It was an ironic and tragic death for someone who had campaigned assiduously for safe motorcycle and car driving, and for someone who was planning to mark his 80th year in a few months with one last long bike ride between Bangalore and his beloved Ahmedabad, before quitting two-wheelers for good.
Such was his immersion in motorcycle and vintage cars that one of the messages on WhatsApp detailed every aspect of Navroze’s achievements and interests except the main one: cameraman/cinematographer/filmmaker.
Born in 1944 in Wai, Maharashtra, Navroze grew up in Ahmedabad. Beginning in the late 60s, his career as cinematographer spanned over half a century, using all sorts of technology from basic 16 mm and 35 mm film to today’s latest digital apparatus, and filming in every imaginable genre of the moving image from experimental films and feature films to documentary work. His feature film work includes Duvidha (Mani Kaul), 22 June, 1897 (Nachiket and Jayoo Patwardhan), Percy (Pervez Merwanji) Devarakadu (Pattabhi Rama Reddy), Pehla Adhyay (Vishnu Mathur) Lalach (Shankar Nag), Frames (Chetan Shah) and Hun Hunshi Hunshilal/Love in the Time of Malaria (Sanjiv Shah).
Having studied art at Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda, Navroze moved to Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune to study cinematography. If Subrata Mitra was the great, meticulous innovator of the first generation, partnering Satyajit Ray in rendering his images, then Navroze and KK Mahajan were the ones who carried forward the cinematic exploration for directors such as Mrinal Sen, Mani Kaul and Kumar Shahani.
Though Navroze soon became one of the most reputable cinematographers working in India, his ego never got in the way of his hunger to learn more. In the mid-1980s, he went to America and enrolled in a tough workshop with renowned cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs. His stories from that event – of getting to grips with the most elaborate filming equipment and processes – were as fascinating as his tales of the rudimentary equipment he struggled with in Rajasthan. Duvidha is a stunningly beautiful film, one that still retains its visual power after 50 years. Navroze could have easily used that and the other features he shot to build a glamorous, comfortable life in Bombay, and internationally as a feature-film cinematographer. Instead, he simultaneously intensified his exploration of the other branch of his practice – documentary film-making. At his passing, we can note that Navroze Contractor was the seniormost of a handful of people who’ve brilliantly straddled both fiction and non-fiction cinematography. Besides the film work, his still photography work is in the collections of the Smithsonian in Washington and Tate Modern in London. His most recent work was on the dying culture of kushti (wrestling) in akhadas.
A list of ground-breaking work and career highlights are to be expected in any tribute. But these by themselves will not give us a complete picture of a complex, multi-faceted, hugely energetic man. For those of us who knew him even without being among his closest circle, there will always be a memory of a no-nonsense, cut-to-the-point man, but one of great warmth.
There will be a memory of the great storyteller who could quickly have you off your chair and in splits. A sharp wit with an even sharper sense of observation. A bushy-bearded, low centre of gravity who relished life in all its wonder. And a man who dedicated most of his gift and talent to fighting for those who continue to be deprived of the means and routes to reach a full enjoyment of existence.
The writer is director of the documentary film, Egaro Mile (Eleven Miles)
