Nayak (Bengali, 1966)
- condiscoacademy
- Sep 30, 2023
- 9 min read
Updated: Mar 8
Nayak, directed by the Indian auteur Satyajit Ray, stars the Bengali superstar of the time Uttam Kumar, playing a character that would have come naturally to him-that of a matinée idol (or Nayak in Bengali).
Source: https://www.criterion.com/films
The plot
The film unfolds over a train journey that film star Arindam Mukherjee (played by Uttam Kumar) undertakes from Calcutta (now Kolkata) to Delhi, where he will receive an award. Luckily for us, all flights are booked and hence, he is forced to take a train, thus making the events in this film possible! The narrative consists of two strands. The first, and the central one, is Arindam's backstory while the other strand consists of vignettes related to his fellow passengers.
Strand 1: Arindam's story
Arindam's story is told through two narrative devices. One, consists of the revelations he makes to Aditi Sengupta (played by Sharmila Tagore), who is the editor of a woman's magazine called Adhunika (modern woman in Bengali) and whom he meets in the dining car. The second source are his reminiscences and dreams.
There are four people of significance from Arindam's orbit who appear in the narrative, two belong to his old pre-stardom life and two are connections within the film industry. From the old era are his mentor Shankar Da (played by Soumen Bose) who directed him on the stage, and his friend Biresh (played by Premangshu Bose), a labor leader who is jailed by the government. From the film world are Mukunda Lahiri (played by Bireswar Sen), a veteran star who has fallen on hard times and Promila Chatterjee (played by Sumita Sanyal), an actress with whom Arindam has a troubled romantic relationship.
Strand 2: the co-passengers
The stories of the co-passengers serve as a garnish to the main narrative. There are two subplots within this strand.
The first provides comic relief in the form of the septuagenarian Aghore Chatterjee (played by Jogesh Chatterjee). Arindam has the choice of sharing a cabin with Mr. Chatterjee but chickens out after hearing the curmudgeon's acerbic views on alcohol. Since the film begins with a reference to a newspaper gossip piece about Arindam's involvement in a drunken brawl, we already suspect that temperance is not one of his virtues. Our conjecture is validated when a drunk Arindam staggers back to his train cabin at night.
The second subplot involving Arindam's co-passengers is more dramatic. Instead of the dual occupancy coupé with Aghore Chatterjee, Arindam opts for sharing a four-sleeper cabin where his co-passengers are a self-important globe trotting executive Haren Bose (played by Ranjit Sen), his wife Manorama (played by Bharati Devi) and their ailing teenage daughter Bulbul (played by Lali Chowdhury). Also on the train is Pritish Sarkar (played by Kamu Mukherjee) who works at the ad agency Spectrum Publicity and is pursuing Haren Bose for business. While Mr. Bose is dismissive towards Pritish, he takes a fancy to the ad executive's wife Molly (played by Susmita Mukherjee). Given that the film was made in 1966, the dynamic between Haren Bose, Pritish Sarkar and Molly is not spelt out at the level of an indecent proposal, but Pritish seems more than willing to get his wife to play footsie.
Observations
Remains of the Day
In Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day, the protagonist, Stevens, lives his life according to the idea that an English butler must be devoted to selfless service of the British aristocracy. But as an old man, he starts questioning whether his North Star idea was a lie and the personal sacrifices he made in deference to that ideal was worth it. Unfortunately, at the evening of his life, all he can do is squeeze whatever joy he can from the remains of the day.
Mercifully, Arindam does not fall into the trap of misguided idealism of his mentor Shankar Da, who insists that an actor's true calling is in theatre and a film actor is merely a puppet in the hands of a money making enterprise. The rational side of Arindam knows this not to be true. He rhetorically asks his manager Jyoti Banerjee (played by Nirmal Ghosh) whether Brando, Bogart and Paul Muni were puppets. Yet, he is plagued by the guilt of being a sell-out and dreams of being buried in a morass of 1000 rupees notes while Shankar Da refuses to save him.
