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Soumitra Chatterjee, the Bengali acting legend, passed away in a private hospital in Calcutta. The 65-year-old actor was admitted to the hospital on October 8 after testing positive for COVID. Despite some improvement in his physical condition, the veteran actor took his last breath as his cancer and other complications continued to grow.
Soumitra Chatterjee has acted on the big screen in film for over 60 years. He was a successful stage actor, playwright, playwright, poet, and founder and publisher of Sahitya O Sanskriti.
Soumitra Chatterjee was born on January 19, 1935 in Krishnanagar, Nadia district of West Bengal. His family’s home was in a village called Kaya near Shilaidaha in Kushtia, Bangladesh. They started living in Krishnanagar from the time of their grandfather. His primary education was at Krishnanagar. Later, his father moved to Calcutta for work purposes and later went to Calcutta to pursue university and university studies. Soumitra Chatterjee was interested in acting since childhood.
In an interview, Soumitra Chatterjee said that there was a lot of good drama in Krishnanagar in her son’s time. His father used to perform in amateur theater groups there, reciting poems at home and there was an atmosphere of drama.
He further said: ‘In our childhood, we also used to make a stage at home with boards, make curtains with sheets and do little plays with our brothers, sisters and friends. The elders of the house were also very encouraging. Since I was in class four-five, my addiction to drama increased a lot. ‘
She first performed on the school stage in the English drama ‘Sleeping Princess’. For which he also received medals and medals. While studying the first year of Bengali with honors at the university, he came into contact with the playwright Shishir Kumar Bhaduri. From then on, he dreamed of making acting his main goal in life. Soumitra Chatterjee was deeply inspired by her performance.
He said, ‘When I was in the final BA class, I decided I would act, I wouldn’t do anything else.
He made his film debut in 1959 in Ray’s Apur Sansar. Soumitra Chatterjee has played the title role in 14 Ray films. He developed a deep bond with director Satyajit Ray. Soumitra Chatterjee also wrote a book on Ray with Manikdar. He also did an English translation and the title of the book was ‘The teacher and I’.
Just as Satyajit Ray was very picky about the details of the film, so were the actors he worked with. Soumitra Dastidar, a close collaborator and documentary filmmaker, said he found an old notebook in Soumitra Chatterjee’s library during the filming of Charulata. In that book, it is seen how Soumitra Chatterjee practiced such handwriting on white paper countless times to highlight the type of writing that was in vogue during Rabindranath’s time.
Soumitra Chatterjee said that while studying for his master’s degree, Satyajit Ray was looking for someone for the role of Kishore Apu when he made his first film ‘Pather Panchali’ and the second part was ‘Aparajit’. At that time, one of Ray’s acquaintances, Soumitra Chatterjee, brought him to Ray.
‘I was older than that Apu teenager. As soon as he saw me, he said, “You’ve grown.” Anyway, much later, when he decides to make a third of Apu’s family where the young man needs Apu, he informs me. I went and found out much later that after looking at me, he had decided there would be one for young Apu and decided that he would do the third part too. ‘
In addition to Satyajit Ray, Soumitra Chatterjee has acted in nearly 200 films by many famous directors, including Mrinal Sen and Tapan Singh. Among his most popular films are Mrinal Sen’s’ Akash-Kusum ‘, Tapan Singh’s’ Kshudhit Pashan’, ‘Jhinder Bandi’, Ajay Kare’s’ Atal Jaler Ahvan ‘,’ Sat Pake Bandha ‘,’ Parinita ‘,’ Three ‘by Ashutosh Bandopadhyay. Bhubaner Pare ‘, etc.
Uttam Kumar and Soumitra Chatterjee, two rival heroes from the Bengali film world, have acted together in many films. Whether they are seen together on screen or not, there was an extreme division among Bengali film lovers over who their favorite hero was. Uttam Kumar is considered by a group of film fans in West Bengal as the “hero of the people”. And the clear verdict of the opposition party was that Soumitra Chatterjee is the only one in the movie ‘Shesh Kotha’.
He worked in various movies on the big and small screen until he was attacked by Corona. Many of his films have become very popular in recent times. He is a successful hero in several Satyajit Ray films, but due to his character ‘Feluda’, his other name became ‘Feluda’. Soumitra Chatterjee did much more in the films of other directors than in Feluda or other roles directed by Satyajit Ray.
At times, he could have played a different type of character in the films of directors and other directors like Satyajit Ray at the same time. Soumitra Chatterjee was also very successful in acting and theater directing.
Soumitra Chatterjee said the drama was her first love. So even after being busy with film work, he used to run to act in plays. He began his acting career in 1973 by acting in the play ‘Tapsi’. His life began at the Star Theater in Kolkata. He has worked hard to keep his love for his drama alive alongside the big screen. After filming, he ran to perform on stage.
He said he was such a busy lead in the movie at the time that it was very difficult for him to find time for the theater. He had to ‘burn a lot of wood’ for her.
“Call it my addiction or love for the theater, it was so strong that I gladly accepted the pain.”
He did not abandon the theatrical performance until the end of his career. Drama was Soumitra Chatterjee’s first love and her second love was literature. He and Nirmal Acharya created a literary and cultural magazine called Ekshan in 1971. Attentive readers were waiting for that magazine. The magazine is named after Satyajit Ray. Soumitra Chatterjee was the deputy editor of the newspaper. I used to edit and write and I also used to run to get ads. He wrote as many serious poems as for magazines. Books of his poems and plays have been published.
Soumitra Chatterjee has received numerous national and international awards for her contribution to acting. In 2004, the Government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan and the National Film Award twice.
Soumitra Chatterjee was awarded the prestigious Cultural Personality of the French Government Ministry of Culture in 1999 for his contributions to the field of theater. He is the first Indian actor to receive this honor. In 2016, he received the Legion of Honor, a civil honor from the French government.
French filmmaker Catherine Berge made the documentary ‘Tree’ about her life. With the disappearance of Soumitra Chattopadhyay, the legendary Bengali movie actor, that huge ‘tree’ or queen of the movie world fell.
Source: BBC
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