Journey as an artistic trope has often been used with brilliant effect by many stalwarts in the world of literature and cinema. One is reminded of literary classics like Around the World in Eighty Days (Jules Verne), The Motorcycle Diaries (Che Guevara), The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck), or Stamboul Train (Graham Greene). Interestingly, all of these works have seen their cinematic avatars within a few years of publication. Indeed, more often than not, the physical journey undertaken is underscored by a much deeper journey on the level of consciousness, a figurative journey as it were leading to profound engagements with the self and the outside world. Hence journeys resonate with the fertile possibilities of renewal, re-assessment, and reconfiguration; they are movements that “move” us in more ways than one. An apparently linear journey from one place to another may trigger off an interior voyage into the hidden recesses of the mind: a resuscitation of the past, a resurrection of fears, desires, and insecurities that lie hidden deep within, often fearful, ashamed, and evasive of conscious acknowledgement.

Using Satyajit Ray’s 1966 film, Nayak, as a site of entry into the complex nuances of journeying, I seek to locate this paper within the framework of multiple narratives that a physical journey is capable of invoking in the mutually intersectional discursive domains of art and psychology. Nayak, popularly known as The Hero in English, is the second film by Ray which has an original screenplay, the first one being Kunchenjungha released four years prior to Nayak in 1962. In the film, Nayak, an overnight journey by train is the central artistic frame that holds together the entire narrative. This train journey is significant for like an artistic nested box it yields more “journeys” inside, the macrocosms getting reflected in myriad microcosms. The forward journey of the train is linear, the interior journey of the protagonist recedes backwards while the journey of visual leitmotifs which constitutes the cinematic language is cyclical. All of these journeys bleed into one another through the genius of Ray’s camera giving us Nayak or The Hero.

In a nutshell, the story of Nayak revolves around the character of the insanely popular matinee idol, Arindam Mukherjee as he travels from Calcutta to Delhi to receive a prestigious National award for his latest film. During the course of his overnight train journey, he comes across the bespectacled and sophisticated Aditi Sengupta who has a disdainful highbrow attitude towards the glitz and glamour of unrealistic films produced for mass consumption. In keeping with her character, she brings out a women’s magazine, Adhunika which translates into “The Modern Woman.” Persuaded by her travel companions that an interview of Arindam would go a long way in hiking the sales of her magazine, she approaches him with the request. For once the brash, insouciant, flamboyant hero strutting around with an air of unquestioned entitlement and used to the obsequious and obliged faces gazing up to him is put off guard by this polite but manifestly sceptical non-fan. However, not being hero-worshipped for once, has its own advantages for Arindam. It releases him from the pressures of perpetual play-acting and helps him to open up to Aditi. As he confides in her, Arindam journeys inwards into the past which is a saga of loss, betrayal and guilt, and unresolved questions.

In Our Films, Their Films Ray tells us that “Nayak was written for Uttam Kumar” (65). In 1966 Uttam Kumar was the dream hero of the Bengali cinema. Having captured the public imagination like no one else Uttam Kumar had a phenomenal fan base that has perhaps not been surpassed by any Bengali actor ever since. Films like Harano Sur (1957), Saptapadi (1961), and Uttar Falguni(1963) had become a part of the popular imaginary. Hence, it is significant that in Nayak, the on-screen matinee idol was played by the greatest of all matinee idols that Bengal produced: Uttam Kumar. Ray’s biographer, Andrew Robinson, tells us that Ray confided in him that “ he had read somewhere ‘if you are showing a matinée idol, then you have to cast a star. Nobody else would do; people wouldn’t accept the fact. So, I thought that I was doing the best possible thing’” (177). Ray’s stated objectives for the film were three-fold: to delve into the psychology of such a person who was the reigning god of the silver screen, to analyse the psychology of his adulators and detractors, and finally to make a film about a train journey. 

From this, it follows that the framing of the train journey which holds the narrative together is not an accessory but an integral part of the director’s artistic design. No wonder the cinematography and the art direction of the film have been done with such consummate acumen that while watching the film, one would never realise that they are not seeing the interior of a real moving train but a train put together in the studio. Bansi Chandragupta, the film’s art director put together the train in the studio and Ray used optical illusions to make the train swing and lurch to render the overall impact flawless. To this was added the continuous sound of the moving train as a kind of background score whose volume went up whenever any of the doors of the air-conditioned vestibule was opened. Through the fixed broad glass windows of the air-conditioned train, we watch the ceaseless, fleeting movement of the landscape and vegetation as the train moves on from Calcutta to Delhi.  At appropriate intervals, we are given long shots of the train dashing forward along with dolly shots of intersecting railway tracks that converge and diverge within seconds. Arindam even gets off at a nondescript rural railway station by the name of Khynan and drinks tea in a clay cup. Towards the end of the film, we are shown how the wind catches the hair and clothes of a visibly agitated and drunk Arindam as he stands at the open door of the moving train. Such meticulous attention to minute details makes the train journey a viewer’s pleasure.  

