Thursday, July 19, 2018

In Search of Kanchenjunga


This building is part of a charming hotel where I stayed in Darjeeling in the early 1980's, Hotel Windamere.  Satyajit Ray and his team had also stayed at Hotel Windamere during the making of Ray's film Kanchenjunga, in 1962.

From what I read in newspapers at the time, Ray had been vacationing in Darjeeling, a popular hill station, and watched tourists strolling around the Mall. One of the goals for visitors was to catch a rare view of the Himalayan mountain, Kanchenjunga, which was usually hidden behind clouds. Ray conceived the idea of making a film told in real time, about a visiting family who walk around the Mall in varying groupings, conversing and hoping to see Kanchenjunga. (Chhabi Biswas, who was among Calcutta's ultimate actors, played the father of the family. He also acted in Ray's films Devi, with Sharmila Tagore, and Jalsaghar.)

The film's story is a slight one; the most dramatic thing in it occurs in the last scene when, after almost everybody has given up looking for it, the mountain suddenly appears, and the film ends.

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