Dear Rituparno

Dear Rituparno Ghosh,

I hope this letter finds you(if in some extra-terrestrial, ghostly way it ever does) happy, peaceful and above all, accepted in the new world you now belong to. I do not really believe in an afterlife but deaths like yours want me to believe in some sort of continuity. Something that my heart can still cling to because the blank truth of somebody's existence so blatantly wiped off from the surface of the world makes so little sense to me. In a historic judgement made by the Supreme Court two days earlier, gay couples are now legally allowed to get involved and married and live together happily ever after. Finally, they have the permission of the law to have their own fairy tale ending. But how much of the war is really won, I do not know. Law is a cold statement meant to be brought to life by the people meant to enforce it. You fought a lifelong war trying to get adjusted in a society that looks down at effeminate men with mockery and contempt, ostracizes people for being different in whatsoever meaning of that word. Your cinema constantly showed while putting a finger to the eye how cruel and ruthless human beings can be to other fellow people and yet how the heart is the wildest of all creatures and cannot be tamed. It falls for who it shouldn't. It wants to be what it knows it can't. It's a mad horse running into the sea, never understanding what fate awaits for him there. It's a moth circling the flame of the candle too close until it catches fire, burns down to ashes, its mere existence remains ever in question. And so, in every film you made, every character you portrayed, every word that came out of your mouth, there was a sense of deeply felt pain, a backdoor realization of being put off the books all your life. 

I remember watching Memories in March where a young divorced woman who has just lost her son in a tragic drunk-and-drive car accident tries to cope up with the sudden demise of her son and the shocking revelation that her son was madly in love with his boss, a man portrayed by you. There was this iconic scene in this film that never leaves my mind. I call it the staircase scene cause it was essentially a conversation your character had with your lover's mother asking her what was more unacceptable to her- her son's demise or his sexual preference. And then, there was Just Another Love Story which so poignantly emoted the relationship of yet two other men. Later, when I watched Call Me By Your Name, I was reminded of your film. I can guarantee that the movies you made were all capable of receiving Oscar Buzz only if they got spread rightly around the world.

The utter dismay of the characters in your film and the mute giving in to the heart's desires later resulting in a catastrophic heartbreak and a distraught soul was shown with so much detachment and regularity that my heart went out at the last scene of the film. Somewhere, it said: do you know why everybody likes a holiday? It is because the holiday ends in the end and people go home to their normal every day. So pissed that they show they are about their daily lives, everybody loves a holiday cause it comes once in a while. 

Addressing wilful sexuality and the right to choose to be the person one wants to be reached a climax with Chitrangada. The ultimate freedom, the zenith of conquering one's wish, the pinnacle of choosing one's identity oneself. I can never forget that film. I have watched it so many times over and I shall never get tired of watching Chitrangada. Entire parts of that film are scribbled with stone in my memory. So brimming pain! Why does the insignificant choosing of one's partner bring one along so much inexplicable pain, dismay, and rejection from the people he thinks are his own? Why can't a person be what he wants to be, in the truest meaning of that word? When do you know when the pain becomes pleasure? One said. Then, teach me. Another replied.



Two sentences and two individuals tread on a path of adventurous lust, love, betrayal, and the ultimate acceptance that you cannot really change who you are and what you want or who makes you happy. These are innate things and the more you fight trying to resist them, the more they hurt. A law passed therefore cannot change the entire prevalent mindset of a society. That, individuals need to work upon themselves. How many parents today will not shout with utter disbelief if their children walk up to them expressing their sexuality? How many children will still not be left in narrow streets around corners just because they have been born without a stipulated gender? So, I believe the abolishing of a section is a baby step toward massive change but people living in this world have to carry the legacy forward by opening their minds up a bit. And maybe then, another budding Rituparno somewhere in the dark will not inject hormones into the body and take countless pills trying to spare himself the mockery and give definition to worldly gender.

Ever remembering you,
Deyasini