After the sunset: Roberto & Sonali story Sunil Deepak, 27 July 2008
I had a few days holidays at the end of April. That was when I read an article about the new book of Dileep Padgaonkar (Under her spell:
Roberto Rossellini in India, Viking, 2008) at the Jabberwock blog. I had heard in the past about the famous Italian film director Roberto Rossellini
and his Indian wife, Sonali. But I hadn’t really thought much about it. It had all happened when I was a baby and I hadn’t even realised that
at that time there was a big scandal about their affair.
Jabberwock wrote about the scandal that had broken out in 1957 about Roberto and Sonali, and felt that the book "is just a little too dry and restrained though, given that at the centre of this story is a tempestuous affair that complicated the lives of many people. We don't really learn that much about the Roberto-Sonali relationship, what drew them to each other and how the bond gradually deepened, and Padgaonkar is also reticent about their later years together.”
That stimulated my curiosity so I looked around on internet for more information about this story. It had all happened in 1957. Roberto Rossellini had come to India in December 1956. At that time, Roberto was 51 years old and Sonali was 27 years old. He was married to Ingrid Bergman, a famous Hollywood actress. She was married to Harisadhan Dasgupta, a respected documentary film director, 34 years old at that time, a friend and associate of Satyajit Roy. She had two children when this happened, her younger son was not yet one year old.
The reports say that she had arrived late one night at Taj Mahal hotel with her younger son in her arms. It seems Pandit Nehru,
India’s prime minister at that time, who had invited Roberto to India for making a film, helped the three of them to leave
India for Rome, where they had got married and Roberto had legally adopted Sonali’s younger son Arjun. In India, Harisadhan Dasgupta
had reacted by registering a police FIR for his missing wife. Later in 1957, Roberto & Sonali had a daughter, Raffaella.
Roberto died 20 years later, in 1977.
The more information I found, the more intrigued I was. Sonali, Roberto, Harisadhan and their children, all had been part of a deep emotional cyclone. She had two sons, but she could take only one son with her. That must have been terrible for her as a mother. It must have been equally terrible for the son who was left in Calcutta with his father. Kind of Sophie’s choice, except that this was no fiction.
How did Harisadhan feel about his wife not just leaving him for another man, older man at that, but also taking their son with her? How did they settle it, since Sonali could not have married Roberto without a proper divorce? Nor could Roberto legally adopt Sonali’s younger son, without her ex-husband’s consent? So this meant that after the initial furor, Roberto & Sonali had been in contact with Harisadhan in some way.
I remember my first journey to Italy in late nineteen seventies. There were very few foreigners living in Italy at that time. There
were no Asian shops, no Bengali communities, few who spoke English. How did Sonali fit in there? Usually when lovers meet,
they stand against the setting sun and it is supposed to end with “and they lived happily ever after...”. Yet that is
the point where
marriages begin. So after the sunset, once the flash bulbs had stopped, once the level of ho-ha had diminished, how did Sonali
feel? How did the young boy feel, once he grew up and understood that he had a father and an elder brother in India?
All these questions were going around in my head as I searched for answers. I could piece together many things because I could search in English and Italian, as well as some minor sources in Spanish and French that gave crucial information. This search was exclusively through internet. Additional information for this article came from some family members and from persons who had known the protagonists of this story. I wish I could interview Sonali Dasgupta Rossellini to hear her part of the story!
Background to Roberto Rossellini’s visit to India
When Roberto came to India at the end of 1956, he was passing through a bad phase in his career. His films like
"Europa 51" and "
Viaggio in Italia" with Ingrid Bergman had received bad reviews and were commercially unsuccessful.
Roberto had started his carrier in 1936 and had made some short films between 1936 to 1942. In 1942 he made his first full length movie, "Un pilota ritorna" (a pilot returns). Fame and success came in 1945 with “Roma città aperta” (Rome, open city) and "Paisà" (1946).
In 1936 he had married Marcellina, his costume designer and had a couple of sons with her. In 1945 his association with the wonderful Italian actress Anna Magnani started and though they never married they were friends for life, till Anna’s death in 1966. In fact, Roberto seemed to have this ability to be friends with all the women in his life, even when their relationships were over.
