Interstitial Images: Nemai Ghosh's Photographs of Women Icons

In many ways, it’s a disservice to both Satyajit Ray and Nemai Ghosh’s twin legacies to read the latter’s career as only a derivative of the former’s. It is, then, fair to argue that Ghosh was Boswell with a camera, not only because of, but also despite Ray, as an archivist of the cinematic ecosystem of his times.

His portraits of the interstitial moments of endless waiting on sets, getting ready, or just rehearsing one’s lines between takes are strangely poignant, in that they reveal the fundamental nature of the craft. It’s mostly about waiting—and despite being collaborative, films are also born in the quietude of the artistes’ minds. Ghosh was keenly aware of that.

Nemai Ghosh, Pikoo, 1980, Chrome pigment inkjet print on Hahnemuhle photo rag fine art paper, 9.2 X 13.0 in. Collection: DAG

His documentation of actresses—such as Sharmila Tagore, Aparna Sen, Madhabi Mukherjee, Simi Garewal, and Shabana Azmi, among others—is a singular phenomenon. Instead of presenting them in heavily choreographed images that pandered to their curated, coded public existence, Ghosh’s gaze didn’t single them out like exhibits. Neither did he let them blend in. Ghosh achieved something peculiar, especially for his time, by catching actresses off guard, often even unglamorous, and portraying them as equal participants in largely male-dominated spaces. In fact, on the sets of filmmakers like Mrinal Sen, Utpalendu Chakrabarty, and M. S. Sathyu as well, Ghosh framed actors across the board as agents of their own politics, collaborating and negotiating their way through power structures, which became especially crucial for the women of his time.

Ray’s long-time muse and collaborator, Madhabi Mukherjee, now 84, last worked with the auteur in Kapurush-O-Mahapurush in 1965, four years before Ghosh officially joined Ray’s crew with Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (1969). While she hadn’t spent time with him on set, Mukherjee has vivid memories of him visiting her home one day. ‘At my age, I don’t remember the details of what the occasion was for which he was there to photograph me at my place, but I remember clearly how he conducted himself while he was there,’ Mukherjee says. Ghosh didn’t say much, she remembers. ‘A most quiet and gentlemanly man at that,’ she adds. But she also remembers his self-assuredness, directing her very minimally around the house and becoming a fly on the wall. ‘As actresses back in the day, we wouldn’t really interact with the still photographers on set, but I could tell even among them, Nemai babu was different,’ Mukherjee recalls.

Nemai Ghosh, Seemabaddha, 1971 - 2012, 16.0 X 24.0 in. Collection: DAG

Ironically enough, what made him stand out was his ability to blend in. Actor-director-filmmaker Suhasini Mulay knew better than anyone else on set that ‘Nemai da’ was not to be disturbed when he was at work. As the daughter of pioneering documentary filmmaker and historian Vijaya Mulay—who was one of the joint secretaries of the Federation of Film Societies of India, founded by Ray—Suhasini had the opportunity to apprentice under the auteur. So, upon her return from pursuing higher education at McGill University in Canada, Suhasini joined the Jana Aranya crew as the fifth assistant director—the last one in the pecking order on set—in 1975.

Nemai Ghosh, Jana Aranya, 1975 - 2012, 23.0 X 34.5 in. Collection: DAG

On day one itself, Suhasini had checked with Manik da (as Ray was fondly called) about when she could go to anyone on set, including him, with questions, to which he’d said: after pack-up. The other rule on the set was that no photography was allowed during the shoot, as the sound of the camera’s clicks would disturb the artistes. ‘So, Nemai da photographed rehearsals, but even then, I don’t remember the sound of his camera on set,’ she says.

Ghosh’s presence was elusive, almost chimeric, and his focus was a thing of wonder. Suhasini could barely spot him ‘hanging around’ on set once the camera stopped rolling, but when on set, she recalls the most extraordinary examples of Ghosh’s dedication towards his craft.

Nemai Ghosh, Jana Aranya, 1975 - 2012, Inkjet print on archival paper, 16.0 X 24.0 in. Collection: DAG

This one time, Suhasini caught Ghosh’s eyes fixed on actor Lily Chakravarty. Nothing remarkable there, until she realised that the photographer had kept his focus steadily on her, while rummaging through his bag for the perfect lens to capture that moment. What played out in front of her eyes remains a testament to how she remembers her Nemai da, and what she learned from him that day. ‘Without taking his eyes off her for even a second, he reached into his bag, pulled out a lens, held it in half his hand while he was holding the camera, clicked the photograph, disengaged the lens that was on top, put it in his bag and put this new lens on,’ Suhasini says. In that moment, she told herself that this is the level of professionalism she must aspire to.

Ghosh, very pointedly, did not wait for a spectacle—that was for the big screens. His work, in many ways, was more akin to journalism, like an annalist of history as it was being written and made. There is labour and toil in the process of filmmaking that is concealed by design, focusing on the finished product that fuels the mythmaking of cinema stars. In his archives, however, the stars go glaringly missing—there are only individuals in a state of flux and vulnerability. Suhasini delineates this through an example from the sets of Jana Aranya.

While on set, she caught Ghosh standing on the sides, looking intently at what seemed like an unremarkable, almost inane moment to her. In front of them was Ray, debriefing Pradeep Mukherjee, the newcomer who was the film’s lead, struggling to deliver his lines. ‘I remember having asked Manik da as to why a newcomer was chosen for this part, and he’d told me that he loved how vulnerable Pradeep looked when he took off his glasses. I remember Nemai da had heard that conversation. What he was doing was waiting for that exact moment for Pradeep to take off his spectacles at that point,’ Suhasini says. She watched him watch this ‘like a hawk’, completely invisible, but with his eye on the prize. ‘It was extraordinary the kind of attention Nemai da would pay to the smallest of conversations and details on set.’

Ghosh didn’t shine a light on the faces of his subjects, nor did he feel the need to unnecessarily fraternise with them. Suhasini says that she might even go so far as to state that while Ghosh was friendly and warm to everyone, he perhaps didn’t have friendships with any of them. ‘I don’t know if he even had a ‘friendship’ with Manik da, you know? Of course, by virtue of the fact that they worked together for so long, they had something, and Manik da respected him a lot. But I don’t know if there was a conventional friendship there,’ she says. It’s this disinterest, perhaps, that allowed Ghosh the precision in his vision. His work wasn’t promotional, but it clearly carried his opinion of the world he witnessed and documented for posterity. ‘He himself didn’t talk much, but through his work, you can tell that he had thoughts on the people he was photographing.’

It’s in the flicker of the lights and the depths of the shadows that Ghosh acquainted himself with his colleagues. He could catch them in their most defenceless moments, but without stripping them of their dignity. This doesn’t make Ghosh’s work supplementary to film scholarship, but a veritable canon of it, by refocusing the lens on the grind behind the craft that more often than not earns a bad rap for being a hollow vessel of conceit.