However, a train journey is not just an empty movement. It is also the creation of a specific “time-space” where all the passengers together create a society in transit functioning along mutually sanctioned though not strictly codified rules. People are exposed to one another within an enclosed space for a considerable time and all are required to function in a particular way to make the space functional. Indeed, with some qualifications, the space of a moving train as obtained in Nayak comes close to the Foucauldian idea of the heterotopia. A heterotopia is a discursive space that is isolated from the world outside but is nevertheless is in some ways a mirror of it. This liminality of space engenders its peculiar intensity. In the words of Foucault, “The heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible” (25). Within the time-space of the train, the real spaces belonging to the myriad characters are “simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted” (24). It is the heterotopia of the train that allows the juxtaposition and the concurrent contestation of the space associated with a larger-than-life matinee idol and that of a progressive, highbrow lady journalist disdainful of popular cinema. The result is a temporary abeyance of the codes of real spaces leading to new configurations in personal exchanges as well as psychological engagements. Once the train stops at the railway station at Delhi and the passengers disembark, the heterotopia is no more and the order of real spaces asserts itself again. Consequently, as Arindam gets down at the railway station, he once again steps into the logic of real spaces. Once outside the heterotopia of the train journey, it is no longer feasible for him to debunk his glamorous, larger-than-life reputation and act as an individual bonding with another individual who does not share his world or his values.   

Chidananda Das Gupta writes, “It is in turning the hero from a type to an individual that Ray reveals, behind the expert craftsmanship, the inner emptiness which appears to plague him in this period” (90). This portrait of Arindam as a haunted, insecure individual battling his demons under the veneer of a fashionable and privileged brashness comes out through his interactions with Aditi who remains unfazed by his glamour. Sharmila Tagore who later became a veritable star of the pan-Indian Hindi film industry plays the role of Aditi in the film. Aditi knows that a lot has been written about Arindam in the tabloids and she realises that all of it bolsters the self-image that the star wants to project of himself. Hence, she unnerves him by refusing to endorse the public narrative of his life. She scratches its surface and comes up with disturbing questions: “All this fame of yours… Don’t you ever feel an emptiness in the midst of it all? Don’t you have any regrets despite this stupendous success?” Being treated to unending adulation all the while, Arindam is visibly disconcerted. Evidently, it strikes a chord deep down within him but he parries the thrust somewhat reflectively: “Look, Miss Sengupta. We should not reveal too much of ourselves. We inhabit a world of shadows. It is not becoming that our flesh and blood forms are revealed for public scrutiny.” This speaks of deep-rooted anxiety and insecurity underneath the flamboyant exterior. But in a way, this exchange signals the start of the other journey that the film engages with, the psychological journey of Arindam as he delves into his past leaving him bruised and lacerated. Ray tells us, “Planning the story of Nayak, I dismissed quite early the notion of an orderly, step-by-step account of the making of a matinee idol…In the film, the hero’s part is revealed in flashbacks and dreams which make inroads into a very tight time-space pattern (twenty-four hours in a train)” (65). In fact, it takes two dream sequences and seven flashbacks for the film to complete this interior journey of the protagonist. 

However, Arindam does not traverse down this mental path all alone. The disdainful Aditi who refuses to be awed by his overwhelming popularity and appeal comes to his aid as the “listener.” As the story unfolds Aditi sheds her detached, clinical approach and becomes an empathetic receiver of a testimony thus bearing witness to the traumatic events that scar Arindam’s psyche. Trauma theorists like Dori Laub and Shoshana Felmen have theorized extensively on the need for a “listener” who acts as a sounding board so as to narrativize the trauma which lies locked deep inside. The cyclical traumatic memory that resonates within Arindam needs to be narrativized so as to break the cycle because narrative affords linearity as opposed to cyclical repetition. Hence Aditi’s interview turns out to be an empathetic act actively aiding the uncoiling of the dark guilt, fears and desires whose retrieval is consciously resisted in everyday life. Aditi’s role comes close to what Dori Laub says though in a starkly different context: “As an interviewer, I am present as someone who actually participates in the reliving and reexperiencing of the event. I also become part of the struggle to go beyond the event and not be submerged and lost in it” (76).

