Under Her Spell: Roberto Rossellini in India
Dileep Padgaonkar
Penguin, Rs 595How Roberto Rossellini stirred up a storm in India

Lucid, erudite and elegant, Under Her Spell opens a window to the turbulent time when the talented Italian neo-realist filmmaker Roberto Rossellini traversed India at the invitation of Jawaharlal Nehru to film the country. A self-confessed womaniser, Rossellini “scandalously” fell in love with Sonali Dasgupta, his scriptwriter and the mother of two children. But the book is probably even more about Rossellini’s real love affair with India, a country he described in embarrassingly laudatory terms.

Rossellini came to India when his marriage to Ingrid Bergman was falling apart. As he put it years later, he was tired of being “Mr Bergman”. This mystified Bergman who had walked out of her previous marriage to marry the eccentric Rossellini and continued to respect, if not love, him even after they separated. The charming director was apparently easy to fall in love with — he was generous, caring, emotional and, of course, a celebrity. But he was also idiosyncratic, celebrating the concept of laziness and suffering from endless exhaustion and constant migraines. Comfort was always limited and money insufficient for a household of wives, lovers and children. Life with him “was an endless cycle of griping, complaining, shouting and grumbling”. He was 52 when he met 27-year-old Sonali — so why did sparks fly?

Dilip Padgaonkar’s book introduces us to Rossellini in a remarkable fashion: we meet the director towards the evening of his life but, through a careful scrutiny of his films and interviews with those who knew him, we gain a deep understanding of the man and his cinema. Even though the final product of Rossellini’s Indian sojourn — a documentary series and a feature film,

India Matri Bhumi — was never counted among his best work, his commitment to create the “documentary” or “docu-fiction” is fully explored. His determination not to pre-script and to keep everything natural and “real” contributed significantly to avant-garde cinema. Padgaonkar captures a vivid portrait of a volatile artist who could be both sensitive and obdurate to an extreme. However, Sonali remains a hazy figure. We learn that she was a gracious, intelligent and very attractive woman — but there is not a single, clear, close-up photograph of her in the book or even a helpful description. Also, Padgaonkar’s book, in as much as it is an intellectual exercise, gives us little understanding of whether Rossellini and Sonali were in love, or even bound in passion.

Her husband, Hari Dasgupta, had encouraged her to write scripts for Rossellini as a “networking” device, and then became jealous of their proximity. He is said to have dumped Sonali in the middle of the night at Rossellini’s hotel after a fight, after which she did not return to him. Sonali and Rossellini were hounded by the press — with only Nehru’s calm intervention allowing them to live together in Paris. Needless to say, Ingrid had to put in a word with Nehru, before the instructions went out.

Sonali walked out on her family, taking a child with her and leaving the other behind. It was a huge sacrifice, as she settled down with Rossellini, who never married her and then abandoned her after 17 years for a younger woman. Sonali has been interviewed by the author, but she remains the most elusive character in the book. Which is why perhaps “her” in the title could refer to India Matri Bhumi or perhaps be indicative of the innumerable women Rossellini was involved with.

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