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Indian Express
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Soumitra Chatterjee is a legend, by no means forgotten
I was a child when I witnessed the phenomenon known as Soumitra Chatterjee by watching his movies. It has remained a mystery to me how or why he was not that well-known outside Bengal, especially in today's world dominated by Bollywood stars. Sanghamitra Chakraborty's detailed and well-researched biography, Soumitra Chatterjee and His World, explores this, and like the eponymous character of Feluda, once played by the actor, tries to solve this mystery. Chakraborty went through the actor's writings — essays, diaries, letters, plays and poetry — and his interviews, as well as interviewed his children, and the people who knew him, to systematically put together his life story. As she mentions in the Introduction chapter, she was inspired by the message that actor-director Sisir Bhadhuri, one of Chatterjee's mentors, had told him: 'Read your lines like a detective'. The book starts with Chatterjee's birth in a north Calcutta home to a mother who is obsessed with Rabindranath Tagore, which influences Chatterjee's interest in Tagore and Bengali literature. As he wrote, 'My own heart and mind, in some way, have also been shaped by him.' The family moved to Krishnanagar later, and Chatterjee was entranced by the writing of his grandfather, Lalit Kumar, and the tales of his uncle and grandfather being jailed, and met various freedom fighters who would drop into their home. This made the young boy crave adventure and he got the acting bug at a young age. After matriculation, Chatterjee moved back to Calcutta. He became the ringleader of a group of students and frequently visited the bookshops on College Street as well as the Coffee House. Reading, meeting with friends, debating and reciting poetry, he soon became a part of a vibrant group of like-minded people, one of whom took him to watch the play Alamgir. That play and its producer and director Bhaduri inspired him to the extent that Chatterjee started learning the theory of theatre as well. It was in the mid-1950s that he started a theatre group, Chhayanot, and started acting in plays, including in one that Bhaduri staged Prafulla. He also worked at All India Radio and during that period auditioned for a lead in a Bengali film,only to be rejected. Despite the rejection, Chatterjee didn't give up and when a friend asked him if he wanted to audition for the role of Apu in Aparajito (1956), the sequel to Pather Panchali (1955), Soumitra agreed to meet with the director, Satyajit Ray. Though he was again not chosen for that role, that meeting was pivotal because the legendary filmmaker remembered him and did eventually cast him for Apur Sansar (1959), changing the course of his life. Apur Sansar was a box-office hit and generated rave reviews for its actors. Chatterjee had by then started getting recognised on the streets and in Coffee House, a sure sign of being a celebrity! He went on to collaborate with Ray on many other memorable movies, including Devi (1960), Samapti (1961), Kapurush (1965), Charulata (1964), Ghare Baire (1984), to name a few. The later sections of the book describe Chatterjee's breakthrough into commercial cinema through Jhinder Bondi (1961), his forays into a diverse roles with parallel cinema directors and his return to the theatre. He was steadfast in wanting to stay in Kolkata, and thus, the city is sometimes as much a character in this book as the actor. He stayed resilient and creative until the end. In fact, in 2020, seven of his new films were released. He remained an icon of Bengali culture and that is why there was an outpouring of grief and obituaries at a global scale on his demise in November 2020. Soumitra Chatterjee and His World is a delight to read for cinema and history lovers. There were many aspects of his life that had stayed unknown, and reading this book gave me insight into those as well as a world that is fast-disappearing, and therefore must be remembered.
