Watching Sonar Kella at a theatre in Kolkata a few years ago was as thrilling an experience as watching it in a Satyajit Ray retrospective at the FICCI auditorium in Delhi in the mid-1980s. Time stood still as one memorable scene followed another — the kidnapping of the wrong boy, Feluda’s grave demeanour as he says ‘Bhabna hochhe re, Topshe’, the introduction to Lalmohan Ganguly aka Jatayu and his experiments with Hindi and the khukhri, the Circuit House and the train journeys with the sense of danger and adventure they evoked. Everything that made the film a teenager’s delight 40 years ago held. Except for Mandar Bose.
At 13, one probably lacked the awareness to fathom Mandar Bose’s contribution to the film. Watching it now, one realises that one of the reasons Sonar Kella continues to enthral is the way Kamu Mukherjee essays Mandar Bose, he with his magic tricks and his tall globetrotting tales in worn-out Bata shoes and the faux leather ‘Dharmatala’ jacket. At the Kolkata theatre, some of the loudest cheers and raucous laughter were reserved for the actor. If Joi Baba Felunath is inconceivable without Maganlal Meghraj (Utpal Dutt), there can be no Sonar Kella without Mandar Bose.
Kamakhya Prasad Mukherjee, better known as Kamu Mukherjee, belongs to the illustrious line of ‘character’ or supporting actors — legendary artists in their own right who, while playing second fiddle to the Uttam Kumars, Suchitra Sens and the Soumitra Chatterjees, were instrumental in giving Bengali cinema of the 1960s and ’70s a distinct flavour. These included stalwarts like Tulsi Chakraborty, Bhanu Bandopadhyay, Rabi Ghosh, Molina Devi, Chhaya Devi, Ajitesh Bandopadhyay and Pahari Sanyal, among others. Satyajit Ray’s cinema was chock-a-block with similar actors who remain etched in memory even decades after: Chhabi Biswas, Charuprakash Ghosh (Aparajito, Mahapurush), Shailen Mukherjee (Charulata), Haradhan Bandopadhyay (Kapurush).
Kamu Mukherjee occupies a special place in this roster of actors. Many of the other supporting actors mentioned here acted in hundreds of films. In comparison, in a career spanning a little over 30 years, Mukherjee was part of a little over 20 films. Of these, eight were Ray films, while Phatik Chand and Goopy Bagha Phire Elo were directed by Sandip Ray. In his book on Satyajit Ray, actor Barun Chanda writes of Kamu Mukherjee, ‘As he often proudly said about himself, he was a one-master dog, as in the timeless, HMV Gramophone ad.’ It is to the credit of the actor that despite acting in only a handful of films, his reputation as an actor has endured.
Mukherjee is one actor that Ray himself, a master of the understated, made larger-than-life. Maybe it had something to do with his physique. As Barun Chanda writes, ‘He was large. But that doesn’t even begin to explain his larger-than-life persona. That came from within. Kamu Mukherjee, in real life, was known to be a tough guy, a local mastaan, a dada. People would give him a wide berth, because they knew that it was wise not to mess with him.’
No one ever introduced himself to Satyajit Ray quite like him
The story of Mukherjee’s introduction to Ray is almost in the realm of film folklore now and gives an insight to his rough-and-tumble personality. It is safe to assume that no one ever introduced himself to Ray quite like him. According to Sandip Ray, this happened when the Rays were living in a house on Lake Temple Road. A tall, broad-shouldered man stormed into their second-floor flat and before Ray, who had opened the door as usual, could even react, he simply introduced himself, handed over a note with his name and address written on it, and after stating that he wanted to act in his films, stormed out, leaving the filmmaker speechless.
Mukherjee’s reputation as an actor rests primarily on two characters Satyajit Ray created for him, in Nayak and Sonar Kella. However, the first time Kamu Mukherjee appeared in a Ray film was in Charulata. The actor was not entirely happy about the length of the role and it took all of Ray’s persuasive skills to convince him that the real test of an actor lies in the ability to make an impact irrespective of screen time.
As Barun Chanda points out, ‘If you carefully analyse his role in the movie you will find that even in that passing bit Ray had assigned him a difficult task. In real life Kamu Mukherjee wasn’t a sophisticated person. And here, he’s given a role which is essentially against his grain, someone who is shown as part of Bhupati’s entourage, which is essentially the educated, well-to-do, the rich, upper class. He even wears a pince-nez. And in those few moments you don’t recognise him as Kamu Mukherjee at all.’
