Key Points
For a long time, Kunal Sen resisted the idea of writing about his father, the late legendary filmmaker Mrinal Sen...
To begin with, I am not a writer, says Sen, who lives in Chicago and works with Encyclopaedia Britannica..
So he began writing, and 10 months in, he had Bondhu (Bengali for Friend), an intimate portrait of his father, published by Seagull Books in May, to coincide with his fathers 100th birth anniversary..
The anecdotes in the biography cover personal memories, his parents marriage, his fathers socialist-leftist politics, and the making of some of Indias most critically acclaimed films, including Bhuvan Shome (1969; about a bureaucrat who has his eyes opened while on a journey through the interiors), Ek Din Pratidin (1979; on the policing of working women), Khandhar (1984; a story of love, fidelity and betrayal set in a village).. ...
By the late 1970s, his focus had shifted and he made films such as Ek Din Pratidin and Kharij (1982; about a middle-class family who must live in fear themselves after their ill-treated house help dies)..