As noted, earlier Aditi’s somewhat disturbing query about the possibility of emptiness in the midst of such success triggers the process of introspection in Arindam. Though he manages not to answer her question it creates unease in him. He can escape Aditi, but not his own self. Soon after he tries to take a nap and then we have the first dream sequence of the film. We are transported to a dreamland with hillocks of money all around. Currency notes are blowing in the wind and in the midst of this surreal setting we see a smiling Arindam walking slightly dazed but blissfully happy with so much money around. Unable to contain himself he strides forward, buries his hand into a mound of money, gathers the notes together and throws them upward into the air with childish glee. There is a smug satisfaction on his face as the currency notes rain down on him wafted by the breeze. But soon all of this changes with the insistent jangling of telephones held up by hands devoid of flesh jutting out ominously from the mounds of money. Everywhere he turns he sees those boney, skeletal hands beckoning him. Nor can he shut out the jarring cacophony of the phones ringing. In desperation, he tries to find an escape but ends up slowly sinking in the quicksand of currency notes. He struggles piteously but to no avail. The money engulfs him steadily. It is at this moment a strangely attired figure in theatrical make-up enters the range of vision. Arindam’s cry comes out pathetic and heart-rending: “Help me, Shankar-da! Save me!” Shankar-da is seen grinning at the helpless Arindam. He stretches out his arm only to pull away at the last moment leaving him to sink into the pile.  

This is a scene that has garnered a lot of commentary. Arindam is eaten up by the guilt of having sold himself for commercial success. The deafening ring of the telephone propped up on skeletal hands symbolizes the many films he has taken up not out of any commitment to his art but only for money. The currency notes are strewn all over reminding us of the wad of notes that Arindam had neatly stashed away in his wallet right at the beginning of the film. Money, in many ways, creates Arindam’s psycho-social-cultural location but the price he has had to pay for it has involved many compromises. Commenting on this scene Marie Senton says, “The dream does not show the obvious – the Hero’s dread of losing the money he now has. It shows him engulfed in panic at being swallowed up and lost in the mountain of money that is his” (170). 

The dream scene initiates the inward journey of Arindam and as he traverses down this interior path, he encounters many more unresolved acts of guilt and betrayal and fear through association. For instance, the dream makes it fairly obvious that Shankar-da who refused to help him out of the quicksand of money is someone important in his psychological space. So much so that he seeks out Aditi, the “receiver of his testimony” to talk of talk to her about his dream. This is the first flashback in the film and the connecting thread with the dream scene is the character of Sankar da. We soon realize that Shankar-da who refused to pull him out of the quicksand of currency notes in the dream scene was actually Arindam’s theatrical mentor who had cautioned him vehemently against joining the film industry. Sankar-da was of the belief that the actor in a film can have no sustained contribution to anything that goes by the name of art. A film actor is nothing better than a puppet: a puppet in the hands of the director, camera-man, sound recordist and the editor. But Arindam chooses to disregard his advice even as Sankar-da lies burning on the funeral pyre after having suffered a sudden heart attack. For him, there is no afterlife in the age of Freud and Marx and so his mentor would never know what he did. However, Arindam never got over his betrayal of Shankar-da’s ideals. This coupled with the commercialization of his art in the subsequent years of his fame leaves him forever guilty. It is a measure of his emotional investment in the man that he sees Shankar-da as he is swallowed up by what he considers his act of betrayal. 

This betrayal of ideals is carried over into the realm of personal relationships too. Having found in Aditi an incarnation of his voice of conscience that he had stifled for long he journeys back with her to the time when he and his friend Biresh used to be inseparable. In yet another flashback we are introduced to his friend Biresh who was a Marxist labour leader ranting off fiery speeches at factories and labour meetings. Arindam used to hang around at a distance going over his lines for the next stage of production. Once when Biresh was attacked by a mob instigated by the police, Arindam charged into the melee to save him without a thought for himself. He was hit on the head and he fell down unconscious. Five years and many a box-office hit later, Biresh takes Arindam to a factory site with protesting workers to boost their morale. Arindam is ready to donate money anonymously to the cause but he cannot allow himself to be seen with the protesting workers. It would dent his dream image, his star persona. He and Biresh part ways but the fact that he had lost his friend’s esteem forever makes him a deeply disturbed and lonely man. Despite the fans clamoring for his autograph, he remains alone in the crowd.

