"Mahanagar" is a Satyajit Ray master piece. As the name suggests - 'Big City' --- the film portrays contradictions of a metro life and multiple challenges.
In an age of development, the past/old and the "Tradition" struggle to survive amongst the superficial morals of the middleclass.
As industry and trade take over the city, the morality which Hindu Bengalis upper caste families try to uphold onto quite tightly are crumbled and re-shaped as well. In political sense, that is a struggle that the then Calcutta and today's Kolkata is still undergoing.
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| Vanishing magic of 2011 - Reality of 2026 |
During Buddhadeb era; Mamata Banerjee symbolised a new kind of protest -- linking use of land for agriculture and not industries. This had touched an emotive chord.
The film is a story of a housewife. But Mamata has been a lifelong spinster and the struggles of the outgoing chief minister and the film's protagonist Arati are similar.
On the vote counting day, May 4th -- the BJP has turned the table.
From 14 in 2021 to 54 seats in Bengal's Presidency region, the Lotus party has flipped the script in Kolkata and surrounding areas and extended its reach beyond the tea garden districts.
The film Mahanagar was made in the 1960s. The era was different. First the Congress and then the Left - Mamata struggled and came up the ladder hard way. She did not have spoon-feeding luxury or a political legacy to cherish. The film's character - a faceless housewife struggles --- she is dutiful, manages home ad accepts life as it came.
But when the crisis comes as cost of living increases manifold; she shows courage and turns a rebel.
The politician Mamata was always a rebel. She thrived with it. She was manhandled by Left goons and cops. She showed her rebellion nature even in Parliament. Protested against Speaker Lok Sabha, Shvraj Patil in 1995 and in 2004 threw bangles at the Speaker Somnath Chatterjee (Marxist) for disallowing her not to raise the issue of Bangladeshi infiltration.
The paradox is in 2026; she opposed SIR and by then her image is pro-infiltrators too. The Bangladeshi infiltration issue also contributed big time for her ouster.
In the film, Arati resigns from her job in a fit of rage.
In unemployment she and her husband 'become equal'. Is that the proper way of resembling the growth of the metropolitan and the prosperity ?
In politics; the context is different. There is enough 'rage' in Mamata but perhaps misdirected ones. If Arati could not survive the job atmosphere; Mamata now has to bow out of office because people have expressed no confidence in her.
Born: January 5, 1955, in Kolkata, Mamata began her political career in the 1970s and quickly rose within the Congress ranks.
She was Union Minister under P V Narasimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. She had defeated Somnath Chatterjee in 1984 but lost the seat in 1989 to Manini Chatterjee of CPI-M.
She never contested from the same seat. In 2021, she lost Nandigram and this year she is giving a brilliant tight in Bhabaninagar.
Of course, she is leading but she was trailing once.
In Kolkata region, the BJP was doing well in Bidhannagar and Rashbehari (where journalist Swapan Dasgupta is trying his luck).
Mamata will be always remembered for achieving the unthinkable - the ouster of the communists in 2011.
What makes the film revolutionary ?
Arati’s husband (Anil Chatterjee) says in the film ‘a woman’s place is in the home‘,
Mamata too was ridiculed and discouraged a lot by the Leftists but in the end; the human spirit mattered to both -- the politician as well as the character in silver screen.
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| Rajiv Gandhi and Mamata |
Blogger in Kolkata
Moreover, during campaign PM Narendra Modi said - TMC made lives of Ma - unsafe, Maati was made available for Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators and Manush - local West Bengal citizens had to flee or move out of the state for job.
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