Soumitra wore his celebrity lightly. He tried to live a decidedly regular life. No starry airs or hang-ups, no desire to flaunt any movie-star flamboyance or throw his weight around. He did not even have a manager – the star answered his own phone calls when he could and responded to fan mail on handwritten postcards himself. Deepa would help out with his shooting schedules and certain other professional matters. No one ever saw a personal assistant or an entourage with him. He also followed a fairly casual policy with public appearances – he was often seen at the College Street Coffee House, buying books on Chowringhee, turning up at Nandan and other public places.
One important person in his life kept warning him about the perils of being excessively available to the public. This man knew a thing or two about managing public perception and how to portray a high-voltage movie-star image.
‘Don’t do this [wander around in public casually], it will diminish your glamour,’ Uttam Kumar had advised him repeatedly. Uttam and Soumitra’s so-called star rivalry was grist for the film media, but in reality they were close friends. And even though Soumitra had entered the profession seven years after Uttam, he was seen as a sort of challenger.
There were constant comparisons between the two men on every count – looks, height (they were of the same height, though Soumitra looked taller because of the way their shoulders rested), acting, star power, voice, sex appeal, personal life, women in their lives and so on. In a field of two, where both had a devoted following, this was inevitable.
Of course, their paths as actors had been entirely diverse. According to Sanjoy Mukhopadhyay, professor of film studies at Jadavpur University, ‘As opposed to Uttam Kumar, who often played the struggling post-Independence young man, without a cultural lineage, Soumitra represented the 19th century idea of a hero – good looking, intelligent and refined.’
Regardless of the public debates and drawing of binaries, the two leading men of Bengali cinema remained genuinely fond of each other, although there had been mildly tense moments too. Soumitra always jumped in to defend Uttam whenever he could. He believed that Uttam was exceptional and would always remain an institution. ‘Can you think of Bengali films without Uttam Kumar?’ They shared warmth and friendship in private, even as their fans carried on bickering.
Uttam and Soumitra first hit it off at the shooting of Jhinder Bondi (1961) and acted in nine films together over the years. Soumitra had actually met him first, before he became an actor, in 1957. Uttam was a friend of Ranjit Sinha, who married Soumitra’s sister Anuradha. ‘He was a close friend of my brother-in-law’s. The first time I met him was when he came to our house for my sister’s wedding,’ Soumitra recalls.
The first film they worked in together was Tapan Sinha’s Jhinder Bandi and on the first day of the shoot, they were both a bit tense. But in the course of the protracted schedule this changed. ‘We fell in love with each other during the film’s outdoor. After that, through furores and fights, our friendship stood the test of time,’ Soumitra said.
The eldest brother of the family, with a heart of gold, was a familiar stereotype in Bengali melodramas. Uttam had been exactly that for Soumitra. He called him by his nickname Pulu (not even Ray did that) and addressed him in the familiar tui; Soumitra called him Uttamda and tumi.
Many of their interactions were tinged with a shade of drama. After Soumitra got his first car, both of them went for a spin together, ended up at the famous Great Eastern Hotel – this had been their secret watering hole – near Chowringhee to celebrate and drank the night away. As Poulami recollects, ‘Uttam Jethu had come home to drop Bapi at the end of it. He was concerned about my father driving back alone in the wee hours of the morning and followed him in his own car, he was so caring.’
Soumitra always treated Uttam with the respect of an elder sibling. Whenever roles previously rejected by Uttam came to him, he would always ask for his Uttamda’s permission before accepting them. On a number of occasions, Uttam would recommend Soumitra to producers if he felt the lead role suited him better.
Their intimacy and camaraderie became the stuff of legend in Bengali film circles, even though the adoring public remained largely unaware of it. When Soumitra was in college, most of his friends were devoted fans of Suchitra Sen. ‘But I preferred Uttamda’s acting when their pair was on the rise,’ he said. Soumitra thought Uttam Kumar’s dazzling smile was his million-dollar endowment: ‘there was magic in his smile,’ Soumitra once said. He also admired the superstar’s superb ability to lip-sync with playback: ‘ . . . actually he [Uttam] was a good singer.’
Uttam Kumar was not highly educated, but unlike a lot of others who sought out a more sophisticated artistic path, ‘he could not cultivate his sensibilities’, according to Soumitra. And yet he always came through, since ‘fundamentally he had an artist’s soul’. Soumitra also found Uttam Kumar incredibly photogenic and handsome – in a sort of boy-next-door way – and believed no one could do romantic leads better than him.
It was only later that he found out that Uttam had a fear of deglamorizing himself. He had refused roles such as Narsingh in Abhijan and Aghor in Sansar Simante. Soumitra realized the star had become insecure after the audience rejected him as the deglamourized Raicharan in the 1960 film Khokababur Pratyabartan. When Soumitra had to use a pair of comical rimless glasses for his role in Ray’s Samapti, Uttam Kumar had tried to dissuade him. He would demonstrate all the insecurities of a big movie star when it came to unconventional choices.
By the time Soumitra entered the film industry, Uttam Kumar had been around for nearly a decade. He had learnt the ropes and knew how to groom and cultivate himself. Soumitra would see the merits of both, but he was never given to obsessing about his looks or star image.
He loved Uttam’s romantic portrayals and admired how he could infuse some of them with a comic touch – as Purno in Chirokumar Sabha, Bhootnath in Saheb Bibi Golam and the young munsif in Bicharak. Though he was critical about the heavy mannerisms the star would acquire later – which admittedly bothered a lot of film fans – on the whole Uttam’s spontaneous, natural performances would always floor Soumitra.
As a film fan in his early youth, Uttam Kumar was his favourite. But while he noticed his ‘unmistakable power’, Uttam never became an idol for Soumitra. ‘I was immersed in Sisir Bhaduri’s style then . . . also, in Hollywood, Ronald Coleman was my favourite . . . and in Hindi films, Balraj Sahani,’ Soumitra wrote. Hence he never tried to follow Uttam Kumar’s style of acting. Neither did he develop any trademark affectation even after sixty years in the industry.
‘I don’t think there is any influence of Uttamda on my acting style, though working with him I learnt many small elements of the craft, such as how to hold a pause,’ Soumitra said. He also considered Uttam Kumar’s extraordinary professionalism and learnt from it.
For Soumitra, Uttam Kumar the star had eclipsed the genuinely talented actor within him. He had perceived Uttam Kumar’s occasional internal conflict – whether to be a star or a complete actor, considering this question deeply for himself too. His view of himself even as a star was a character actor playing a hero.
Soumitra sensed that Uttam Kumar had immense potential within him as a superb character actor; but trapped as he was in the aura of a star, ‘the full development of his fantastic talent’ was not possible. He regretted Uttam’s early passing, as he too felt that Uttam had only started his journey as a character actor – a journey that was tragically cut short.
Excerpted with permission from Soumitra Chatterjee and His World, Sanghamitra Chakraborty, Penguin Random House India.
