Once

many stories lived
inside and outside

once
greed lust vice
even largesse
prevailed

hypnotic musical notes
punctuated by
jingling of ankle bells
pierced the silence
of the night
accompanied by muted cries
of pain or ecstasy

once upon a time

----------------------

The picture above has always reminded me of Satyajit Ray's film Jalsaghar ("The Music Room"). I was haunted by the half-ruined zamindari mansion which Ray used in the film as a backdrop to a story in which insane hauteur in the tradition of pomp and musical pageantry brings ruin and death. The film was shot at Nimtita Raajbari, near Murshidabad, West Bengal. Here is a photograph of the building as it is today:

For the record, for the benefit of people who did not know Ray in the south, especially for the foreign diplomatic corps, I became the first person to launch seven morning shows of 16mm films of Ray in Madras, in 1972, one of which was Jalsaghar, his fourth film. Since there were no subtitles for the Bengali film, I wrote to Ray requesting him to provide more information. He did not bother to comply with my request, for which I blamed him for being snooty, and not showing respect for generating interest in India for his work. On the contrary, he actually blamed people for their disinterest, and refused to help people to access his films, with or without subtitles. Since he did not reply, I wrote a synopsis of all the films, which was good for my understanding of Bengali and, more importantly, of the language of cinema.

 a still from Jalsaghar

the film's poster