Medal Medley

At a time when gold, silver and bronze are on the mind of every citizen, do you wonder where the precious awards received by Kolkata's best from across the globe are preserved? Are they safe? Have any of them gone missing? Priyanka Dasgupta asks film greats and Olympians about their treasure
Some years ago, filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh had shared his pleasant surprise while attending a dinner hosted by a celebrated director of our country.
This director had melted his medals to use the metal for designing dinner plates. Each dinner plate had the year of receiving the award inscribed on it. On a different occasion, another celebrated actor had equally shocked his guests when they had found that the metal from his plaques was moulded and turned into door handles for his farmhouse.
In a month when the world is staying up at night to check out the Olympic medals tally and when in our own backyard a fresh probe has been ordered to find Tagore's stolen Nobel, welcome to the celebrities' world of awards and trophies. What have they done with their coveted prizes? How well are they treasured?
Have some more gone missing too?
Till a week back, Mother Teresa's Nobel peace prize was kept at Mother House in Kolkata. “It was taken to Rome last week for the exhibition,“ said Sister Maria Luhan. The coveted honorary Oscar that was awarded to Satyajit Ray in 1992 for Lifetime Achievement lies in a vault.So does the Golden Lion that Ray had received for `Aparajito' at the Venice Film Festival. At the 1 Bishop Lefroy Road residence sits pretty another Golden Lion Honorary Award that was given to him in 1982. Inscribed on the award is `1932-1982', signifying 50 years of the Venice Film Festival. “At home, we have the headless angel that was given to Baba during the same year at Cannes. Then there is the statute awarded from the 10th Tehran International Film Festival for children.We also have a silver box containing the golden laurel trophy founded by David O Selznick that was awarded in 1959,“ said the master director's son Sandip Ray.
The Olympic medals that hockey player Gurbux Singh won are treasured safely in his personal vault.“All my other awards, including the Arjuna Award, are on display in the drawing room. I won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. In 1968, I won the bronze at the Mexico Olympics. I also have a gold at the Bangkok Asian Games,“ said Singh, admitting that he has never thought about insuring them.
However, not every Olympic medal that has come to the city has had the same secured future. Legendary hockey player Leslie Claudius, who passed away in 2012 with four Olympic medals in his kitty, wasn't that lucky. “He had won three gold medals -at the 1948 London Olympics, 1952 Helsinki Olympics and 1956 Melbourne Olympics, along with a silver at the 1960 Rome Olympics. Some people had come to whitewash his house and that's when at least one or two of the medals were lost,“ Singh said. He had tried to get replicas of the medals made. “I had contacted the Indian Olympic Association. The process had begun but then Leslie died and I don't think it was followed up,“ he rued.
Hockey player Vece Paes, who won a bronze at the Munich Olympics in 1972, has lost his own medal too. “But it got lost during the floods. Leander's Olympic bronze medal is kept in a bank locker in Kolkata. We take it out when we have to show it to someone,“ Paes said.
Legendary director Mrinal Sen's trophy story is even more interesting. Some years back while moving apartments, Sen was hassled with too many papers to transfer. “So, he started throwing them away,“ said Sen's son, Kunal. “Among them, some scripts got lost. Before I could come and intervene, most things were lost. Someone retrieved a bag full of awards. So, some of the international awards are there. Others are lost.“ Among the prestigious one lost is the one he had won for `Kharij' at the Cannes Film Festival. “The silver bear he got at Berlin for `Akaler Sandhane' is there. The Golden Hugo for the Best Film that `Khandhar' got is also there. All the National Awards are kept in a plastic box in a vault,“ Sen said. But nobody at home can also say which other awards are lost. “Some things are dumped under the bed. These are not terribly important awards but for 15 years, nobody has tried to see what's there,“ he said.
Unfortunately, legendary filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak was never bestowed with any prestigious award internationally. “My father is the most neglected veteran director of India. He never hankered for awards. Ma has kept his Padma Shri in the locker,“ said Samhita Ghatak.
