“You can find something truly important in an ordinary minute,” Mitch Albom from “For One More Day”, author of “Tuesdays with Morrie” which has sold 14 million copies, and has been translated into 42 languages.

 

It is with a lot of skepticism that I take up writing in a Bengali forum. But the invitation from one of the organizers of Chhobighar was so intimate that I felt reassured that my opinions counted.

 

Many of us have many opinions but most are reluctant to share it universally because we are afraid that it will be regarded as ordinary. When blogs came around, and soon Twitter and Instagram followed, suddenly millions of voices could join openly in the various dialogues. It was ok to be ordinary but with every ordinary voice added to the most trending hashtag (#metoo, #earthday, #wearebaltimore), our ordinary voices became EXTRAORDINARY.

 

In the most recent Bengali movies that I have seen courtesy of Chhobighar (Ahare Mon, Maati) I noticed the same trend. How to find the extraordinary in the ordinary! Not everything one produces in celluloid needs to be glitzy, glamorous, or glorified. Just look what's happening in You Tube. Short videos made on personal cell phones are going viral. They are not blockbusters or anywhere near. Yet they make their way into every home, or better to say every smart device. Adil Hussain may not be a mega star with a mega price tag, but he is surely deserving of every National Award he has received. His co-star in Ahare Mon, Paoli Dam probably makes every head turn, but I don't wish for her to become a Sri Devi or Priyanka Chopra. Nothing wrong with them, but I doubt if their mega star status would allow them to make "ordinary extraordinary," movies like Ahare Mon or Maati.

 

My claim has always been that it is in the ordinary that you can recognize the extraordinary. As a boy I grew up in Sahibganj, then Bihar, now Jharkand. One of our favorite getaways was Moti Jharna. No Niagara or Iguazu Falls, but even today when I see a picture of Moti Jharna in the many Facebook posts, it still looks so attractive I want to race back there. I bring this up because producers like Avishek Ghosh and Magic Moments Motion Picture, and directors like Pratim Gupta, Saibal Banerjee and Leena Gangopadhaya, are not afraid to take their chances with the ordinary, everyday place story and with their talent and magic make them extraordinary. Like the producers, directors, and actors, Bengalis everywhere are embracing this new trend in Bengali movies.

 

I have had a personal preference to read biographies of lesser known names. One believes that a biography must be about somebody important and famous, therefore worth the investment in time and money. Sebastian Haffner, journalist, researcher and biographer, who chose for his subjects personalities like Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill, writes - “Official, academic history has, as I said, nothing to tell us about the differences in intensity of historical occurrences. To learn about that, you must read biographies, not those of statesmen but the all-too-rare ones of unknown individuals.”  I think modern Bengali movies like Ahare Mon, Machher Jhol, and Maati show us that when you have learnt the simple skill to sew, like a button on your shirt, you have all the skills necessary to weave together all the loose strings into the most beautiful fabric of life. Kudos once again to the producers, directors and actors. And to Chhobighar for bringing such titles to the silver screen for the enjoyment of Chicagoland Bengalis.

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[This article was originally published in the commemorative magazine for the Chicago Bengali Film Festival 2019 (CBFF2019), organized by CHHOBIGHAR, the Bengali film society in Chicago, on September 7th, 2019. ]