While Arindam was right to ignore Shankar Da's strictures, he ultimately falls into the trap of being a puppet, exactly as the older man predicted. His debut is a film based on the Bankim Chandra novel Devi Chaudurani. As a newcomer he brings a modern sensibility to his craft, in contrast to the melodramatic style of acting practiced by his experienced and arrogant co-star Mukunda Lahiri. Arindam rightly diagnoses that Mukunda is trapped in the persona that the audience have come to expect from him. Yet, this is exactly what happens to Arindam eventually. The risk of losing the trappings of fame is too great for the nayak to deviate from the template. This fear gets reinforced when the once imperious Mukunda Lahiri arrives in an impecunious state at Arindam's house, groveling for a gig as an extra. Arindam lives in mortal fear of a flop and the safest thing to do is to keep repeating the same formula.
While those of us who are not celebrities are not trapped by fame, we often end up working at soulless jobs to finance a lifestyle we are trapped into. I observed this in myself and other Indian immigrants in the US. Many of us would end up buying million dollar homes and then spend the rest of our lives in corporate drudgery to pay the mortgage. In America, living in a home with a yard and picket fences is considered a hallmark of success. Yet most of us led perfectly content lives in somewhat cramped and dowdy apartments in India. At the core, we are all Arindams trapped in a life that is dictated by societal definitions of what is aspirational.
The instrumental human
We treat our fellow humans in an instrumental manner. A co-worker will help us accomplish a career goal. A date is a source of sexual gratification. We are friendly with the doorman because we may need him to check-in on our apartment when we are away. Our social media connections are there to boost our self-esteem through the like button. Yet, this is not how we treat our family and close friends. Luckily, most of us have a circle in which we do not relate to each other through the lens of instrumentality.
Arindam lacks such a circle (his parents aren't around either). He is hinted to be having a somewhat rocky romantic relationship with Promila, who as an ambitious newcomer, is primarily interested in getting film roles through his influence. Even his old labor leader friend Biresh tries to channel his celebrity to promote the cause of an industrial action he is championing.
It is in this context that Aditi Sengupta treats him admirably. First, she stops him from revealing to her the backstory of the drunken brawl incident circulating in the newspapers. She chooses not to exploit his emotional vulnerability for satisfying a prurient curiosity. Second, at the end of the train journey, she tears up her notes and decides not to publish the interview. In doing so, she treats him as a fellow human instead of an instrument to boost the circulation of the magazine she edits.
The two selves
There are two dream sequences in the film. The first, as previously mentioned, has Arindam drowning in currency notes. The second dream sequence depicts him stumbling into a lawn full of people while pursuing Promila and getting punched in the face by her husband. The second dream, thus, hints to a connection between the drunken brawl reported in the tabloids and Arindam's romantic life.
The Nobel prize winning economist Daniel Kahneman distinguishes between two selves- the experiencing self and the remembering self. The self that is sitting at the beach is the experiencing self. The self that is later reminiscing about the holiday is the remembering self. Most films, and Nayak is no exception, depict dreams from the perspective of the experiencing self. However, in reality, it is only the remembering self that can describe a dream because the experiencing self is not conscious during the dream. There is the additional complexity of a lucid dream where we know we are dreaming. In fact Buddhist mindfulness practices teaches us to treat life itself as a lucid dream. I once heard a Buddhist teacher say that death feels like the process of emerging from a dream.
A dream sequence in a film from the perspective of the remembering self would likely capture the fluid, surreal nature of how dreams are recalled. It would feature seamless transitions between physical spaces without the use of elevators, stairs, or any recognizable form of transportation. The settings themselves would be a collage of various places the remembering self has experienced, merging familiar environments into a single surreal landscape. The narrative would contain noticeable gaps or abrupt jumps, reflecting the fragmented way dreams are often remembered. Characters from different parts of the dreamer's life, who have no connection in reality, would appear together in the same space, much like superheroes from different universes. The sequence would jumble real-life experiences, fears, and desires, blending them together without any logical narrative.
