Review: Soumitra Chatterjee and his World by Sanghamitra Chakraborty

Hindustan Times

a day ago

A few weeks before the release of Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959), directed by Satyajit Ray, Charlie Chaplin's Limelight was re-released in Calcutta (now Kolkata). A large hoarding in the city displayed the film's poster. The actor Soumitra Chatterjee, who was making his silver screen debut with Ray's film, would 'admire this larger-than-life poster as he passed the area' on his way to work, writes journalist Sanghamitra Chakraborty. 'One evening… unmindfully looking up to get a glimpse of the Limelight poster… he got the shock of his life.' Chaplin's face had been replaced by his own. 'It was a poster of Apur Sansar.' This remarkable debut launched Chatterjee into a career that would make him one of the most important actors of the 20th century.
Chakraborty's deeply researched biography, Soumitra Chatterjee and his World, explores all these different aspects of his life and career. Through in-depth interviews with his family, friends and colleagues, archival research (including Chatterjee's personal journals) and an analysis of his work, Chakraborty creates a compelling portrait of a complicated human being. Instead of slipping into the morass of a hagiography, which is common with celebrity biographies in India, Chakraborty explores even the less-than-complimentary aspects of her subject's life, such as his extramarital affairs and some dubious career decisions.
However, she does this with a sort of empathy that does not in any way diminish Chatterjee, instead revealing him to be only too human. Though Chatterjee has been the subject of several biographies already, it is perhaps safe to say that this book is by far the most detailed and engaging one yet. Future biographers or anyone commenting on Bengali cinema, will have to take it into serious account.
Soumitra Chatterjee and his World is divided into 10 parts, each exploring different aspects of its subject's life, such as his family and early years outside Calcutta, his college and university education, his early days in theatre (under the tutelage of the notable thespian Sisir Kumar Bhaduri), his Coffee House friends and literary pursuits, his committed leftist politics and his relationship with this wife Deepa, a talented badminton player.
A significant portion is, obviously, dedicated to his relationship with Ray. The author writes several accounts of how Chatterjee prepared for the different roles he played in Ray's films, such as a hot-headed taxi driver (Abhijan, 1962), an aspiring 19th-century writer (Charulata, 1964), a beleaguered village priest (Ashani Sanket, 1973) or a sharp private investigator (Sonar Kella, 1974 and Joy Baba Felunath, 1979). These chapters also bring out the differences between the two men.
The book is full of anecdotes that might surprise even the most devoted cinephile. For instance, writing about why Chatterjee did not collaborate with Ritwik Ghatak, one of the most celebrated art house Bengali film directors in the 1960s, Chakraborty describes an incident when the actor and the director came to fisticuffs. Quoting from an interview of Chatterjee, Chakraborty describes a public meeting where Ghatak and Chatterjee were guests. Quite characteristically, Ghatak turned up inebriated and started abusing Ray. 'I did not get provoked since I did not hold a brief to defend Ray,' says Chatterjee. 'Maybe he got frustrated at my nonchalance and he threw a swear word at me.' Flying into a rage, Chatterjee held Ghatak by the collar and landed a blow on his face. From the vantage point of half a century, it is somewhat amusing to witness, through Chakraborty's narration, two revered figures of Bengali cinema engaging in such behaviour. Such incidents remain with the reader long after the book has been put away.
Chakraborty also analyses Chatterjee's work with filmmakers like Tapan Sinha, Asit Sen, Ajoy Kar, Tarun Majumdar, Dinen Gupta and Saroj De, locating it within the specific context of Bengali cinema. The sharp writing provides context to the cinema of the 1930s-40s, which Chatterjee watched while growing up, as well as his contemporary films. She also relates Chatterjee's complex relationship to Bengali cinema's reigning heartthrob, Uttam Kumar. While Chatterjee was a self-proclaimed Uttam Kumar fan, there was also considerable rivalry between the two, especially during a period of labour unrest in the industry in the late 1960s, when they found themselves in opposing camps.
Some of this owes a debt to film scholar Sharmistha Gooptu's history of the Bengali film industry, Bengali Cinema: An Other Nation (2011). Though Chakraborty quotes from Gooptu, the book under review would have benefitted from more engaged editing, which would have ensured more rigorous citations. The book could have also included Chatterjee's family tree, bringing out his exact relation with such illustrious figures as poet and film critic Sourindra Mohan Mukhopadhyay, singer Suchitra Mitra or the freedom activist Jatindranath Mukherjee, better known as Bagha Jatin. Perhaps, these will be addressed in the next edition.
Much of the writing on Indian cinema, both scholarly and popular, has focused on Bollywood. Besides Gooptu's groundbreaking work, there is very little scholarship on Bengali popular cinema. Film scholars and historians writing on Bengali cinema have focused mostly on Ray or his art house contemporaries, Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak, or more recently, Rituparno Ghosh. Sayandeb Chowdhury's Uttam Kumar: A Life in Cinema and Maitreyee B Chowdhury's Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen: Bengali Cinema's First Couple are rare exceptions. Chakraborty's book, therefore, explores new ground. It will hopefully be an inspiration to more scholars and writers to examine the history of a remarkable film culture.
Uttaran Das Gupta is an independent writer and journalist.