In 1948 Roberto received a letter from a Swedish actress, Ingrid Bergman who expressed admiration for his cinema and said
that she wanted to work with him. Ingrid Bergman at that time was very famous with successful films like Casablanca (1942) and
For whom the bell tolls (1945). That letter lead to films like Stromboli (about Stromboli island
and its volcano in Italy, 1950) and "Viaggio in Italia" (Travels in
Italy, 1953). The news of love affair between Roberto and Ingrid caused
a furor and Hollywood
banned both of them, as both were already married. It is not clear, if later they had divorced from their respective spouses
and married. Together they had a son (Robertino) and then twin girls, Isabelle and Isotta. Isabelle Rossellini grew up to be a
well known Hollywood actress.
Some information about the lives of Roberto and Ingrid in those years comes from testimonies of Palmira Rami and Gualtiero Signoracci, respectively wife and son of Ugo Signoracci, Roberto’s gardener in their villa in Santa Marinella at the seaside, not far from Rome. These testimonies have been collected by the students of middle school of Santa Marinella. According to Palmira and Gualtiero, “Ingrid was a very relaxed and calm person. She even had good relationship with Marcellina (Roberto's first wife), who used to come to the villa in Santa Marinella. All their children, played together." From these testimonies, Roberto also seemed to have this capacity to have children from his various relationships, to live together in the same house.
Journey to India
In 1956, the Hollywood boycott was over, and Ingrid had restarted work in Hollywood with films like
"Anastasia", for which she
received an Oscar. Probably her relationship with Roberto was in crisis. According to Palmira, Roberto’s gardener’s wife,
Ingrid was supposed to go to India, to join Roberto in 1957. Instead, she decided to do a film with Lars Schmidt, who later became
Ingrid’s third husband. Roberto came back from India with Sonali and a child, and everyone in the house in Santa Marinella was stunned.
Roberto stayed in India for almost 9 months, refusing to look at famous monuments and rather preferring to take a non-exotic view of India, by looking at lives of common persons.
Indian works of Rossellini
The Indian stay of Roberto led to two works, a documentary film India – Matri Bhumi (India - Mother land, 1959) and a TV mini-series India vista da Rossellini (India seen by Rossellini, 1959) broadcasted on Italian RAI channel.
The mini-series "India seen by Rossellini" broadcast in 10 episodes was produced jointly by India, Italy and France.
The episodes were: India without myths, Bombay Gateway to India, Architecture & costumes of Bombay, Varsova, Towards the south, Lagoons
of Malabar, Kerala, Hirakud dam on river Mahadi, Pandit Nehru & Animals in India.
“India – Matri Bhumi” was a film in 4 parts. The first part took a lyrical look at the daily life of a mahout (elephant handler). Part two was about an East Bengal refugee who is working on a dam and after the work is finished, he is relocated to another construction site. Part three was about an elderly person contemplating nature in a jungle and finally, part four is about a monkey owner dying from heat and the monkey looking for another owner.
Both the works were restored some years ago by the Cineteca, film archives of Bologna, and have since been shown in some festivals.
Regarding his experience in India, Roberto Rossellini had written, "I wish that cinema can serve as a means to knowledge, that it has a cultural value and it promotes an opening of consciousness. I went abroad to experiment this view of cinema but I can try it in Europe as well. Wouldn't it be good to have ethnographic films on Paris or Rome?"
The period of return from India coincided with lot of his work for Italian TV rather than for making films, and is also called his most solitary period. When he died after a heart attack on 3 June 1977, he was working on a TV film about young Karl Marx called "Lavorare per umanità" (Working for humanity).
Sonali Rossellini
Today she is around 78 years old. Palmira, Roberto’s gardener’s wife says, “Sonali was more solitary compared to Ingrid.
However friendship between Ingrid and Roberto remained and even afterwards, Ingrid came with Lars to the villa in Santa Marinella.
At that time, Roberto’s financial situation was not good and the villa belonged to the creditors, from whom Roberto had taken money.
Ingrid even asked Lars to buy that villa to help Roberto.”
Sonali was an aspiring actress when she had got married to Harisadhan Dasgupta. She had studied at Shanti Niketan and Bimal Roy’s wife was her aunt.
Rai Singh an attaché at the Indian Embassy in Rome in the nineteen seventies. He remembers Sonali as “ravishing and fiercely ambitious” and that “she wanted an international film debut through Rossellini but that didn’t materialise. After 1 year in Italy she took Italian citizenship. She wanted to contest municipal elections in Rome but couldn’t as she was not Italian by birth.” (1)
Rai Singh says that “Sonali was a social animal, she was seen at elite gatherings, always dressed in a sari, she organised exhibitions of ancient Indian jewellery.”
