ROADS LESS TAKEN: THE ‘HITENDRA GHOSH’ ORIGINS

Allow me to start by telling sorry to my readers.

It’s been quite some time since I did my last blog, with Sham Kaushal – although it seems you guys have kept reading my pieces, since the traffic to my blog has been remarkably steady. Thanks for the support.

Life kept me busy with other things. I did a couple of Netflix projects, relocated to Mumbai from Delhi, and settled down here.

Somewhere I always knew, if and when I make a comeback to blogging, it will have something to do with the world of sound. That’s what excites me the most. And for heaven’s sake, now I am in Maya Nagari Mumbai. If I don’t resume writing these pieces while I am here, then I might as well stop paying Bluehost and let my blog wither away by itself.

Either that, or get going. That’s that.

With a firm push from my friend Sound Designer Tapas Nayak, I got the chance to meet Hitendra Ghosh, the re-recording maestro. He is an icon, the behind-the-scenes sound man of every Shyam Benegal film since Nishant (1975), every Govind Nihalani film, and the last three films of Satyajit Ray. It was nothing less than a lifetime dream come true.

More so because this legend who has worked in more than 3700 films still comes to the studio every day, that too with something that is more than a pacemaker pumping his heart – a device that has been there for more than 20 years.

That’s loving to stay alive. But more about that later.

Let’s first start with how coming to the world of films was an accidental afterthought for Hiten Ghosh – one that emerged out of pure and persuasive ‘boredom’.

“NO INTEREST IN CINEMA AT ALL”

I did my engineering, Mechanical Engineering.

So, I had not decided on coming to the world of cinema. Not sound, nothing in any department of movie making.

It so happened that immediately after my studies, I got a job as a junior engineer in the Waterworks Department in Delhi. I saw that there was no work for me. Firstly, as you arrive in office, you have to say good morning to all of them, and then in the whole day only one or two letters will come to you. You have to just put your initials. You can’t even read that letter, because there are fifty other people waiting to read it. So, you have no comments to make; you have nothing to do; you just sign and pass it on to the other person.

So, this went on for a month and I started to seriously question myself, what is this? I have done engineering and there is nothing I can do here, what kind of a job is this?

That was the time I chanced upon the advertisement of the Film and Television Institute at Pune. It occurred to me that let’s try this sound engineering course.

Young Hiten realized he didn’t have the mindset of a sarkari naukar. For most Indian job-seekers during the early 70’s, that was a plum position in a plush department.

But Hiten decided to give it a pass.

Here, to understand him and his decisions better, let me tell you a bit about his origins.

I feel he inherited his creative impulses from his parents.

Hiten’s parents studied at Shantiniketan, as direct disciples of Rabindranath Tagore. His mother learnt music, and his father did arts. They were teachers at the Gwalior Schindhia School, from where Hiten did his entire schooling.

But both his parents died early.

Maharaja Schindhia sponsored his school education and after that, five years of Engineering. Once Hiten completed his schooling, the Maharaja funded him by making him a secretary at his office.

His job there? Naah, let me get Hiten to tell you that.

“I FIXED THE CAR SKEDS FOR MAHARAJA”

I used to work in the morning, say till 9 or 9:30 AM.

Maharaja Schindhia had 62 cars. My job was to look at the events which he was supposed to attend in a day, and assign specific cars for the occasion.

Say if he is going in a big place, then I have to send his Rolls Royce. Otherwise, if he is going for a school visit, or to meet a friend or something like that, then I would give him another car, a smaller car. He also had a typical Maharaja car with ramps where fully decked security guards could stand while the car was moving. They stand all along, and when the car stops, they come and open the door for him.

So that was my duty over there, and then I would go to college.

This went on for five years.

When young Hiten decided to apply to a Sound Engineering and Recording course at the Film and Television Institute of India, his family and well-wishers were (obviously) scandalized. Doing five years of Engineering, getting a steady and plum government job, and then relapsing into uncertainty again? Who does that?

Hiten explained to them, that since he has no other responsibilities to fulfil – he could pursue his dreams. To quote him, he said ‘I am the only one who can do it – because I have to support myself only. I didn’t need to support anyone else.’

That he did. During his stint with the Film Institute, Pune, he started funding his studies by doing private tuitions in nearby housing societies. But then, there arrived a stroke of luck, from what could be called extremely unexpected quarters.

What happened was, in his first year, Hiten Ghosh was the Sports Secretary of FTII, and the only playground they had was about to vanish.

