In Subarnarekha, Ritwik Ghatak’s experiment with multilayered narrative reaches its peak. It revolves around a Partition refugee family settled in an industrial terrain along the titular river, seeking to rebuild their lives. They accept a Dalit boy into their care. The idea of home and associated volatility in an unstable world unfolds as their frail hopes erode under the weight of hardship, separation, and social prejudice. Ghatak extends his canvas from local to international, which is what makes this film still relevant. He notes, “On the surface, the crisis presented in … Subarnarekha revolves round the refugee problem. But the word ‘refugee’ does not simply signify the refugees of East Bengal.”
It is also Ghatak’s own re-working of the Indian epic The Ramayana, but unlike the canonical version, the heroic saga of Rama, his is the story of Sita. Young Sita plays in a deserted WWII airbase close to their new home where she encounters a harlequin dressed as Kali, the Terrible Mother. Ghatak explains, “One archetypal image that has been haunting us from a remote past, is today confronting us all over the world. You may call it… Hydrogen Bomb or Strategic Air Command… or some other name you would not like to mention. It is the power of annihilation… like little Sita, we have suddenly found ourselves confronted by it.” Expansive in scope yet deeply intimate in emotional register, this least-seen gem from the Partition trilogy weaves together melodrama, myth and political critique.

Sanghita Sen