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Shoma
Chatterji, a member of the Network of Women in
Media India (NWMI) Bengal, has made news by bagging
the Best Author award for her book, Parama
and Other Outsiders: The Cinema of Aparna Sen.
Shoma shared the Best Author award with Sharad
Dutt at the recently announced National Awards
for 2002. With this, she
becomes the
only woman to have won both the National Awards
for the Best Writing on Cinema —
the other award being the Best Critic, which she
won in 1991.
Shoma
is no stranger to awards. She won The Bengal Film
Journalists' Association's Best Film Critic Award
in 1998 and a Special Commendation for her "Outstanding
Contribution to Women's Issues" by the Eve's
Weekly Woman Journalist Award Committee in 1988.
Parama
and Other Outsiders... is Shoma's second book
on cinema. When there were no takers to publish
this five-year long labour of love, she turned
to her husband's publishing firm, Parumita Publications.
"I had talked him into this vocation when
I found no publisher willing to risk publishing
my earlier book on cinema, " recalls Shoma.
Things
are a lot better now. Not only did Rupa commission
her to do a biography of Suchitra Sen (Suchitra
Sen: The Enigma) which was published last
year, but they also published her book on Mrinal
Sen (Mrinal Sen - The Survivor) as well
as a collection of her short stories, Baker's
Dozen - Short Stories from India. Two more
of her books are in the pipeline to be soon released
by Rupa. One of these is on filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak
and the other is a compilation of articles on
gender, entitled Women — in Black, White
and Technicolour. Shoma also recently submitted
her manuscript on filmmaker Pramathesh Barua to
a new publishing house in Delhi.
With
11 books already published and currently into
her 14th book, Shoma is especially vocal in her
gratitude to her husband. "If the general
belief is that behind every successful man there
is a woman, the vice-versa is truer. If you are
a married woman, it is your husband who spurs
you on. If unmarried, it will always be a supportive
father or brother. I hate to say this, but in
the patriarchal society that we live, you just
cannot overlook the role men play in a woman's
triumphs."
As
an expert on gender issues, Shoma Chatterji should
know!
—
Rina Mukherji
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