Sonali continues to live in Rome and owns a boutique. Padgaonkar in his book writes, "Despite Sonali’s own
assertions that she had a steady, secure life with Rossellini, rumours of a rift between the two began to surface as
early as in 1962. Gossip mongers in the corridors of Cinecitta noted that Roberto’s companion hadn’t been spotted anywhere
for an entire month. She was said to have shut herself up in her own faraway life. Once she appeared on the sets of his film and
reportedly told his assistant: ‘It is terrible to feel lonely in a world that one is no longer able to understand.’…A sympathetic
article in La Settimana spoke about the multiple activities she undertook to partially fill up the void she felt around her. Her boutique
of Indian handicrafts and textiles on the via Della Vite had instantly attracted a large clientele of socialites and celebrities…Once she
showed up in the boutique with bruises on her face. To those who tried to commiserate with her, she explained that she had had a fall and
that she would take care in future to mind her step…She told me that she intended to write the story of her life in which, she emphatically
added, ‘Roberto will not be the central figure.’ She said this without a trace of rancour. She said she continued to take pride in
Rossellini’s work as a film-maker and recalled with obvious pleasure their collaboration on various film projects. But she had moved on.
‘Where and how did you acquire such a serene detachment?’ I asked. She answered with two short words: ‘I’m Indian.’"
Roberto & Sonali's departure from India in 1957
Roberto and Sonali love story involved the iconic painter M. F. Hussein. This information came from Hussein's article in Telegraph of 8 July 2007. Here is an excerpt from this article,
It was Husain’s fascination with films that led him to meet Roberto Rosselini. The Italian film-maker was invited by Nehru in 1956 to make a documentary on India. Husain travelled with Rosselini all over India — from Bombay to Benares and Mysore — and was soon to play a key role in an event that was making headlines all over the world. Rosselini had fallen in love with a married Bengali woman, Sonali Dasgupta. Given that he himself was married to Ingrid Bergman at the time, his affair with Dasgupta, who was half his age, had the western press hounding him in India.
"He admired my work and I admired his, and we became great friends,” says Husain reliving the heady days of 1956, when he was protecting Rosselini and Sonali Dasgupta. “Rosselini would drive five hours from the interiors of Mysore just to reach a phone booth to make a call to her in Calcutta. An American newspaper offered me $10,000 for a photograph of the two of them together. But I wouldn’t dream of betraying my friend.”
Husain played a crucial role in getting them together. One night he booked a first class coupe on the Frontier Mail from Bombay to Delhi. Accompanying him with her head covered was Sonali Dasgupta, travelling as Mrs Husain. Avoiding the paparazzi, Husain escorted Dasgupta to Delhi and set up a meeting with Rosselini. Soon the couple left for Rome and were married.
“Rosselini was in love with Sonali, an Indian woman, and I was in love with Maria, a European,” says Husain. “He said he would do anything to help me. Of course, we were both married. He was married with four children. I was married with five children. But we were all madly in love!”
Sonali's children
Apart from Roberto's children from his earlier marriages, there were three children of Sonali involved in this story - her elder son, Raja, whom she had left in India with Harisadhan Dasgupta, her second son, Arjun, who grew up to be in Gil Rossellini in Italy and her daughter with Roberto, Raffaella.
Raja Dasgupta, the elder son of Sonali grew up to be a film director in Calcutta with films like Tiktiki, Doka, etc. In 2006, Raja’s son and Sonali's grandson, Birsa Dasgupta has been noted as an upcoming film maker.
On 6 June 2008, Telegraph India carried a brief interview of Raja by Dola Moetra, "Today, if you try and look for signs of hurt in
his eyes, you won’t find them. There is not even a trace of accusation in his voice when he talks about his mother. “I was so
protected by my family — my grandmother and aunts — that I remember feeling absolutely no loss when she left.” He says that there
was only the “mildest curiosity” when one day an aunt from his mother’s side came to his boarding school — he was in Class IX
then — and said that his mother had come to Calcutta and wished to visit him. That was the first time that Raja met his mother
since she left. No, there were no tears, either of anger or of joy. The moment came and went. Years later, when he went to
Delhi for higher studies, he met his mother, who was there on work, regularly. Dasgupta never felt the need to ask her why she
left. “I felt no pain. If I did, maybe I would have asked her."
Gil Rossellini was the second son of Sonali and Harisadhan, born in Bombay in India on 23 October 1956, a couple of months before the arrival of Roberto in India.
Palmira, Roberto’s gardener’s wife remembers him with the following words, “I really liked Gil, he was a lovely small
dark child. He was Sonali’s child from her previous marriage. He was a nice and sensitive boy. He suffered because there were lot
of persons coming to the villa, and since he was dark skinned, he felt observed. Often he would come running to me or
to Iva, the cook, to cry and say that he wished he was white."
