Satyajit Ray’s Pratidwandi (The Adversary): A Re-interpretation of Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Pratidwandi

Abstract

Satyajit Ray’s movies have always been a chronicle of the vicissitudes of the Bengali existence. However he was always able to transcend the local context of the film to make it a critique /metaphor of a larger universal experience. The American Academy of Motion Pictures had emphasized this unique vision of Ray in their citation on the occasion of bestowing an Honorary Oscar on the Indian maestro. Audrey Hepburn in her speech spoke about Ray’s ‘profound humanism’ and his ability to engage and portray ‘the unique in the Indian experience as well as the universal.’(Web) Ray’s engagement with the turbulent political scenario of the 1960s and 1970s is showcased in three of his films: Seemabaddha(Company Limited) ,Pratidwandi (The Adversary) and Jana Aranya(The Middleman),better known as the Calcutta Trilogy. Ray found these texts most effective since they articulated the incertitude and disillusionment which the middle class Bengalis were feeling at that moment in social history. Ray chose Ganguly’s Pratidwandi since he perceived it as a historicized text which could be effectively transformed into Ray’s cinematic idiom.