Company Limited

Smart's a misnomer in offices of social wherewithal keeping records on paper for another day at heroism buttressed by inks on winks and dinks off kinks to keep the smarts smart in contexts declared historical for modernity beating in their cusps. The cusp of edges are depressions in vessels of hegemony challenged to survive in time like calendars do with companies and banks marketing raison détres of yore as choices hard chore brooked not with narratives parading as cultural artefacts peculiarly regional but with professional elan on dark schmooze keeping paperwork for distant fans air conditioning for the last man standing, deliberately, for lack of choices in any further professional manoeuvres at offices taken by those that call dibs on files and folders alien to smart cut trouser hems and locals to kitty parties without a regional licence in turn.

This is Part 2 of the Calcutta trilogy. Stepping forward from the unemployed rebel of The Adversary, we have a view of the workaday life of a rising executive Shyamal Chatterjee in a British owned fan manufacturing company (Peter Fans) in Calcutta. He has climbed rapidly to become the sales manager and is eying a directorship.Their son is schooling in a boarding in Darjeeling. There seems hardly any cloud of discontent in their monotonously blissful routine of office politics and evenings spent at clubs and restaurants.A sister-in law (Tutul by name) visits from Patna and we see the routine of innocuous flirting. The sister is only mildly impressed by the prosperity and adroit social climbing of her brother-in-law.

We get a nostalgic and somewhat drab recap of that period when there were only two brands of cars made in India, fans were more ubiquitous and air conditioning a rarity, television were still a decade ahead, and the villainies were also on a humbler scale, even in Bollywood. The world population was half the current figure. The wheel of life ambulated at a more leisurely pace. The ceiling fan and bicycle are appropriate symbols of this fleeting era..

And then there is real big trouble when a costly consignment of fans meant for Iraq is found liable for rejection on account of faulty painting. Shyamal's future is in jeopardy because the sales agreement includes a heavy penalty clause for late delivery. He has come a long way from the clever student and humble schoolteacher that he was as he conspires with the personnel manager to brew up labor trouble culminating in a temporary lockout and an explosion in the factory which leaves the guard badly, but not fatally, wounded. So what if he had died, joke the conspirators complacently, so many die in Calcutta every day, and the company would have sent a wreath. Both achieve their coveted career advancements, thus cashing in on an adverse situation.

The movie ends as Tutul returns the watch lent to her by Shyamal.

Not a masterpiece but certainly a vignette and a memorable slice of real life. No character is wasted and Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, as the worldly wise wog director of the company is particularly amusing as he gives a trade-mark performance. Ray is incapable of dishonesty or exaggeration for the sake of popularity and he paints the era as drab as it was.

The budget may be low (an explosion is simulated, for example, merely by shaking the camera), but Satyajit Ray's film about climbing the corporate ladder in early 1970s India is a highly sophisticated piece of work. It takes place in a surprisingly modern, gleaming slice of Calcutta; but the environment in which the emerging Indian professional classes prosper still bears the residual echoes of the colonial era. The central character, played skillfully by Barun Chanda , is quiet and charming, and superficially ambiguous about the appearances his position requires him to maintain; a little too flirtatious, perhaps, especially with his sister-in-law (who plays the movie's moral conscience); but when it comes down to it, ruthless in his ambition: I found his mixed motivations wholly convincing. There are even echoes of 'Save the Tiger' in the plot, except whereas that film (from the same era) is about the decline of America, this one is set against the backdrop of a rising India. An interesting and farsighted film, 'Company Limited' catches a snapshot of a country in transition from the era of empire and Gandhi to that of today.

While thematically Seemabaddha is similar to Jana Aranya, the dramatic element comes only near the end of the film. Instead it plays more like a slice of life film.

I have seen a lot of bollywood movies, they have never been able to give me insight into India as Satyajit Ray's movies have. That is why Seemabaddha was a revelation for me, mostly how little some things have changed.

Seemabaddha begins with visit of Tutul who is sister-in-law of Shyamalendu Chatterjee, movie's protagonist who is a sales manager in a big firm. From then on it mostly shows their daily lives as seen through eyes of Tutul, who is quite critical of her brother-in-law and liked him more when he was teaching. Tutul represent the traditional middle class India, while Shyamlendu is part of upwardly mobile young India. It is about the conflict in both their values. Of course like in most of Ray's movies everything is very subtle, and viewers have to come to their own conclusions.

While it lacks the dramatic elements of most of his high other movies I still loved this movie as it showed me a picture of India I had not seen before.

The movie was made in the 1970s, amazing to see how much of it still holds true and is relevant in the modern world. Kolkata (and other big cities) is still mostly the same and the rat race shown is even more severe in every field of life today. People like Shyamalendu are battling it out, trying to fit in, not realizing when they are changing ..hard to blame them also, as if not them, somebody else will do the same thing, taking their position. Makes one question as what we really mean by success. The actors did an amazing job, and what can one say about the master's direction. I wish more such films were made today capturing the state of today's society in Bengal..in India.