KOLKATA: Four unreleased works of Ritwik Ghatak will soon be restored by the Indian government. Prints of the three feature films and one documentary will soon be sent for restoration to the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) in Pune. Currently , the Ritwik Memorial Trust has kept the prints at the film vault of the West Bengal government's Chalachchitra Satabarsha Bhavan. On his recent visit to Kolkata, NFAI's director Prakash Magdum met the filmmaker's daughter Samhita Ghatak to discuss the issue. “I have had a word with the government on transferring the prints of `Koto Ajanarey', `Bagalar Bangodarshan', `Ronger Golam' and `Durbar Gati Padma' to the archives. We will do everything to restore these works,“ Magdum said.Film historians believe that res toring these works is crucial to understand Ghatak as a director.“These works show how he had introduced a different kind of narrative in Indian cinema,“ said film scholar Sanjay Mukhopadhyay . Samhita, on her part, said, “People often think that my father's works were limited to Partition tales of refugees.These works show how he also wanted to do other kind of cinema.“ Asked about the condition of the prints, she said, “We had kept them in the vault in 2006. All of them definitely need restoration.“Incidentally, Ghatak's 1959 film `Koto Ajanarey' is an adaptation of Mani Shankar Mukherjee 's debut novel. The popular novel narrates the story of people Shankar meets in the courtrooms and lawyers' chambers of Old Post Office Street.However, Shankar has no memories of watching this adaptation. “I never watched this adaptation,“ he said. Except for one courtroom scene, Ghatak had completed the entire shooting of the film with a stellar cast, including Chhabi Biswas, Utpal Dutt, Kali Banerjee and Geeta Dey . In the film, Anil Chatterjee had essayed the role of Shankar. “Kali Banerjee had brought the proposal of adapting this novel. Baba had begun shooting at the Technician's studio. But the producer left the project at the last moment and Baba couldn't complete the court room scene,“ said Samhita.Equally interesting is the backstory of the 1968 fiction film titled `Bagalar Bangadarshan'. Mukhopadhyay describes the film as a “private intrusion into a Bengali's family life“. Indrani Mukherjee from Mumbai had come to Kolkata to act in the film for which Pratima Baruah and Arati Mukherjee had recorded six songs. “This was my father's only unabashed comedy . But the film got temporarily stalled on instructions from the producer who wanted to invest that money in his Bhojpuri production. Though my brother had re constructed a part of the film, I am looking forward to NFAI to restore the rest of the portion,“ she said.Restoration of his 1971 documentary , `Durbar Gati Padma', has a historical importance, insists Mukhopadhyay . “This is the first time that any Bengali film used Jibanananda Das's famous poem `Abar asibo phire'. This poem was recited by Ghatak himself,“ he said.In 1968, Ghatak had started filming `Ronger Golam'. The film, based on a story penned by author Prabodh Kumar Sanyal, was about the life of a young man on his way to meet his wife. During the journey , he comes across a mysterious lady . What happens thereafter forms the crux of the film.Incidentally, Suchitra Sen was supposed to play the role of the mysterious lady . Both Sen and Ghatak had an old Bangladesh connection.Sen had even gone to meet Ghatak when he was admitted to a mental hospital. “Later, when he recovered, she came to meet my father at home and wanted to portray this role. But, she insisted on getting her preferred cinematographer to shoot the film. Baba was in a hurry to begin shooting and was in a dilemma. He had begun the shoot with Mahendra Kumar and didn't want to replace him,“ Samhita said. After shooting some portions in Kolkata and also by the Kopai river in Bolpur, the project had to be dropped because of financial crunch.