Two years later, Ray cast him in one of the most striking characters the master filmmaker created: the advertising man, Pritish (‘rhymes with British’, as the client he is trying to rope in, Haren Bose, memorably says). Here again is a role that possibly went against the grain for the actor. But Mukherjee nails it with the dapper suit and dark tie, the rather flamboyant, finely trimmed, Errol Flynn moustache. As Barun Chanda says, ‘For all you know that was the only time he was wearing a full suit in his life. And yet he seemed to be totally in his element, only his ingratiating attitude, to his wife and especially to the prospective client, betraying his small agency background.’
It’s a solid, meaty role that would have been a handful for the most seasoned of actors. You can only marvel at his silent gestures, as he prepares an elaborate plan to lure the client, without any compunction about using his attractive wife as bait. Just watch him promise his wife a pearl necklace if she can ‘just be a little sweet to him. He’s a big fish; we have to play out a game to bag him’. Here’s a man for whom everything in life is a deal, every single move, even with his wife, a transaction. Just watch him sizing Bose up, observing the client eyeing his wife, and you can almost gauge him trying to calculate how much his wife would have to give in for him to be able to bag the account.
Sonar Kella: Kamu Mukherjee’s masterclass on comic villainy
If it is in the silent gesture that the actor revels in Nayak, in Sonar Kella he is all flamboyance and larger than life. For once it is as if he has the freedom to be himself and it is apparent Mukherjee is having a blast with every extravagant gesture, every arch of the eyebrow, every dialogue laced with braggadocio that he utters. Of course, a lot of the credit for that goes to Ray’s writing but Mukherjee is equal to the demands made of him.
If the advent of Santosh Dutta breathes new life into the narrative, Kamu Mukherjee is the beating heart of the thrills the film offers. Be it playing Ludo with his partner-in-crime and, a bit tipsy, not able to make out a five from a four in the roll of the dice; be it the way he says ‘le halua’ when foxed; be it the way he tells Mukul that he is having ‘ankher shorbot’ (sugarcane juice) when the boy asks him, pointing to his glass, what he is drinking, then following it up with that hilarious question: ‘Purbo janme kheyechho ei jinish?’ (Have you had this in your past life?); be it his tall globetrotting tales about his tutelage under a magician in Geneva or his business in elephant tusks in Kenya, or Nahargarh fort reminding him of Spain — he is a riot every bit of the way.
In what is a masterclass on comic-villainy, two sequences stand out. In one, he is arguing with Lalmohan Babu about ‘nekre’ (wolf) in Tanganyika just after he has told the writer that barring being boiled in a cauldron by cannibals, he has experienced it all as a globetrotter. ‘Shudhu cannibal-er hadite sheddho hoini,’ he says — it is almost impossible to translate the cadence of the way he articulates this. When Lalmohan Babu counters that one does not find the wolf in Africa, and that Mandar Bose might have seen a hyena, Bose retorts: ‘Dammit! You get hyena even in China. Do you know that they cultivate wolves in Africa?’
Again the Bengali dialogue and what Mukherjee does with it is impossible to put across in English: ‘Dhut moshai! Hyena to China-ei pawa jaaye. Africa-e nekre-r chaash hoye jaanen?’ In the second scene, a silent one, he wears his jacket with something resembling a hop and a skip, bringing it over his head across to his front and then under his legs before draping it over his back. It’s delightful in the almost throwaway manner it is executed.
Kamu Mukherjee also made a mark in two other Ray films. In Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, he appears unbilled in as many as eight roles. These are bit roles — a flute player in a mela, a courtier of the king of Halla, a soldier eating sweets — but he leaves his stamp on each. In Joi Baba Felunath, he has what is arguably the central piece of the film, the knife-throwing sequence. Maganlal Meghraj has invited Feluda, Topshe and Lalmohan Babu home and subjects the latter to a game of knife-throwing.