“MY MOM’S ROOMMATE SPONSORED MY FTII FEES”

As you enter the institute, on the left side there was a ground. There we used to play cricket. Also, earlier it was the Film Institute of India, but from that year, they made it Film and Television Institute. Hence, they wanted a separate building for the Television people, for which they thought of using that ground.

Me being the Sports Secretary I was reluctant, since that was the only ground we had, and we needed to play. Naseer, Tom Alter – all of us played cricket there.

To solve the issue, they said you go to Delhi, and talk to the minister. And that minster was Mrs. Indira Gandhi.

So, I went to Delhi to meet her. She was waiting right next to me, waiting for some papers to come. I told Mrs. Gandhi – ‘you must be knowing my mother’. She asked, ‘what’s your mother’s name?’. I responded, ‘Monica Ghosh’. She said, ‘Yes, yes, I know, she has passed away long time back.’

So how I remember this was – when I was a child my mother used to say that she and Mrs. Gandhi were roommates in Shantiniketan.

She then asked me, ‘What are you doing, how are you managing yourself?’ I said I was doing private tuitions. She asked for my details and I gave it to her. She also said that the ministry will assign some other place – we can play in our grounds, it will remain untouched.

So that was it.

After that it took us around two days to come to Pune via Bombay. Even the trains were not that fast in those times.

So, after two days, as soon as I reached the gate of the institute, I met our Production In-charge. He said, ‘Ghosh, come here. There’s a letter from the I&B Ministry that the entire fees of your next three years have been lifted. You don’t need to pay your fees anymore.’

I said, ‘arrey waah !!!’

What else to say!! It was such a huge relief. That’s how I completed my three years at the FTII.

I think God was there to help me.

Right from school to eight years of my higher education was sponsored. My parents must be doing something from above – I don’t know.

I was very lucky. I have to say, where ever I have reached today, whatever I have achieved in my life became possible only because I have been very lucky in my life.

I felt Hiten was being humble when he ascribed his success to ‘lady luck’. I would rather say it was less of luck and more of his ability to take risks, and stick to those risky decisions. That is what made Hitendra Ghosh the person and the professional that he is today.

At least, for me, however brief might be my time-spent with him, he left that impression on me. His unique and outstanding experiences at the institute tells the story of a different Hiten Ghosh. His story is that of an observant, hard-working, razor-sharp fast learner, with an intuitive mind.

“WHAT IF KUMAR GANDARVA GETS UP?”

In the second year of my course, they called the icon of classical music Kumar Gandharva to the institute – and I had to record him.

We had given him a carpet kind of a thing; he was sitting there. What I felt is that he is very energetic. It came to my mind that suppose if he gets up, then what will I do? I kept an extra mike at a height. And it happened. My intuition worked.

He was in such a mood that while singing he got up – but I could still catch him using that mike above. If I would have not done it, there would have been a drop in the sound. I would say I was lucky – since the way he was doing it in the rehearsals made me feel that the extra mike might be necessary.

Hitendra’s time spent in FTII gave him all the impetus he needed to spend a lifetime in cinema, for cinema. The company was as good as it gets – Uday Shankar Pani, Anil Tejani, Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Tom Alter, Benjamin Gilani, and many others. An august batch of newcomers, and no doubt quite inspiring.

But yes, some might even say that the inspirations that he found beyond the institute were even more encouraging. That includes me.

Here’s why and how.

“A MARATHI NEWSCASTER INSTEAD OF SHABANA AZMI”

In my third year, everyone had to make a short film. So, I had written this thing about one girl who didn’t have legs, but she was very good at singing. So, every day she would sing while still in her bed. This bedroom is in first floor, located facing a road.

The story was also about one boy who travels on that road every day, and he listens to her. This boy falls for her, but he doesn’t know how to approach her. It goes on and on like this.

That film was called Teevra Madhyam, directed by Arun Kopkar..

That road is between ‘ma’ and ‘pa’. When you play a musical instrument, there is a high ‘ma’ as well, which is called Teevra Madhyam. It is difficult for anybody to sing that. Maybe Lata can do it, but otherwise it is very difficult. I gave that title because it’s just the personality of her voice that makes someone fall in love with her – which in itself is a very difficult situation. That was the idea.

For the film we needed a girl. We were not satisfied with the girls in our own batches. Shabana became what she became later on, but at that time we didn’t take her.

