Hrishidaa is no more....

Anand, Bawarchi, Guddi, Chupke Chupke, Mili, Satyakam, Khoobsurat,Abhimaan, Golmaal, Namak Haram, I have seen all of them and I feelthese movies were in a time where Indian Cinema could have been atits peak of presenting meaningful cinema. All these movies despiteof being from different genres were very much entertaining andmeaningful at the same time, a rare phenomenon these days.Hrishikesh Mukherjee, the creator of such movies passed away just acouple of days back and thus I felt like sparing a few thoughts inthe memory of this great, humane and sensible director. What hasbecome a rarity now was a penchant for this Bengali filmmaker. Iremember the beginning of Anand, one of the movies I would watch anygiven day, not just because it's a very emotional story but if youwatch it from the very beginning you would find how "sociallyrelevant" the film was, may be till date! In the opening scene thecharacter of Dr.Banerjee describes how in an age of soaring pricesand poverty, he would go around and learn how tough life was. Heseemingly was never happy with his profession because of themiseries of people he would observe and how just one man's entryinto his life changes his world entirely. Anand, a patientof "Lymphocercoma of the intestine" becomes the "joie de vivre" inhis life and brings in a reason to survive further more. Some scenesin the film are unforgettable and it was only Hrishidaa'sextraordinary sense of depiction that immortalized those scenes.Scene where Musabhai gets emotional on knowing about his illness,the excellent hindi vocabulary in which Dr.Banerjee is shown writinghis diary, the comic scenes and in fact, the entire movie is just sorealistic, and in the end the "Babu-moshai, ye jeevan ek ….kab kahakisko kaise…." sequence is so effective and well directed that….itwill make everybody ponder over questions of his or her life. Allother movies I mentioned earlier are similarly poignant at times,funny at times, thoughtful movies which will certainly make yourday. Please do watch any of his movies as soon as possible to payrespect to this departed soul, so that his messages may still keepspreading and I am sure you would like them, and please do spread aword about them.