Mukherjee plays the knife thrower, Arjun. A doddering old character who looks like he will collapse of age and a wheezing cough any minute. He sports soda-bottle glasses and it’s a wonder he is able to see anything through them, let alone ensure that the knives he throws will actually miss the target and not end up going through Lalmohan Babu. It’s a grotesquely comic sequence with Mukherjee milking it with each throw of the knife (there are twelve in all and ‘every time he wields the knife, his entire asthmatic, wheezing body literally collapses in the follow through’, as Barun Chanda puts it).
Kamu Mukherjee was unforgettable in Sandip Ray’s first film, Phatik Chand, where he played a juggler. It is the only film that starred him in a leading role. Unfortunately, the staid and unimaginative narrative spelt the film’s doom and Mukherjee’s performance went unnoticed.
A man who regaled everyone with his unique comic talent
As members of Satyajit Ray’s unit have mentioned in various forums, Mukherjee was a livewire – a man who regaled everyone with his unique comic talent that had everyone in splits. As Barun Chanda says, ‘Manik-da would often laugh so much, tears would roll down his cheeks. Kamu-da was a brilliant actor. But he had scant respect for other directors of Bengal and never sought them out for a role. Instead he would wait for a call from Ray. And Ray liked him enormously, finding a good role for him whenever there was an outdoor or location shooting. Kamu-da was the heart and soul of the whole unit, especially during location shootings. He would keep the entire team in good spirits after a tiring day’s shoot. He was also a great fixer. He could fix anything, anywhere. Nobody knew how he did it, but he did. He was the original court jester. He was a stand-up comedian in an age when officially that species hadn’t even come into being in India. But he wasn’t just a funny chap or an entertainer. He was a handyman, make no mistake about it, an absolute asset in any film unit. Anything you wanted, anywhere, he would somehow produce it for you, as if by magic. Nobody knew how. If you asked him he would simply give you that broad smile of his as an answer. And after a long and tiring day’s schedule, he would regale the entire unit with his comic act. And the person who laughed the loudest was Ray himself.’
This handyman aspect comes through in the memoirs of cinematographer Soumendu Roy who remembers him as being extremely skilful with his hands so much so that for Phatik Chand, the actor actually executed most of the juggling scenes himself, having learnt the art from one Abhay Mitra. ‘He was extremely deft at managing crowds at outdoor shooting,’ says Roy. The actor would gather the crowd assembled at the shoot and start juggling or showing his magic tricks. He was so good at this that soon enough the crowd would forget the shooting and watch him instead, allowing the film unit to get on with their tasks.
Roy also mentions the actor’s daredevilry in the celebrated train sequence in Sonar Kella, which he did himself. Roy remembers it being a cold December night and during the rehearsals, as soon as Mukherjee grasped the compartment door’s handle, he drew his hand away, shocked by how cold it was. ‘We had our hearts in our mouth as the shot was taken, with him hanging out of the train and jumping from one compartment to another.’
His resourcefulness comes through in two incidents that Roy recalls. During the shoot of Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, the unit, travelling from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer, was famished and there seemed no vendors at the small stations they passed. The members of the unit started badgering Mukherjee, who got down at one of the stations. The train left in a while but the actor did not return, making Satyajit Ray rather anxious. At the next station, Mukherjee appeared with packets of food, deposited them with the crew and vanished again. Only to reappear at the next station with boxes of sweets. It turned out that he had befriended a wedding party on the train and had entertained them with his magic tricks in exchange for the food!
In Joi Baba Felunath, Satyajit Ray wanted a bull for the sequence in which Feluda, Topshe and Lalmohan Babu are on their way to meet Maganlal Meghraj. Given the number of bulls roaming all over, it ought to have been easy, but the unit was at its wits’ end. It just couldn’t get a bull to stand where Ray wanted it to. Mukherjee came to the rescue. As Roy recalls, ‘Kamu disappeared for a while before we saw him leading a bull, not exactly by its horn, but nonetheless leading it. He asked Manik-da where he wanted the bull to stand. When Manik-da pointed to the spot, Kamu dropped a huge radish he was carrying at the spot. As the bull started chomping on it, the unit took the shot. Only Kamu could have thought of this.’
The unprincipled adman, the ‘globetrotting’ rogue, the knife-thrower, the juggler, the crowd manager, the prop man who could get a bull to follow instructions — Kamu Mukherjee, a man who wore several hats. No wonder, even a filmmaker like Satyajit Ray couldn’t do without him.
(Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri is a film and music buff, editor, publisher, film critic and writer)