CNN
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
The last of Bengal's female impersonators
For Indian actor Chapal Bhaduri, the last man known to play female roles in Bengali folk theater, getting into character was both practical and ritualistic. He would put his hands together as if in prayer before applying makeup, drawing on eyebrows, affixing eyelashes and donning a bra, blouse, wig and golden jewelry. The application of a 'third eye' on his forehead marked the completion of his transformation into Shitala, the Hindu goddess of ailments, including smallpox. An iconic photograph by the publisher and director Naveen Kishore — who brought Bhaduri's story to the world through his celebrated 1999 documentary 'Performing the Goddess: The Chapal Bhaduri Story' — captured this very moment, as the actor raises a performative arm and stares defiantly past the camera. 'Until then, he is (a) man becoming a woman. With the third eye, he becomes the goddess,' Kishore told CNN in a video interview, adding: 'Then there's no more banter, no humor, no cracking jokes or singing in a bad voice.' Now retired and in his mid-80s, Bhaduri was considered the last female impersonator of 'jatra,' a traveling musical theater tradition in Bengali-speaking parts of northeast India and Bangladesh. When he first joined a jatra troupe in the 1950s, men routinely performed in saris and makeup in lieu of women actors. Hailing from an acting family and using the stage name Chapal Rani, he became a prominent figure in the Calcutta (now Kolkata) theater scene. But Bhaduri found it increasingly hard to secure work after more women began partaking in jatra productions in the 1960s and 1970s. By the time he met Kishore, who was running a theater publication at the time, the actor was in his 60s and only performing a handful of times a year for the equivalent of $1 a night. The publisher and photographer shot a series of black-and-white images of Bhaduri getting into costume that were picked up by a curator and subsequently sold. Kishore gave the proceeds to Bhaduri, who later came to him looking for work, offering to cook or even make coffee. 'I was in tears at my own inability…. because I saw him as a star, and I thought, 'Why would I give him a job in a kitchen?'' Kishore recalled. 'Then it struck me that all our friends in television and media wanted entertainment stories of this kind, but nobody was interested in sponsoring (them). So, I thought, 'What if I spent money and made a talking-head documentary?'' As a preparatory study for his film, Kishore arranged another photo shoot with Bhaduri at the actor's home — this time in color. The publisher recounted taking an unobtrusive approach to help put his subject at ease. 'My entire practice is a shy one; I often lose a lot of good photographs because I feel I might be intruding,' Kishore said. 'The shoot itself was just him and me, and so it was natural. There's no artifact. There's no touching-up or anything — that's part of the way I photograph… There was conversation throughout.' Speaking to CNN from his care home in Kolkata, Bhaduri also recalled a relaxed atmosphere. 'Naveen told me to forget that he was taking my pictures,' the retired actor said in an email interview via a translator (the author Sandip Roy, whose biography of Bhaduri, 'Chapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal,' is due to be published in December). 'He said, 'Erase me from your mind. You just do your thing like you always do. Don't look at the camera.'' The resulting images — several of which are currently on display in the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art's new exhibition, 'Body Transformed: Contemporary South Asian Photographs and Prints' — offer an intimate glimpse of the actor's craft. His metamorphosis unfolds through the photos, which include shots taken via mirror reflections, as he applies bright red lipstick and a circular crimson 'tilaka' on his forehead. This ritual would later be repeated as the opening scenes of 'Performing the Goddess,' the aforementioned 44-minute character study in which Bhaduri charismatically recounts stories from his life and career. Comprised mostly of interview footage, the film sees the actor breaking into character monologues and discussing his theater experiences, from almost being kidnapped by men who were convinced he was a woman to studying brothel madams' mannerisms in Kolkata's red-light district. Kishore said his film could have been produced in a matter of days, but he instead shot it over six weeks in the hope of uncovering more material. His patience paid off: one day, as Kishore was about to start editing, Bhaduri came to his office and — completely unsolicited — spoke at length about a three-decade relationship he had embarked on with a married man. Bhaduri agreed to share his account of the complex affair (and breakup) on camera, in what is perhaps the film's most powerful scene. The actor's unusually frank discussion of his sexuality in the conservative climate of 1990s India is, according to Kishore, one of the reasons why the documentary was so well received. 'It was seen as an act of extreme vulnerability, but also courage, the fact that he could speak about it — and speak about it in a manner that (wasn't) sensational,' Kishore added. This may also be why the documentary (and the accompanying photos) still resonate today. Shown at film festivals when it came out, it has since aired on Indian television, while the preparatory photos have been exhibited at various museums, sold at a Sotheby's auction in 2007 and later acquired by the Cincinnati Art Museum. The ongoing exposure led to what Kishore called a 'strange resurrection' of Bhaduri's career. Asked about the impact the project had on his life, the actor said he relished the chance to bring his art to new audiences, across India and overseas. 'People said, 'You have taken the story of Goddess Shitala, which usually takes place in fields and street corners, to such unimaginable heights,'' the actor said. 'That was my ultimate reward.' 'Body Transformed: Contemporary South Asian Photographs and Prints' is on at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C. until Aug. 17, 2025.