This loneliness on the personal front is mirrored in his professional life too as he becomes more and more popular. In yet another flashback we are shown the first day of film shooting in Arindam’s career where the actor in the lead role was Mukunda-da. The audacious confidence with which the lead actor of the fires, Mukunda-da orders everyone about him makes him feel that Shekhar da was wrong after all. During the shots, Mukunda-da upbraids him for his naturalistic delivery and insults him in front of the entire set. Some years later when Arindam has ousted Mukund-da from his cinematic pinnacle the latter come to visit him. An old demoralized man without a role for months, hooked onto morphine for escape literally begs Arindam to find him a role, any role would do, even that of a doorman. Arindam in those days could have helped him out of the hole he had got himself into, but like the Shankar- da of the dream he did not. He tells Aditi that the man could not have acted being a morphine addict but Aditi is quick in pointing out the revenge for the first day of humiliation must have tasted sweet. Arindam does not counter her. 

One after the other the flashbacks help Arindam to bare his soul to Aditi. At the end of the film, a drunk and almost suicidal Arindam wants to confess his illegitimate affair with a married woman leading to a brawl in the club. It was all over the morning newspapers, the subject of much gossip. When Aditi tells him that she has already guessed what the whole thing might be about, his inebriated outburst is, “I must tell. I need to tell. It’s all piled up inside. There is no one to tell.” As the train moves forward towards one more public felicitation of Arindam’s talent, Arindam himself journeys deep into his troubled self. The heterotopia of the train fosters this inward movement by providing a witness to his “testimony” by bringing the otherwise incompatible Aditi and Arindam together: denizens of two different worlds. 

Along with the physical and psychological journey discussed, there is yet another “journey” in the film. This is associated with the form of the film and the way certain visual leitmotifs are used in a circular pattern. Indeed, cinema has its own language, markedly distinct from other artistic media. In Nayak, the cinematic form endorses the content.  In Speaking of Films, Ray tells us, “Each shot is like a sentence or a word. It speaks just like the spoken word, but its language has essentially to do with images and visual material” (47). As the story unfolds in Nayak, this formalist aspect of the film which includes the judicious use of shots, light and sound, traces out its own logical trajectory. For instance, towards the beginning of the film, we are given a number of close-ups of the matinee idol. He is the larger-than-life figure dominating everything around him. When he walks down the railway station and boards the train, he wears a fashionable pair of dark glasses. Earlier when he is talking over the phone with a lady, he has reasons to distrust he is seen wearing the same dark glasses. Just as these glasses shield him from the prying eyes of the world, they also turn him into a much-desired, though unattainable enigma. However, as he opens up about his life to Aditi, he no longer needs the glasses. He does not seek to cover himself; he seeks to bare himself to her. Consequently, there are no close-up shots of his face. The shots now show him as a part of his surroundings, a deeply troubled man beset with guilt and insecurities.  However, when he reaches Delhi, he is once again mobbed by his fans who garland him. The visual narrative comes full circle here. Once again, we see Arindam in his dark glasses as the camera zooms in for a close up. This is a cyclical journey of sorts along the formalist registers of the language of cinema. 

Being a cinematic classic Satyajit Ray’s Nayak is open to diverse critical engagements. However, the artistic lynchpin that holds the film together is the idea of an overnight journey. This is the base as it were, on which the multiple narratives of the many passengers on the train rests. Nayak brings out the maxim that sometimes a journey yields more than the destination for a journey has the potential to “move” us out of our mundane comfort zones and lead to confrontations that can be both intense and epiphanic. Arindam’s intense tryst with his own self through the many dreams and flashbacks leave him a changed individual and we as the audience partake in his psychological and emotional journey. This is the only film of Ray that is shot entirely inside a train foregrounding the trope of the journey. However, his films are replete with the idea of journeying along with many symbolic registers. One finds this in the Apu Trilogy which is a sort of cinematic “bildungsroman” where the journey from childhood to adulthood, from innocence to experience, is echoed along several physical journeys. Once again, it is the train that takes us from the sleepy village of Nischindipur to the hustle and bustle of metropolitan Calcutta or the labyrinthine alleys of Banaras. Thus, in conclusion, we may say that the trope of the journey had always fascinated Ray for its fertile possibilities and its most sustained cinematic exploration is undoubtedly obtained in the Nayak.