2 August 1999 issue of India Today had carried the following news about Gil: "India's not a fad for Gil Rossellini. Son of the late Italian film-maker Roberto Rossellini (remembered as much for his landmark cinema as for his marriage to Hollywood legend Ingrid Bergman) and the Bengali-born Sonali Dasgupta, Gil was in Delhi last week. When he visited in the '80s, he made some documentaries for Italian TV including The Tomb of Jesus Christ in Kashmir and The Magic World of Indian Cinema. This time, perhaps another such series and a feature. More important, says the 42-year-old who was born in Mumbai, "I always found it very consoling to come to India. There is a feeling that I'm at home." So he is."
In 2005 Gil attended the Venice film festival with his documentary film “Kill Gil” (2005). He was on a wheel
chair. His name on his film was given as Gil Rossellini Dasgupta, that name gives an idea of his own search for
his identity and roots. In this film he told his own story about a staphylococcus infection in 2004 that lead to
his coma and his slow recovery and remaining paralysis. In the festival he was presented as the producer of a
Malayesian film called “Princess of Mont Ledang”.
In a September 2005 interview he mentioned that during his illness, when he was in Switzerland, his step sister Isabelle was close to him and used to see him regularly. Part of the documentary Kill Gil was filmed with the help of Isabelle. He said that he was working on a film on interaction between Italians and Indians in India. In 2006, he came up with Kill Gil 2, however I was unable to find more about this film.
Raffaella Rossellini, Sonali and Roberto’s daughter was one of the founders of IRAA
(Institute of Anthropological Research, Rome) theatre group and was a person looking at analysis and fusion of different theatre cultures, especially of
those from east Asia and Latin America. She took part in many theatre and dance workshops including Kathakali
dance presentations during nineteen seventies and eighties.
She was part of theatre productions like “Lontano da Dove” (Far from where), “Atacama”, “Nowhere to hide”. She appeared as an actress in a film in 1987, “La Visione di Saba” directed by Marco Bellocchio (and also "La sorcessa", 1988 - I am not sure if it is another name for "La Visione di Saba" or it was another film by same director). She was also the choreographer of La Visione di Saba and choreography is a role she seemed to have donned more often during 1980s and early 1990s. She was also part of "Compagna Silvestramente" and did ethnographic work.
In 1989 her book “Liquidazione del corpo” (Sale of body) was published by Sonda publications, Italy. The introduction to
this book says, “Raffaella Rosslini was born in Paris in 1957 and with experience at IRAA from 1978 to 1987, she has
moved between dance, theatre and anthropology in different contexts, in understanding body related concepts... against an
aesthetic and health related body perception, the daughter of noted Italian cinema maestro, wishes to recover body as energy
and way to knowledge, through her work, dances and anthropological research, linked with her choreography work done during
her numerous tours and travels in Mapuche in Chili, in Venezuela and in India.”
In 1992, Raffaella Rossellini choreographed and appeared in a dance sequence in the opera called Gilgamesh for well known Italian singer-author Franco Battiato. In 1993, she did choreography for the dance opera “I pescatori di perle” (The fishermen of pearls), presented in Milan. Franco Battiato in his book mentions that in those years Raffaella was planning to shift to Venezuela.
In fact, there is no trace of Raffaella on internet after 1993 except in a 1998 picture at Caracas in Venezuela, when she received the “Italians in the World” award for her dance and choreography work from the Italian Embassy (picture on the right above).
Thus Raffaella is just one year younger to Gil and probably Sonali was already expecting her when she decided to leave India with Roberto?
Harisadhan Dasgupta
Harisadhan Dasgupta (8) was 34 years old in 1957. He had started as a documentary film maker in 1948. He made 7 documentary films between 1948 to 1956. In 1967 he made a documentary called “Our children will know each other better”, for which screen play was written by Satyajit Roy. Was that film in any way a reflection of his personal story, I don’t know since there is no information about this film on internet, but its title does seem very suggestive.
According to an article by Abhijit Dasgupta in The Pioneer (19/05/1999), “Harisadhan knew what was happening, what shocked him was the manner in which she eloped, one son in tow.”
The last film made by Harisadhan Dasgupta was in 1984 and he died in Shanti Niketan in 1996. According to one of persons who knew him during his last days in Shantiniketan, he was devastated by his wife leaving him.
