Deben Bhattacharya interviewed by Kevin - Part 6: A place called home

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I consider myself as much a European as an Indian. Why should I consider myself only an Indian and lose the richness of life I’ve gained from the best part of my life? I am sixty. For thirty-three years I have lived in Europe, so I’m a European, and then I’m Indian. I have lived in three cities, London, Stockholm and Paris. In London, I have my closest friends, lifelong friends, possibly partly because of the language, because my French n’exist pas!

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Deben Bhattacharya interviewed by Kevin - Part 5: Films

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I started making films in 1962. I had thought for several years that when you are presenting ethnic music from another land, with another social background, the visual element is a very important factor in presenting it. It is most important that the social life of people should be brought out, otherwise the work is meaningless.

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Deben Bhattachrya intervied by Kevin - Part 4: First recordings

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A chap in the sales department of John Lewis one day told me that they’d got a new gadget that had just come he was sure would interest me – a machine called a tape recorder! It was a Baird machine, so I bought one on the never-never – it took me eighteen months to pay for, exactly as long as I was a porter there. By then, I knew a lot of Indians in London, and I started to record Indian musicians on the Baird.

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Deben Bhattacharya interviewed by Kevin - Part 3: Abroad at last

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When I got back to Benares, I started to work in this insurance company, and a newspaper, a radical one called ‘The Nationalist’. The newspaper job was only part-time. And I was at that time dreaming of going out of India. Just at that time, I met two Europeans who were living like Indians in Benares, a man called Raymond Burnier, and his partner, a man called Alain Danielou.

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Deben Bhattacharya interviewed by Kevin - Part 2: War Years

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In India, in general, the old colonial system was still very strong. The values of independence and freedom of speech and thought that were taken for granted in Britain didn’t exist. What used to happen is that Ghandi and Nehru would come to Britain, speak freely, and the moment they arrived back in Bombay, would get arrested for what they’d said in London!

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Deben Bhattacharya interviewed by Kevin - Part 1: Childhood

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To me, Benares is one of the cities which still is closest to my heart; as a city, where people live one on top of the other. I like being in a city when I can be near people without being involved with them. Like in a village: when you are living in a village you are involved with them, but you are not near, because the distances and the spaces are far away from one another.

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