Train of Thought

What fascinated me the most in "Meghe Dhaka Tara" was the repeated appearance of the train, slicing through the silent scenes. The train imagery is used by Ghatak in most of his movies....repeatedly. He was deeply affected by the partition (1947) and the plague of the families severed from their roots. The partition single handedly moulded his political and aesthetic values, which was reflected in his movies and plays (in his early years as an IPTA activist).

One of the most powerful symbols of partition is the train that aided the "cultural displacement". So the train, for Ghatak, was the rift, the dividing line, the epitome of plight and also the line that separates existence from ideals and so was Nita. In addition to this, the train represents the distance, between Nita and the family - a gap that was too wide to bridge. There exists a monotonous rhythm in her life, between work, tuition, the mother, the sick father, the brothers and the tiny scrap of paper to which she has pinned all her hopes. The sound of the train heightens the effect of the monotonous, mechanical rhythm, much like the sound of the whip that we hear when Nita walks down the stairs of Sanat's new apartment.

Finally, the train represents melodrama, which, according to me was given a new definition by Ghatak. The last scene of the movie, where Nita holds on to Shankar and shouts out her urge to live, is in my view, the most brilliant use of melodrama in indian cinema.