The Indian Council for Cultural Relations hosted the launch of the Anthology titled Conundrums of Depiction Reception and Witnessing in Art Literature and Cinema. Edited by Pradipta Mukherjee, Associate Professor in English, Vidyasagar College for Women, the book is heavy, academic, and deep diving into the world of cinema. The book has been published by Pencraft International, New Delhi. The event was organised by Inspirare Arts Foundation and The Riveraine Muse Trust, and the students of Vidyasagar College for Women.
The students did a brilliant job of organizing every bit of the programme, and performed songs, displayed an exhibition with their artworks, and published articles. Present at the inauguration were Shoma A Chatterji renowned film scholar and film critic and Arvind Srivastava, Joint Registrar, Heritage Institute of Technology as guests of honour. The book launch was followed by a panel discussion on the “conundrums” film and knowledge present on the present mind. The panelists for the discussion were Ashoke Viswanathan, Former Dean of SRFI, Indrani Choudhuri Dutt, Chandrani Biswas, Subhajit Sengupta, Sunanda Ray, and Nirjhar Mukherjee.
The programme was entirely hosted and directed by Professor Debasish Lahiri. Rupsha Dutta inaugurated the event with the very traditional invocation of Maa Saraswati and Ganesh Vandana, setting the mood of the event to somber on a grayish evening in Kolkata. Soma A.Chattejee said, “I don’t belong to the academia genre, not at all. But she invited me because we had interacted once before in her college. I am a film journalist, and thus I am here. I was there for “The portrayal of women in Indian cinema.” The name of this book is also very frightening to me. I had very little time to browse the book, but I managed to catch my dear friend Ashok’s essay on diaspora.” Though Chatterjee claims she is not in academics, she has been a brilliant cinema journalist for the past two decades, and has been a regular writer for The Statesman as well.
She continues, “I must congratulate Ashok, because he is a walking encyclopedia, and has a wonderful memory. He may be a two-time Academy award winner, but I consider him to be one of the most learned and bright academics of cinema. This book is purely academic, and is very well researched for the scholars.” Debasish Lahiri started the discussion with, “Sometimes we find it very difficult, how can this person go out and produce this painting, or that piece of writing, or that film. So again, there are befuddling points. The thing about art sometimes is, you can’t understand it; it is beyond comprehension. A lot of the arts, popular as they are in certain quarters, are also met with a general sense of ‘I don’t know how to react to this’. That is the conundrum. So, the title is such, there’s also the point of view of the artist, and the receptor.” The panel discussion was enriching, as it was philosophical with orators who were very critical in their views, and had clear knowledge of the discourse of the modern times.