August, 1945. What was on the net earlier has now seen the light of day on the mega screen and has, hopefully, ignited the imagination of millions of enthusiasts and inspired many of them to take up the disappearance research in the manner of Chandrachur Ghosh of the film, in their bid to solve this perplexing puzzle of seven decades.

End of Part 2
To be continued...

Written by Sugata Bose
(Cigarette smoking is injurious to health.)

THE FILM 'GUMNAMI' ... 1

THE FILM 'GUMNAMI' ... 1
(Cigarette smoking is injurious to health.)

It's been 11 days since I watched the film 'Gumnami' on the 3rd of this month, a day after its release on the 2nd of October, 2019.

The reason for this delayed appraisal may have been that an objective analysis of an event is often not possible in the rush of the hour when the mind tilts in its appreciation or depreciation towards its preferred line carved out of its predilections and predispositions. Hence, after the dust has settled on the immediate event somewhat, I set my thoughts on print.

End of Part 1
To be continued...

Written by Sugata Bose
(Cigarette smoking is injurious to health.)

SPIRITUAL COMMUNISM --- IDEALISM AND PRACTICE ... 1

SPIRITUAL COMMUNISM --- IDEALISM AND PRACTICE ... 1

Spiritual communism is the perception of the equality of all in the light of the divinity within. But terrible incongruities on the surface remain and these must be removed to facilitate a human face to such a grand philosophy, to make human life appear at least a semblance of this perceived grandeur of sameness, to give every soul a chance to raise himself from the mire of material deprivation and seek the sunshine of a fast-evolving life.

Speaking equality and divinity is one thing and acting in accordance quite another. Rooted human selfishness born out of the instinct of self-preservation, greed and hunger for power must be sublimated in the light of a growing awareness of the inner truth. But this again is easier said than done. These instincts are so deeply ingrained in the lowest sheaths of the human personality --- the physical, the vital and the mental --- that mere verbal education in morality, virtue, righteousness and philosophy prove utterly inadequate in bringing about even minuscule change in the human being. Despite the tallest lessons imparted to him from childhood, man grows up into the exploitative unsympathetic soul whose sole job is to gather the earth's resources for himself and create poverty in its wake for the masses. It is a case of ill-distribution of wealth on account of inefficient economic system, governmental inefficiency and apathy, lack of awareness of the masses about their basic rights and lack of the spirit of selflessness and sacrifice among the educated and the culturally refined.

The question then remains. How does one convert the devotee to a foot soldier of this divine mission to bring about the real equality for all, not in absolute terms but in proportionate terms where sanity rules over this indiscriminate acquisition of wealth that reduces millions, nay, billions to becoming beasts of burden?

Swamiji had hit upon his grand plan for the resuscitation of his motherland whereupon he activated the energy of renounced souls to attempt the transformation of society and the amelioration of the misery of the poor and the downtrodden. Those were days of dependency on the British who were sucking the life-blood of India and Swamiji must have felt that the common man was not yet ready to take up the cause of this social regeneration. But times have changed and we are a free nation today. The challenges have grown in geometric progression and it is no more meet to rely on monks alone to carry out this Herculean task of national reconstruction. The common man must now participate and sink in his ploughshare of work for the motherland's cause.

End of Part 1
To be continued...

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo : The disciples of Ramakrishna, the fledgling Order at Baranagar, the site of the first monastery of the Ramakrishna Order.