Ritwik Ghatak’s wife, Suroma, passes away

Suroma Ghatak, Ritwik Ghatak’s wife who bore the brunt of the filmmaker’s genius, passed away on Monday night at the intensive care unit of a state-run hospital in Kolkata. She was 93.

She was suffering from geriatric problems, said Subrata Sarkar, a close family friend of the Ghataks. She was admitted to the hospital for the past 11 days and was put on ventilator for most of the time.

With her death, an era of Ritwik Ghatak’s (1925-1976) remarkable love affair with films, and his struggle with himself, came to an end. For, Suroma Ghatak was a pillar of strength of the director, whose love for alcohol was perhaps only second to his love for films.

As Ghatak produced his masterpieces most of which were not rewarded by the market, Suroma Ghatak was faced with the challenge of managing the family of five including son Ritaban and daughters Samhita and Suchismita with no steady income.

To run the family of the uncompromising artist, she took up a job at a school in Sainthia in Birbhum district.

In the late 1950s when Ghatak was making Meghe Dhaka Tara, Suroma Ghatak enrolled herself in Jadavpur University to pick up a degree that would make her eligible in the job market.

“Ritwik Ghatak bore a sense of guilt for the extremely difficult times his wife had to pass through,” said said Sanjoy Mukhopadhyay, former professor of film studies of Jadavpur University and family friend of the Ghataks.

One of the most crucial periods when she was a source of moral support to Ghatak was in 1954-55 when he was facing enquiries by the Communist Party of India for his critique of the party’s concept of the cultural front.

“Suroma fell in love with Ritwik Ghatak while watching him in the role of Raghupati in Tagore’s play Bisarjan. She later said that it was a particular dialogue ‘pita firey esho’ (come back father) that produced an electric spark in her,” said Mukhopadhyay. He called her by the nickname ‘Lokkhi’.

In the mid-1940s, she was arrested for communist connections and spent 10 months in Shillong jail. “There she wrote on her fellow inmates. It was a remarkable work,” said Mukhopadhyay.

At least one of Ghatak’s films Jukti Takko Aar Gappo (Reason, Debate and a Story) made in 1974 showed reflections of the troubled relationship between the couple. She was forced to leave him after it became too difficult to live with the unpredictable man.

Suroma Ghatak is survived by her son Ritaban. Both her daughters, Samhita and Suchismita, passed away before her.

The state government picked up the bills of her treatment, said Sarkar.