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By:

Shoma A. Chatterji

21 August 2024 at 4:19:40 pm

When the Red Flag Fades

Srijit Mukherji is arguably the most prolific filmmaker in Bengali cinema. His prodigious output inevitably raises questions about his versatility and creative consistency, just as his impressive tally of awards invites scrutiny of his artistic credentials. Yet his recent films, Shotti Bole Shotti Kichu Nei and Padatik, a bio-fiction on filmmaker Mrinal Sen, demonstrate his creative range and assured choice of subjects. With Winkle Twinkle, Mukherji reinforces his standing as one of the more...

When the Red Flag Fades

Srijit Mukherji is arguably the most prolific filmmaker in Bengali cinema. His prodigious output inevitably raises questions about his versatility and creative consistency, just as his impressive tally of awards invites scrutiny of his artistic credentials. Yet his recent films, Shotti Bole Shotti Kichu Nei and Padatik, a bio-fiction on filmmaker Mrinal Sen, demonstrate his creative range and assured choice of subjects. With Winkle Twinkle, Mukherji reinforces his standing as one of the more distinctive and enduring filmmakers in Indian cinema. Sixteen years after his directorial debut, Autograph, a personal take on Satyajit Ray’s Nayak, he continues to experiment with form and subject. Like several of Mukherji’s films, Winkle Twinkle draws inspiration from a celebrated Bengali play of the same name, written by Bratya Basu and staged in 2002. Basu, a formidable figure in Bengali theatre before turning to full-time politics, had drawn on Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle, first published in 1819. Irving’s protagonist falls asleep and wakes up years later to discover that the world has changed beyond recognition while he remains essentially the same. Mukherji and screenwriter Padmanabha Dasgupta transpose this premise to contemporary Kolkata, turning it into a sharp political allegory. Sabyasachi Sen, a committed Communist activist, is presumed killed in police firing during the Emergency in 1976. His body is never found. In reality, he falls asleep and awakens in 2002, physically unchanged but confronted by a world that has moved on without him. The shock begins at home. His wife has aged, and his children have grown up. His son, Indro, who idolised Che Guevara alongside his father as a child, has become an active supporter of the Trinamool Congress. He has little patience for his father’s unwavering allegiance to the CPI(M), a party whose ideological universe has been shaken by the collapse of the Soviet Union. His daughter, born after his disappearance, studies at Indira Gandhi University, a name that evokes for Sabyasachi only the prime minister associated with the Emergency. Posters announcing Mamata Banerjee’s rise confront him on Kolkata’s streets. The political landscape has changed beyond recognition, but Sabyasachi cannot accept that the movement to which he devoted his life has lost its former certainty. Technology bewilders him. More distressing, however, is the discovery that an old party comrade has become a leader of a new political formation and amassed wealth through dubious means. The revolutionary’s world has not merely changed; its moral foundations appear to have crumbled. His wife, once his comrade and fellow traveller, offers him refuge, welcoming his return with affection. Their son, however, refuses to accept him readily. The father-son conflict becomes a confrontation between two political generations: one shaped by ideological conviction and sacrifice, the other by a more pragmatic politics of power. The film moves back and forth through time, mirroring Sabyasachi’s bewilderment and drawing the audience into his confusion. Politics, technology, education and popular culture have all changed, often in ways he cannot comprehend. Some of the sharpest moments are also the most humorous. Sabyasachi recalls filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak marching in a Marxist procession, unaware of how cinema has changed and that another Hrithik — Roshan — is now the more familiar name. When a man at a tea stall expresses astonishment that he has never heard of Sachin Tendulkar, Sabyasachi walks away, explaining that the only Sachin he knows is Sachin Dev Burman. A particularly telling image captures the film’s political imagination: a street magician’s scarf changes from red to green. The symbolism is unmistakable. The red of the Left, once dominant in Bengal, gives way to the green associated with the Trinamool Congress. The cinematography is equally impressive, particularly the transition from colour to black-and-white when the narrative revisits the past. Ritwik Chakraborty is outstanding as Sabyasachi, convincingly conveying the bewilderment and stubbornness of a man unable to reconcile his convictions with reality. Anasuya Majumdar as his middle-aged wife and Sohini Sarkar as her younger self provide strong support. The sudden violence in the father-son confrontation is perhaps the film’s principal weakness, disrupting an otherwise nuanced exploration of ideological estrangement. Yet, Winkle Twinkle remains one of Mukherji’s finest films. Its central insight is both poignant and political: Sabyasachi’s tragedy lies not simply in having lost years of his life, but in discovering that history has moved on without him and that the revolution he believed would change the world has itself become a relic of the past. (The writer is an National Award-winning film scholar.)

Cautious Reset

Correspondent
Sep 1, 2025
2 min read

Donald Trump’s tariffs have jolted India into searching for strategic alternatives. Of these, Narendra Modi’s meeting with Xi Jinping in his first visit to China in seven years was the most eagerly anticipated balancing act. The meeting saw warm words spoken between the two world leaders in Beijing against a chill wind from Washington.


Both leaders spoke of being development partners and not rivals in a strikingly novel framing for two countries whose troops had only recently disengaged from a bitter Himalayan stand-off.


Modi’s insistence that the two countries be seen as partners was echoed in the Chinese statement almost word for word. Beijing, bruised by tensions with America, sees value in easing frictions with Delhi while India, wary of overdependence on the West, sees value in a less hostile China.


A major theme coursing through the meeting was that of strategic autonomy. India underlined that its ties with China should not be viewed through a “third country lens.” This was a pointed rebuke to Washington’s habit of casting Delhi as a counterweight to Beijing. The Chinese, in turn, credited Modi with affirming that bilateral ties would not be be influenced by third parties. In the shadow of Trump’s punitive tariffs, the clear subtext was that India has no wish to be anyone’s pawn.


Both Modi and Xi deemed it necessary to expand common ground on global challenges, from terrorism to fair trade. That formulation allowed Delhi to yoke together its complaints about Pakistan’s cross-border militancy with its grievances about American trade barriers. Beijing, eager to appear supportive, had already said it would back India against Washington’s tariffs. Each side, then, was signalling room for tactical alignment.


The smiles and symbolism were deliberate. Yet beneath them, mistrust lingers, and the task of translating rhetoric into reality remains daunting.


Foremost among them is the border. India stressed that peace and tranquillity there are the “insurance policy” for bilateral ties. It highlighted disengagement and reiterated the need for a fair and mutually acceptable resolution. China’s statement, by contrast, urged that the boundary not define the relationship, invoking Jawaharlal Nehru’s Panchsheel principles. The economic agenda was less contentious. India floated concrete steps in form of direct flights, greater trade and investment to narrow its yawning deficit. China emphasised win-win results and the stabilising role of both economies for world trade. If these pledges take shape, they could lend ballast to a relationship otherwise prone to turbulence.


The thaw is real but fragile. Talks of partnership, after all, cannot erase decades of mistrust or border clashes. For Modi, the broader point was global. A stable Sino-Indian relationship, he said, was essential not only for their 2.8 billion people but also for the emergence of a multipolar Asia and multipolar world. While New Delhi has long argued for such pluralism, Beijing has been reluctant to concede India equal billing. The fact that both invoked partnership at all, however, suggests some movement.

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