Have you ever confronted your deepest fears lying in your subconscious mind and wondered what if? Interdisciplinary artiste Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee and thespian Sohag Sen shed light on various facets of this basic human emotion in a thought-provoking conversation titled ‘The fear we live by’ at CIMA gallery on March 20.
Sujoy aptly began the conversation by reading out a few lines from Italy’te Kobi by Shankha Ghosh, and went on to ask Sen, who he often affectionately calls “a mix of fire and fear”, what her perception of fear is.
“The generation I grew up in, we used to hear this term Juju Buri a lot. I feel, like all other kinds of human emotion, fear is a very valid one, and it keeps changing. We are scared of losing our close ones, sometimes we are scared of peer pressure. We are also scared of ourselves, especially when we want to project ourselves in a certain manner but we do not have it in us. We all live with fear, but nothing should bog us down. However, at times too much of any kind of emotion tends to bog us down.”
The duo also touched upon the many dynamics of fear, including the fear of the lack of equality. Sujoy said: “An artiste has different kinds of fear. Sometimes we even celebrate that fear while also fighting it back. The politics of fear is something we deal with every day in every aspect of life.”
Speaking of the new generation’s obsession with FOMO (a colloquial, social media term for fear of missing out), Sujoy shared: “I have always been fearless enough to walk into restaurants or parties, dressed in a kaftan and immaculate jewellery. The fear of getting judged is also a fear. Each one of us has a personal fear and a political fear.”
Answering a question on the gravity of her personal fears, Sen shared: “I have a personal fear of failure, but collectively, all through our life, I think, in our subconscious mind, we have the fear of death. To say in other words, the fear of scarcity of time.”
As the evening progressed, Sujoy reflected on his life, the road he has traversed so far against all odds. He said: “When I started working in Calcutta, I did not have the fear of acceptance. I was already accepted. The fear of acceptance kicked in when I tried exploring my personality and sexuality. It’s very easy to say keep your personal life aside when you are working, but eventually, that line blurs out. That blurriness is the fear I have faced consistently.”
As the conversation drew to a close, Sujoy threw an interesting question to actor Jeetu Kamal who was in the audience. Responding to what fear he had in mind when he slipped into the skin of Satyajit Ray for his film Aparajito (2022), he shared: “To begin with, I am an out-and-out fearless person. Even when it comes to my many firsts, right from holding my first cricket bat to getting on the stage for the very first time to my first-ever swimming lesson, I have never felt any fear. When I was offered the role to play the legend on the big screen, there was no fear as I had complete faith in Anik Dutta. Aparajito has changed my perspective towards life and made me a more optimistic person.”
