One Anjan Dutta

'I used to smoke very little. Now perhaps it's increased a bit. Why? Because my drinking was increasing. Ha ha ha…'

These words are Anjan Dutt's. How many people can speak with such simple candor, tell me? For some, drinking ruins their status; for others, drinking elevates it. And people like Anjan Dutt belong to such a class that when they approach, liquor itself gains prestige!

'Perhaps if I had received recognition as an actor at the right time, at the right age, I could have become quite a major actor. I had that potential. But when I crossed forty and didn't get sufficient opportunities to act, I realized that in this lifetime, I would no longer have the power to revolutionize Bengali cinema.'

These words too are Anjan Dutt's. Those who have seen his acting—can they believe he could say such things? This humble honesty of Anjan's can never overshadow the truth.

The creator of such sublime immortal songs as 'I got the job, Bela, do you hear…', 'Without you, the morning wouldn't have been so sweet…', or 'Ranjana, I won't come anymore…'—notice where his regret lies? Without such thirst, one cannot run in search of nectar.

Anjan says about himself, 'I am more or less a professional artist. Theatre, modern songs, cinema—this is my world, which is gradually drowning in mediocrity. I constantly feel the absence of great artists. At sixty-three, I keep searching for new possibilities. When I find traces of them, I get very excited and try to establish them. I want to be a good teacher. But in most cases, I see them too drowning in mediocrity. Most of them just roam around as petty celebrities. They just roam around, nothing more.'

Actually, without truth, there can be no autobiography. Sajjad didn't want to fabricate stories to make Anjan Dutt into a great artist. He searched for that Anjan whom no one could understand or recognize. Perhaps because they couldn't understand him, no proper evaluation was ever made. Or perhaps because they couldn't recognize him, he couldn't become a great artist in this lifetime.

So I spend quite a bit of Sajjad's money. I buy plane tickets and force him to go to Darjeeling with me. And in that sweet atmosphere of childhood, filled with much hardship yet beautiful, I speak many, many truths quite openly.

It's not that I've only suffered. I've also caused tremendous suffering to others, to people close to me. Joy is born from suffering and hidden sorrow.

I poured everything out to Sajjad like a friend, the way a patient spills all truths to his doctor. I told him all those things like a friend that were valuable for my becoming myself. Lost in many alleys and byways, I found my path forward and the courage to proceed. I needed to get lost. I am neither a good man, nor a good husband, nor a good father. The eternal question before me: what is good? I can say with head held high that I am not a bad person. Everyone has qualities. Qualities are actually like table salt. But what do people do with those qualities? Do they want to become popular? Do they want to be good in everyone's eyes? Or do they want to be honest with themselves? What is the true definition of honesty?'

I've heard in Suman's voice, the Bengali rendering of Joan Baez's song: How many roads must one walk to be called a traveler... I want to ask Anjan: How many more roads must one walk to be called a great artist!

Those of us who grew up listening to 'Kanchenjunga', 'Mary Ann', 'I Have Seen Rain', 'One Day in the Rainy Afternoon', 'Do You Want to Hear', 'Sitting at the Station'—we are very fortunate. In the trademark list of songs for sleepless nights, Anjan Dutt's such wonderfully beautiful creations were and remain at the top. When I grew up and learned that Anjan makes films and has also acted in them, I dove into that universe of his creation too. His performances in Mrinal Sen's films Kharij, Chalchitra, Antareen; Aparna Sen's film Yuganta; Buddhadeb Dasgupta's film Grihajuddha—which Bengali hasn't been stunned watching such acting? Watching 'Bagh Bahadur Forever', 'Dutt vs Dutt', 'Ranjana I Won't Come Anymore', we recognize the solid mettle of filmmaker Anjan Dutt. Without borrowing from fake elitism, taking such a wonderfully fluid rural path, cinema can walk too—Anjan has shown this very successfully.

To those reading this piece of mine, I say: if you have time, or even if you don't have time, make time and watch all episodes of Anjan Dutt's travel chat show 'Chalo Anjan' if you haven't already. They're on YouTube; you'll find them if you search. There, Anjan takes various great personalities to some magnificently beautiful places in West Bengal and talks about life with them in a very candid manner. Relaxing body and soul in nature's lap, in the warm steam of tea or the genuine intoxication of whiskey, the way they reveal themselves—if you listen carefully, you'll understand that the difference between great people and us is actually in many places. Their reading or knowledge, their thoughts or practices, their simplicity or ease, their philosophy or psychology—none of these match with ours. And because they don't match, we spend our lives remaining ordinary until we lie in graves or mount pyres. The distance between ordinariness and extraordinariness is so vast that untrained minds cannot even imagine it. The thoughts and actions of great people are both very great.

Whether in acting, directing, or music—such a great artist, a great Anjan Dutt—how does he speak about himself so effortlessly, with such simplicity, so candidly, without keeping the slightest pretense? How can he throw so many questions at himself, at others, and at society? How many roads must one cross to become so fearless?

These things really don't come to my mind. Or truthfully speaking, they don't reach the mind of someone as insignificant as me—that's why the man is Anjan Dutt. Understanding geniuses is completely impossible without sufficient mental maturity and preparation! Those we call master artists—understanding any of them is far, far beyond our capability. When they're alive, we can't understand them; even after death, they remain undiscovered to our intellect.

When we enjoy their creative art from afar, we cannot even conceive that we've seen, heard, or felt only one specific aspect of an artist. There may be considerable distance between that aspect and the individual artist, and in some cases, conflict isn't unusual either. We can't even think that perhaps there's no connection whatsoever between the artist's art and the artist's life. There is friendship between creator and creation, but there may not be identity. Artists are not obligated to be like their work. An artist's commitment is only to their art. Those who seek connections between an artist's personal life and their art, or those who sit down to dissect an artist's personal life, are essentially arranging to destroy the artist's artistic being.

Compared to insignificant, therefore negligible, uncreative people, a great artist's position is always much higher. They cannot be fit into any grammar. Those who try are actually criminals, one by one. That blind mob of fools doesn't even know what level of foolishness they've reached! Donkeys don't know how to acknowledge a lion's superiority, which is why they remain donkeys till death. All donkeys together elect some big donkey as their king and spend their lives trying to become like that big donkey.

There's no greater sin than being judgmental about artists. We just waste our lives making judgments, while on the other side, people like Anjan Dutt writhe in the hunger for creating something new, in the birth pangs of new creation. In that great journey toward the celebration of birth, this laborious staging of one voluntary mental death after another until physical death—we don't keep track of this. If we truly wait with sincere anticipation for real art, then why do we get busy searching for those apparent flaws by digging into artists' lives—flaws that perhaps exist precisely because artists ultimately become artists?

We are so worthless that trying to take artists to heaven, we make their art fall from heaven. What we consider hell is actually where the first step of their stairway to heaven begins—this never registers in our crude intelligence. A wise person's journey to heaven and a fool's journey to heaven are never the same, even in the remotest consideration. Even with the keys to all doors of a fool's heaven, you cannot open even one door of a wise person's hell. Therefore, silence should be the fool's primary duty.