However, Raja, his elder son, does not agree with this view, "My father was never “devastated by his wife leaving him”. Interestingly, my father made two of his best known documentary films (‘The Story of Tata Steel’ and ‘Konarak’) in 1958. He went into a self-proclaimed exile, in the mid-80’s, for not having got the recognition he deserved. And, contrary to what Padgaonkar has harped on repeatedly, he was an out-and-out optimist till his last day."
Conclusions
There is some mention that Pandit Nehru and Indira Gandhi both were friends with Roberto and Sonali. I found some mention of parties in Paris in sixties and seventies where both Indira Gandhi and Sonali were present.
In a personal communication, about the Padgaonkar book, Raja wrote, "I guess what has irritated me is that all
reviews have focussed a lot on my mother and Rossellini....and the book was not supposed to be about that
as much as Rossellini' s work on India. There is only any point in writing a book like this if you have
anything startlingly new to say.....for example, if my mother had genuinely wanted someone to write down her side
of the story....but that was clearly not the case."
Raja confirmed that Gil did meet his father once, in 1984 and that Gil and Raja are in regular contact. He also confirms that his mother has been in India many times, but she never met Harisadhan again.
Perhaps one day Sonali will write her story. Gil in his interview says that he has huge number of pictures in his archives, all properly labeled. Perhaps one day he would decide to write his biography.
It was a love story with a happy ending, or so it would seem. Yet, that happy ending was inextricably linked with pain and suffering for many of the protagonists. It would make for a wonderful novel, one of those melodramatic tomes that we feel are so unbelievable.
Notes
1. This argument was used in this article to say that Sonia Gandhi should not be allowed to stand for election in India. I am not sure if there was a change of law in Italy on this subject, and when did that happen. However, persons born outside Italy can and do get elected. For example, in 1987, a porn actress of Hungerian origin, married to an Italian and naturalised Italian, Illona Staller was elected member of Italian parliament and at present, there are two “foreigners” in Italian parliament.
2. The interviews of Palmira and Gualtiero in Italian can be consulted at Santa Marinella middle school webpage.
3. Posters from different films of Rossellini on this page are from Immagine dello Spettacolo website.
4. Pictures of Rossellini in India on this page are from School of Music & Dramatic arts Bologna, Cineteca of Bologna & National school of cinema, Roma.
5. The picture of Sonali & Roberto above is from Outlook
6. Second picture of Roberto & Sonali above is by Giuseppe Palmas of the "archivio palmas" mentioned on the picture.
7. I wish to record a special appreciation for Raja Dasgupta for sharing his views with me.
8. Filmography of Harisadhan Dasgupta: A Perfect Day (1948 - National Tobacco), Konark : The Sun Temple (1949 - Dunlop), Trial of Strength (1952 - Good Year), Shahar ki Jhalak (1953 - Imperial Tobacco), Gaon ki Kahani (1953 - Imperial Tobacco), Weavers of Maindargi (1953 - Burmah Shell), Panchthupi : A Village in West Bengal (1955 - Burmah Shell), Trancuver : The Song of Waves (1956 - Burmah Shell), The Story of Tata Steel (1958 - Tata Steel), Konarak (1958 - Films Division), Five Year Plan in Eastern Region (1960 - Films Division), Hattogol Vijay (1960 - Indian Tube), Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray (1961 - Films Division), Panorama of West Bengal (1962 - Chamber of Commerce), Bade Ghulam Ali (1965 - Sangeet Natak Academy), Quest for Health (1967 - Sandoz), Malabar Story (1967 - Metal Box), Our Children will Know Each Other Better (1967 - Dunlop), Automobile Industries in India (1969 - Hindusthan Motors), Baba (1969 -Films Division), Terracotta Temples (1970 - Films Division), Port of Calcutta (1971 - Calcutta Port Trust), The Tale of Two Leaves and a Bud (1972 - Tea Board of India), Glimpses of India (1972 - Union Carbide), Bagha Jatin (1973 - Films Division), Haldia Dock Complex (1977 - Calcutta Port Trust), The Brave do not Die (1978 - Government of West Bengal), Donate a Life (1979 - St. John Ambulance Association), This Land is Mine (1980 - IFFCO), Indian Tea Association Centenary Film (1981 - Indian Tea Association), From Mizoram with Love (1981 - Films Division), Acharya Nandalal (1984 - Government of West Bengal).
Final Note: I wrote this article originally on 2 May 2008. I received lot of comments, suggestions and information after that first article. Thus, this is an updated version of the first article, that takes account of all the additional information that arrived. I take this opportunity to thank all those persons who wrote to me.
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