Finally, I found someone.

You see, every evening I used to pass by an electronics shop, where I used to see a young girl reading Marathi news on Television every day. In those times we had black and white televisions. In black and white, this girl looked absolutely sharp and stunning.

So, I said yes, this is the girl! But how to approach her?

We had lots of problems in approaching her, because that was the time, we had no mobile phones or things like that. So, we used to call Doordarshan every day and asked for the news anchor. After multiple attempts, we got through; she agreed to act in our film.

So that was the first film appearance of Smita Patil.

I have to admit, that end statement made me happy.

Though I am definitely not alone in this, Smita Patil has been a childhood crush. I spent my early teenage in a remote military cantonment in Assam during the early 80’s – where I remember watching her for the first time in films like ‘Namak Halaal’ and ‘Shakti’. That’s all I had access to in our mini cantonment theatre.

Even in those films, I was absolutely besotted by her.

I was introduced to the Smita Patil of ‘Manthan’ and ‘Arth’ and ‘Mandi’ and ‘Mirch Masala’ much later, during and after my Film Appreciation course at Calcutta University in the early nineties.

To find out now, after so many years, that I am speaking to someone who might be responsible for her first sliver-screen appearance is such a warm and quizzical feeling – I really can’t explain. I won’t even try.

Let me just say that such happy accidents make life worth living.

And for anyone who is interested, I found an interesting write-up on Teevra Madhyam.

Smita Patil Teevra Madhyam — SMITA PATIL-photo-courtesy-cinemarare

Anyways, back to the man of the moment.

Hitendra Ghosh claims that his ‘lucky’ spell continued even after he completed his final exams at the institute. Personally, I feel it was his uncompromising hard work and never-say-die approach that helped him reach the pinnacles of success. And this ‘attitude’ started early.

Some people just don’t like to brag about themselves and let their work do all the talking.

I like them.

“NEVER JOBLESS, NOT FOR A SINGLE DAY”

I still remember the date.

I gave my last exam on the 24^th of April. Then there was this lady who had come from Los Angeles – she was making a feature documentary. So, she was looking for a cameraman and sound.

She was moving around enquiring who’s good and all that – and finally chose A K Vir as the cameraman and approached me for sound. I said, ‘Yaa, of course, I will do it.’ She warned me, ‘Look this is not an assistant job, it’s a full-fledged sound project.’

I said, ‘Of course I will do it. No need to worry. But when is this project starting.’

She said ‘tomorrow’.

So, you can very well imagine, I was not jobless for even one day. On 25^th of April we went to Lucknow for the shoot.

That director was Neena Shivdasani. She was from the USA, and she had done her course from the Los Angeles Institute.

The name of the documentary was ‘Chattrabhang’.

It was largely about how the upper-class people treat the lower-class in India, about not willing to share the same water resources and all that. There wasn’t much of a script. We travelled to all sorts of places and shot, and I was doing sync-sound all along. The film was shot in celluloid, like all films during those times.

We had Nagra tape-recorders, digital was yet to arrive. Nagra for sound, and Arriflex as the camera.

We didn’t dub anything for the entire one-hour film. We used original sound during the mixing – recorded on location. That village was close to Lucknow. There was no background music but when you hear the film, there was lot of music, which I recorded in that village.

I used to scout around the village, and since there was no script, I used to search for interesting sounds around the village, identify and record them. I remember recording lots of folk songs and those were used as BGM.

There was so much of sound happening. For instance, in the local temple, besides the hymns chanting of the pujari, there were eight or ten different kinds of bells with different sizes – and there was a rhythm in that. I recorded all that, and used it in mixing.

Immediately after this, Hiten landed ‘Nishant’ with Shyam Benegal. That’s a plum pick and a robust start of career – and the way it happened is also a story in itself.

But for now, I would call it a day here.

Hiten has described in detail why he decided to go for just ‘sound mixing’ even while being at the top of his game as a successful Sound Engineer. He has compared the ‘sound’ expectations and working styles of Shyam Benegal and Satyajit Ray, from an inside view perspective. He has shared untold stories about the BGM of Jodha Akbar, and some musical adventures of Ashutosh Gowarikar. He has spoken at length about his own aesthetics of sound and the craft and philosophy of re-recording.

There’s still a lot to come, but give me a week to organize it. 3500 films in 50 years are a bit too much to handle at one go.

And do comment. Please encourage me, or damn me if you feel like.

I need both, to keep going.