CNN
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
The last of Bengal's female impersonators
For Indian actor Chapal Bhaduri, the last man known to play female roles in Bengali folk theater, getting into character was both practical and ritualistic. He would put his hands together as if in prayer before applying makeup, drawing on eyebrows, affixing eyelashes and donning a bra, blouse, wig and golden jewelry. The application of a 'third eye' on his forehead marked the completion of his transformation into Shitala, the Hindu goddess of ailments, including smallpox. An iconic photograph by the publisher and director Naveen Kishore — who brought Bhaduri's story to the world through his celebrated 1999 documentary 'Performing the Goddess: The Chapal Bhaduri Story' — captured this very moment, as the actor raises a performative arm and stares defiantly past the camera. 'Until then, he is (a) man becoming a woman. With the third eye, he becomes the goddess,' Kishore told CNN in a video interview, adding: 'Then there's no more banter, no humor, no cracking jokes or singing in a bad voice.' Now retired and in his mid-80s, Bhaduri was considered the last female impersonator of 'jatra,' a traveling musical theater tradition in Bengali-speaking parts of northeast India and Bangladesh. When he first joined a jatra troupe in the 1950s, men routinely performed in saris and makeup in lieu of women actors. Hailing from an acting family and using the stage name Chapal Rani, he became a prominent figure in the Calcutta (now Kolkata) theater scene. But Bhaduri found it increasingly hard to secure work after more women began partaking in jatra productions in the 1960s and 1970s. By the time he met Kishore, who was running a theater publication at the time, the actor was in his 60s and only performing a handful of times a year for the equivalent of $1 a night. The publisher and photographer shot a series of black-and-white images of Bhaduri getting into costume that were picked up by a curator and subsequently sold. Kishore gave the proceeds to Bhaduri, who later came to him looking for work, offering to cook or even make coffee. 'I was in tears at my own inability…. because I saw him as a star, and I thought, 'Why would I give him a job in a kitchen?'' Kishore recalled. 'Then it struck me that all our friends in television and media wanted entertainment stories of this kind, but nobody was interested in sponsoring (them). So, I thought, 'What if I spent money and made a talking-head documentary?'' As a preparatory study for his film, Kishore arranged another photo shoot with Bhaduri at the actor's home — this time in color. The publisher recounted taking an unobtrusive approach to help put his subject at ease. 'My entire practice is a shy one; I often lose a lot of good photographs because I feel I might be intruding,' Kishore said. 'The shoot itself was just him and me, and so it was natural. There's no artifact. There's no touching-up or anything — that's part of the way I photograph… There was conversation throughout.' Speaking to CNN from his care home in Kolkata, Bhaduri also recalled a relaxed atmosphere. 'Naveen told me to forget that he was taking my pictures,' the retired actor said in an email interview via a translator (the author Sandip Roy, whose biography of Bhaduri, 'Chapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal,' is due to be published in December). 'He said, 'Erase me from your mind. You just do your thing like you always do. Don't look at the camera.'' The resulting images — several of which are currently on display in the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art's new exhibition, 'Body Transformed: Contemporary South Asian Photographs and Prints' — offer an intimate glimpse of the actor's craft. His metamorphosis unfolds through the photos, which include shots taken via mirror reflections, as he applies bright red lipstick and a circular crimson 'tilaka' on his forehead. This ritual would later be repeated as the opening scenes of 'Performing the Goddess,' the aforementioned 44-minute character study in which Bhaduri charismatically recounts stories from his life and career. Comprised mostly of interview footage, the film sees the actor breaking into character monologues and discussing his theater experiences, from almost being kidnapped by men who were convinced he was a woman to studying brothel madams' mannerisms in Kolkata's red-light district. Kishore said his film could have been produced in a matter of days, but he instead shot it over six weeks in the hope of uncovering more material. His patience paid off: one day, as Kishore was about to start editing, Bhaduri came to his office and — completely unsolicited — spoke at length about a three-decade relationship he had embarked on with a married man. Bhaduri agreed to share his account of the complex affair (and breakup) on camera, in what is perhaps the film's most powerful scene. The actor's unusually frank discussion of his sexuality in the conservative climate of 1990s India is, according to Kishore, one of the reasons why the documentary was so well received. 'It was seen as an act of extreme vulnerability, but also courage, the fact that he could speak about it — and speak about it in a manner that (wasn't) sensational,' Kishore added. This may also be why the documentary (and the accompanying photos) still resonate today. Shown at film festivals when it came out, it has since aired on Indian television, while the preparatory photos have been exhibited at various museums, sold at a Sotheby's auction in 2007 and later acquired by the Cincinnati Art Museum. The ongoing exposure led to what Kishore called a 'strange resurrection' of Bhaduri's career. Asked about the impact the project had on his life, the actor said he relished the chance to bring his art to new audiences, across India and overseas. 'People said, 'You have taken the story of Goddess Shitala, which usually takes place in fields and street corners, to such unimaginable heights,'' the actor said. 'That was my ultimate reward.' 'Body Transformed: Contemporary South Asian Photographs and Prints' is on at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C. until Aug. 17, 2025.