Some years back, director Goutam Ghose was directing a documentary on Ustad Bismillah Khan.“Ustadji himself suggested he would wear a sherwani of his younger days and all the gold medals that various Maharajas had gifted him while play ing raag Kedara,“ Ghose recounted. But the shooting got cancelled at the last moment. On being asked the reason, the shehnai maestro said that after decades, when he was opening the box that treasured his medals, he found it empty . Some petty thief must have eyed the golden metal and stolen them.“Khan saab's regret was the thief might have got the gold but he would never understand the sentiments when such awards were given to him. That was the day I realised that nothing is permanent in this world,“ Ghose said.
The director has himself lost one track of an award he received for `Dakhal'. It was the Ecumenical Jury Prize for Human Rights Festival at France's Strasbourg. “The award was in the shape of a ship. While shifting houses, it got misplaced somewhere,“ Ghose said.
Actor-director Anjan Dutt has an even more curious story. He is the only Indian actor to have won the Best Actor award at the prestigious Venice Film Festival in 1981. That was for his debut in `Chalchitra'. “I had gone to Venice to receive the award. They gave me a citation and a trophy. After I returned, producer D K Chakraborty wanted to keep them in his office. Later on, he went bankrupt and I lost track of the trophy,“ Dutt said. Doesn't he regret having lost such an award? “I was only 27 when I got the award. But back in India, I didn't get the roles that I should have had after winning it. So, the loss of the trophy doesn't bother me. I soon lost interest,“ Dutt said.
All the prestigious international awards including the Venice Film Festival's Silver Lion for best director that was given when Buddhadeb Dasgupta made `Uttara' are preserved by his Mumbai-based daughter Rajeswari. “I have not counted the awards. People say I have some 25 national and international awards, 10 of which are gold. In Kolkata, I have the lifetime achievement award that was given to me by Madrid Indian Film Festival and the best feature film award for `Janala' that was given by Asia Pacific Film Festival. However, I can't trace the Golden Athena Award from the Athens International Film Festival that was given in 2007,“ he said. In 1997, Ghose had got the prestigious Vittorio Di Sica award in Italy . “That's kept in the vault along with most of my international awards. I have 16 National Awards, among them four or five are in gold. For `Padma Nadir Majhi', I got the Unesco award at Cannes. I never got home the Grand Prix -Golden Semurg at the Tashkent Film Festival that I had got for `Antarjali Yatra'. It is still lying with NFDC,“ Ghose said.
In a cupboard at his Golpark residence, Ghose has tucked in the Golden Peacock that he won for `Moner Manush'. “The Silver Balloon award that I got for `Dekha' at the Nantes Film Festival is kept in my bookcase,“ he said.
Storing awards is a huge problem, say many celebrity recipients. “Sometimes, they become a burden too. I had built a house in Mallikpur where I had used the metal from not-so-prestigious awards to design four lampposts. Actually, I don't attach so much of importance to awards,“ Dasgupta said.
Ranjit Mullick, who won the prestigious Karlovy Vari Award for Best Actor when he made his debut in Mrinal Sen's `Interview', has kept the award at home. “Since Mrinalda didn't go to the festival, I too didn't,“ Mullick recounted. Perhaps he never expected an award either. “I am the only Indian actor to have got this award on debut. The festival sent the award home. But every year since then, I follow a ritual to honour the date on which I got it. For 40 years, I have been going to Mrinalda's house on August 2 to offer him sweets. It was only this year that I couldn't make it because I was abroad during that time,“ Mullick said.
Director Kaushik Ganguly has a cabinet that stores all the awards received by him and his wife, Churni Ganguly. “The prestigious Unesco Fellini award that I won at IFFI is kept in a vault. For `Chotoder Chhobi', I also won the 2015 Ammonite Award for the Best Director at the Hidden Gems festival.The award is an authentic ancient fossil,“ said Ganguly about his two most precious treasures.
Showcasing awards also requires a certain mentality. Ghose has got his citations framed but he prefers to hang paintings on the walls of his drawing room instead.
“Even if we had a lot of money and space to get a big cabinet, I don't think my father would have liked to display his awards,“ Sen said. As a parting shot, Dasgupta said, “The theft of Tagore's Nobel is sad. But thank god his works remain. I am happy that I can still make films. Awards are transient; not our works.“