Safed Haathi may have been the very first movie I ever watched -- I don't have memory of any before that. I don't remember the details of the story, only that it was about a large, innocent, friendly, good elephant being persecuted by dangerous, cruel, bad men. I came out sobbing, powerfully moved.
The plot synopsis on the database says it had a happy ending. Yet, the impression I have always retained is of an intensely painful and intensely beautiful movie -- perhaps the kind of intensity only children can feel. For the next day or two, I felt a lump in my throat whenever I remembered the good elephant's predicament.
That was my first experience of Tapan Sinha's work though I doubt I even knew the word 'director' at that time. Not that I would have cared, if I had. Cinema was cinema, pictures and sounds with stories. Who needed directors? Safed Haathi was great; I had no use for Tapan Sinha or whoever.
Three decades later, I have a revised opinion on the subject. I think we could use more filmmakers like him. Unlikely, but still.
I am no film critic, and don't command the type of jargon and attitude that seem to be indispensable in sophisticated modern critical writing if one hopes to be taken seriously. Nor am I a scholar of Tapan Sinha's works. All I can talk about is how a well made children's film really affects a child.
The effect on me of watching Safed Haathi was profound. I believe the film was largely responsible for what I feel for animals now. Deeper in, I believe it was this film that first introduced to me several moral dichotomies of life in a clear and powerful way: Honest vs Dishonest, Friendly vs Greedy, Innocent vs Cruel. And of course, Good vs Evil. Basic stuff, and too starkly done in black and white. But children don't understand shades of grey, basic stuff is what they need. Tapan Sinha is a master of that idiom.
Also Read: The immense talent of Balraj Sahni
In the picture: Pankaj Kapur and Shabana Azmi in Ek Doctor Ki Maut
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