Iconic Actor Soumitra Chatterjee, writes Dr. Jagadindra Raychoudhury

Dec. 17: It was my school days when I got an opportunity to witness a Bengali movie, ‘Aranyer Din Ratri’ (Days and Nights in the Forest) which was directed by renowned film director, Satyajit Ray. Three characters influenced me a large number in this film and they were Soumitra Chatterjee, Sharmila Tagore and Rabi Ghosh. The memories and a few scenes still persist in my mind. Later on, in due course of time in a single sitting insatiably, I enjoyed three movies of Satyajit Ray, Pather Pacahali, Apur Sansar and Aparajita which was organized by a cine club. The simplicity of Soumitra always fascinated me and whenever I got a chance as an onlooker, his performances in various movies, it encourages me to write something about him but his sudden demise due to Covid-19 pandemic accelerated me to contribute a piece of writing from core of my heart to this beloved actor.

Soumitra Chatterjee hailed from Calcutta and initially inhabited in Sealdah area but later on his family shifted to Howrah. He lived a few years in Calcutta in Satyajit Ray’s old apartment at 3-Lake Temple Road. He completed master degree in Bengali from University of Calcutta and initially started his career as an announcer in All India Radio.

Satyajit Ray was searching for a new face to cast a leading role named ‘Apu’ in his film, Apur Sansar. He selected Soumitra for that character though Soumitra was rejected earlier in screen test for a Bengali film, Nilachale Mahaprabhu in 1957. One day, Soumitra was watching a film shoot of fourth film of Satyajit Ray, Jaisaghar (1958) and as he was about to return, suddenly Satyajit Ray called him and introduced him with the actor Chhabi Biswas and told –  “This is Soumitra Chattopadhay, he’s playing Apu in my next film Apur Sansar”. Soumitra was surprised to hear it and spell bound for a moment because he supposed to believe that his face was not photogenic. Reality reached in favour of him when the first shoot was alright in a single take. Soumitra performed altogether fourteen films under his guru Satyajit Ray. After Apur Sansar, Soumitra worked with leading actress Sharmila Tagore in a good number of films in spite of her busy schedule both in Bengali as well as in Hindi films.

Soumitra Chatterjee also played an unusual role in detective film in which the story was selected from Ray’s series of book called Feluda. In the film, Soumitra featured in the leading role ‘Feluda’ as he screened consequently in two films like ‘Sonar Kella’ (1974) and ‘Joi Baba Felunath’ (1979). Later on, Soumitra became famous as Feluda for his extraordinary performances in those two films. Satyajit Ray made some illustration of Feluda based on body figure and look in the 1970s Feluda books.

Besides working with Satyajit Ray, Soumitra extended his collaborative work with other famous directors like Mrinal Sen, Tapan Sinha etc. Soumitra even worked with other contemporary directors like Goutam Ghosh, Rituparna Ghosh, Aprana Sen, Anjan Das etc. He even got associated with television screen. Soumitra was busy with almost two decades in film career but never forgot the charm of theatre, so he returned to theatre again in 1978. He started his own production, Naam Jibon staged at Biswarupa Theatre in Kolkata under the banner play like Rajkumar (1982), Phera (1987), Nilakantha (1988), Ghatak Biday and Nyaymurti (1996) etc. On the other side, since 2010, Soumitra regularly performed in the title role of the play Raja Lear under the direction of Suman Mukhopadhyay, a play based on King Lear by William Shakespeare.

Apart from his acting career, Soumitra was a director, playwright, writer and poet. Once Soumitra desired to publish a little magazine and approached Satyajit Ray to name the magazine. Ray named it as Ekkhon (Now) and he designed the cover page regularly. Even after Soumitra had stopped editing the magazine but Ray continued his work under the editorship of Nirmalya.

Soumitra Chatterjee received several prestigious National and International awards including Sangeet Natak Academy and Padma Bhusan. He was even awarded in countries like France and Italy.

Soumitra Chatterjee was a versatile actor and excellent performer and as a result, he was engaged by renowned director Satyajit Ray altogether in fourteen films. He had to move very cautiously in his film career because during that time Mahanayk Uttam Kumar was the matinee idol of Bengali cinema while Soumitra Chatterjee’s interests were beyond his acting. His interest ranged from acting, writing, theatre, music and of course painting. The legendary actor, Soumitra chatterjee will always be remember by the film fraternity as well as by his admirers for his great contributions towards cinema, art and culture.

The writer Dr. Jagadindra Raychoudhury could be reached at jagadindrar705@gmail.com.