An outspoken memoir by a much-celebrated Indian filmmaker.
"I am a filmmaker by accident and an author by compulsion," claims
Mrinal Sen, who became part of the great triumvirate of Bengali
cinema--along with Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak--in the 1950s and '60s
when he founded the rebellious Indian New Wave. Throughout his career,
he kept that fire of protest burning, his acute political awareness and
left-wing orientation spurring his creativity. Over decades, the themes
that pervaded his cinema mirrored the spectrum of human suffering and
experience, and in turn crystallized the anger of a restive mind against
social injustice, economic deprivation, and communal divide. In this
memoir, a celebrated ambassador of Indian cinema on the global stage,
for whom cinema became a lexicon that gave voice to the times, reflects
on encounters with the legends of the world of images as well as his
inspirations and obsessions--not least among them, the city of Calcutta.
Always Being Born is a fascinating memoir of a great artist and a
buoyant social commentator who continued to confront, fight, and survive
on the very challenges that propelled him to look beyond and dream.