There must be films that have depicted dreams in their dreamlike quality but Nayak isn't one of them.
The moon and sixpence
Pritish Sarkar, despite all his ardor, is not able to get any commitment from Haren Bose for his advertising agency. There is a somewhat comical denouement when another co-passenger (played by Satya Banerjee), who had been travelling in the same cabin as Pritish, offers him business. The humor comes from the fact that this gentleman, who has not spoken a word so far and is always shown fiddling with a bag of toiletries, turns out to be the head of a religious organization with an advertising budget! The organization is called World Wide Will Workers (WWWW), whose members believe that they can prognosticate and prevent calamities and catastrophes (like famines and wars) through collective willpower. The organization has grown in India but now they are looking to expand globally. While Pritish was eyeing a budget of 5 million rupees from Mr. Bose, this gentleman's advertising budget is merely Rs. 30,000. Pritish Sarkar is like the character in Somerset Maugham's novel who was so busy yearning for the moon that he never saw the sixpence at his feet.
The age of the Bhadralok
Bhadralok in Bengali literally means respectable man. This sounds like a harmless word but it is very classist. A working class man would not be called a bhadralok. A wealthy but poorly educated shopkeeper is not a bhadralok but a university professor, regardless of income level, is. A guilty pleasure of watching Nayak is observing the bhadralok culture of the 1960s:
Aghore Chatterjee writes polemical letters to the editor against films in The Statesman. Both Arindam and his manager know of Mr. Chatterjee's letters. Today, Indian newspapers have declined so much that most people cannot even name the editor, forget about recognizing those writing letters to the editor.
Prior to the 21st century, air travel was not affordable to Indians except for the rich. A middle class bhadralok had a choice of four types of air-conditioned travel in trains. One could travel AC first class in a coupé where you shared a cabin with another person. Alternatively, AC 2 tier offered compartments with 4 sleepers (two bunk beds of 2 tiers each). In the 1960s, when the film is set, they did not have AC 3 tier in which one compartment housed 6 sleepers (2 bunk beds of 3 tiers each). Finally, there was the AC chair car in which you sat on chairs that did not recline at all. Arindam, as a film star, is suited for AC first class but he declines to shack with Aghore Chatterjee. Hence, he travels by AC 2 tier while Aditi Sengupta is traveling by the chair car. She is likely traveling by the chair car because the sleeping coaches were sold-out. The passengers in the film across these coaches intermingle in the dining car.
In this film, the drink of choice is Coca Cola. When the globe-trotter Haren Bose asks for a Coke, the attendant does not know that it is an alternative name for the soft drink. The Coca Cola Company exited India in 1977 and did not reenter till 1993. Hence, those of us who grew up in 1980s India never saw a Coke bottle in real life.
The culture consumed by the bhadralok in the movie is highly westernized. Aghore Chatterjee says that the last time he was in a cinema was 20 years ago when he saw How Green was my Valley. Haren Bose is reading a Perry Mason book. The actors Arindam reveres are Brando and Bogart. Even though the fictional magazine Adhunika is in the Bengali language (unlike the real life English daily Statesman that Arindam reads), its content is aligned with westernized feminist sensibilities.
Going beyond the above pleasures and preoccupations of the bhadralok class, the entire film is imbued with a bhadralok sensibility of the time. In a modern day Netflix version of Nayak, the indecent proposal angle (Haren Bose, Pritish Sarkar and Molly) and the casting couch undercurrent (Arindam and Promila) would be depicted in a way that leaves little to the imagination.
There is something romantic about the idea of a train journey, though the reality of it varies by the quality, cleanliness and timeliness of the trains. The idea of taking the California Zephyr from Chicago to San Francisco may sound great but Amtrak is quite nasty. Thankfully, we do not need to worry about these prosaic matters when watching films set on trains. The Lady Vanishes, Murder on the Orient Express, Ballad of a Soldier and Darjeeling Limited are some of my favorite train films of all times. Nayak is another classic addition to this genre.
Comments