New Delhi
6 October 2009
After Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, it is the turn of Rabindranath Tagore
to have a biopic made about his romantic encounter with Victoria Ocampo, the literary
beauty of Argentina, who hosted the Nobel Laureate's two-month stay in Buenos Aires in
1924.
Argentine film director Pablo Cesar will accompany President Cristina Fernandez de
Kirchner of Argentina on her State visit to India next week, to scout for an Indian actor for
playing Tagore in his new film "Thinking of Him", an Indian-Argentine co-production on
the love story between Tagore and Ocampo.
The film's narrative will tell two stories: One, about a student who revisits Tagore's
poetry; and the other a flashback which charts the relationship between Tagore and
Ocampo. It will be shot in Spanish and English, but a Hindi version is not ruled out.
"I am looking for an Indian actor to play the lead role. I hope to find the actors by this
month-end," Cesar said over telephone from Buenos Aires. He will travel to Mumbai and
Kolkata for talks with his Indian partner Arindam Nandy and other co-producers.
Dev Patel of Slumdog Millionaire fame is tipped for the role of the young boy who delves
into Tagore's poetry.
Cesar hopes to have the cast, including Argentine actor who will play Ocampo, ready by
May 2010. Shooting for the film is expected to begin by August of that year. Incidentally,
the 150th birth anniversary of Tagore will be celebrated internationally by the UNESCO
next year as a mark of respect to the Nobel Laureate whose literary work blends
universal humanistic values and sympathy for the poor.
The Argentine director is no stranger to India. He was a member of the jury at the
International Film Festival of India at Goa in 2007. He had also made the first Indian-
Argentine co-production "Unicornio".
Cesar said the idea for the film came from Indian Ambassador to Argentina R
Viswanathan, who read Patricia Owen Steiner's "Victoria Ocampo: Writer, Feminist,
Woman of the World". Steiner translated Ocampo's voluminous autobiography from
Spanish and summarised it.
Mr Viswanathan told this newspaper that Indian-Argentine collaboration also extended to
production of an animation film. An Indian studio based in Thiruvanathapuram is
partnering with a studio in Buenos Aires for making a 3D animated film based on
Gaturro, a popular comic serial in Argentina.
Ocampo was an iconoclast in a patriarchal society, a woman who chose not to follow the
easy path offered by her wealthy family. Gandhi's idea of non-violence and Tagore's
writings inspired her. Victoria read Tagore's "Gitanjali" in 1914 and said "it fell like a
celestial dew on my anguishing 24-year-old heart[.]"
"The encounter with Tagore totally changed her vision of life," Cesar said. Ocampo was
34 years old then and Tagore, 63. She was the muse of his Purabi poems in which she
called her as Vijaya and dedicated the poems to her.
As happened to many other Argentine writers she also became a victim of politics. She
was imprisoned for three weeks by the Argentine Government. Nehru was one of the
world leaders who appealed for her release from jail.
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