Thank you for sharing Best Sumanth
Sent from my iPad On 01-Jun-2013, at 10:33 AM, Deepa Mohan <[email protected]> wrote: > Most Indian obits deify their subjects, and are monuments of hypocrisy. > Here's an honest and impressive obit (at least, I think so) > > http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/an-icon-beyond-labels-man-woman-or-rituparno-830493.html > > > One of Rituparno Ghosh’s greatest performances on screen was not in any of > the dozen films he directed or in the handful in which he acted. It was on > one episode of*Ghosh and Company*, a Bengali chat show he hosted on the *Star > Jalsa* channel. His guest was the comedian Mir. > > One of Mir’s great talents is mimicry. And Rituparno and his manneri > were often the target of that mimicry. “When you mimic me are you mimicking > me or are you mimicking an effeminate man?” asked Rituparno. > > A rather nonplussed Mir replied he was imitating Rituparno Ghosh and only > Rituparno Ghosh. > > “But what is the message?” asked Rituparno. “Are people seeing Rituparno > Ghosh or a *naari-shulabh purush* (effeminate man)?” > [image: > PTI]<http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/an-icon-beyond-labels-man-woman-or-rituparno-830493.html/attachment/rituparno_pti> > > Ghosh was someone who embraced his sexual minority not with an activist > zeal but an almost matter-of-fact brazenness by just being who he was: PTI > > Then he proceeded to shred Mir’s arguments. > > “Have you ever thought that whenever you mimic me, so many effeminate men > in Kolkata, in Bengal feel ashamed, feel humiliated?” > > For Rituparno it wasn’t personal. “I can carry off my jewellery with such > flamboyance it doesn’t matter to me. But there are many people who feel > tremendous shame and stigma about this, who don’t have the courage to wear > jewellery, or the guts to wear *kajal*. I can live life on my terms, Mir. > But they cannot.” > > Some thought Rituparno had planned a public ambush on Mir. Others thought > Mir, himself a member of a minority as a Muslim man, should have been more > sensitive to begin with. That debate still rages on *Youtube *though Mir > and Rituparno never carried their grudge forward. Rituparno appeared on > Mir’s comedy show as a judge. And yesterday an emotional Mir mourned Ritu-* > da *in front of his house. > > That is what we lost with Rituparno Ghosh’s death. Not just a filmmaker and > writer, but someone who embraced his sexual minority not with an activist > zeal but an almost matter-of-fact brazenness by just being who he was, with > his Sunset Boulevard turbans, his flowing outfits, the herbal *kajal*-rimmed > eyes, the dangling ear rings. It was not a fantastic drag queen performance > which would have been just an act. It was Rituparno being Rituparno – > erudite and articulate, just in a gender-bending *salwar-achkan*. > > Anuj Vaidya, co-director at the Third I South Asian International Film > Festival which has showcased many of Rituparno’s films says, “In his recent > work, it becomes too hard to determine whether one is watching a man or a > woman – and I love that Rituparno often does not care to elaborate.” He > says it is “destabilizing at first” but eventually it does not matter if it > is “a he or a she or the many possibilities in-between – I am just watching > Rituparno.” It was not just make-up. Rituparno was changing physically – > shaved-head, kajal-eyed. He had had abdominoplasty done before a role and > undergone hormone replacement reports *The Times of India*. “I think what > is important is how Ritu over the last five years had started changing the > way he dressed and presented himself and to see that as a film maker/ > actor/ writer he started to address queer themes in films simultaneously,” > says filmmaker Onir, director of *I Am* and *My Brother Nikhil*. > > Perhaps, says, Onir, the respect and love he had earned gave him the > confidence. > > In *Aar Ekti Premer Galpo* Rituparno played both the *jatra *actor Chapal > Bhaduri who spent his life playing women on stage and a gay filmmaker > making a film about Bhaduri. In*Memories in March* he played a gay man > whose lover has died and who must confront the dead man’s clueless mother > played by Deepti Naval. In his last film *Chitrangada: The Crowning Glory*, > he used Tagore’s dance drama as a springboard to play a choreographer > struggling with his gender identity. > > Enacted by a diva like Rituparno, these characters often were more > Rituparno than real characters. But in the Tagore drama *Noukadubi*he went > one step further by dubbing the grey-haired widowed mother in his own > voice. It’s as if physically Rituparno Ghosh was quietly transforming > himself into a woman in front of his audience’s eyes and despite occasional > snickers about Ritu-porno and Ritu-*di*, his very middle-class audience > largely played along politely. > > Critic Aveek Sen offers up a > clue<http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120920/jsp/opinion/story_15989965.jsp#.Uag1fPJhe_I> > as > to why that was when he writes that both *Chitrangada*and *Aar Ekti Premer > Golpo* have the same problem: “Nowhere in the two films do I seem to > remember seeing two men actually enjoying sex without the accompaniment of > some ritual of refinement or beautification.” > > Perhaps the “ritual of refinement or beautification” is precisely what > allowed Rituparno to keep his middle-class Bengali audience, who he had > seduced back to the theatres with films like *Unishe April*. Middle-class > Bengal, simultaneously conservative and well-schooled, a deadly > combination, is obsessed about appearances and maintaining the status quo. > But Rituparno seduced them with a particularly well-chosen Rabindrasangeet > in a film, with the intimacy of his chamber pieces with unforgettable > women, and *then *hit them with the sexual politics – not just homosexual > but also heterosexual like the marital rape in *Dahan*. > > What made him a truly remarkable was that he did all this while rejecting > labels. *The Times of India* notes his breast implants before shooting *Arekti > Premer Galpo *and his ongoing hormone replacement therapy, but in an > interview with Shohini Ghosh, Rituparno refused > <http://marieclaireindia.com/article.aspx?artid=283704>to > be boxed into labels. > > It is assumed that feminine gay men desire to be women. It is an inability > to see beyond the binaries of male-female, hetero-homo. > > At a time when rising acceptance of alternative sexuality in India > (especially in the media) has meant increasingly hard-coded labels — > lesbian, gay, MSM, bisexual, transgender — Rituparno just blurred all the > boundaries with his androgyny. “It is for me to decide whether I will stand > in the queue for men or for women or neither of the two,” he once said. > > Now looking back, we can only marvel at Rituparno’s audacity to be who he > was right here among us. “I have acted in female roles for decades. But it > has always been on stage. I would never have dared to go around dressed as > a woman in public like Ritu did. I admire him for his courage to defy the > world and be himself” the real-life Chapal Bhaduri told > <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Admire-Rituparno-Ghosh-for-courage-to-defy-world-Chapal-Bhaduri/articleshow/20357753.cms> > *The Times of India*. “Our society is extremely vindictive and unforgiving.” > > On the other hand perhaps the gender-blurring Rituparno Ghosh was meant to > be Bengali – a language whose pronouns have no gender, whose verbs don’t > reveal the sex of the subject. In a tribute > <http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130531/jsp/calcutta/story_16956279.jsp#.UahVcvJhe_I> > in *The Telegraph*, designer Nil switches from he to she in the middle of > the piece. For a moment it’s unsettling and then you just keep reading. > It’s a neat bit of activism with a sly Rituparno touch. But it would have > been impossible, and unnecessary, had Nil written for the Telegraph’s > sister publication the Bengali *Ananda Bazar Patrika. > * > As I watched Rituparno’s body being taken to the crematorium, the sombre > gun salute, the gushing tributes about “irreparable loss”, I heard one > television guest slip and call him “she” and apologize. I couldn’t help > smiling. Rituparno was unsettling gender even in death, right there in our > living rooms. As he himself paraphrased Mark Twain’s reaction to Titian’s > painting of a nude Venus: > > “There she lies in her own right.” In Rituparno’s case, in a trademark > turban and kurta, a hint of a smile on the lips. > > Perhaps Rituparno Ghosh was having the last laugh. At the crematorium there > are no His incinerators and Her incinerators.
