[This is the first part of an article on legendary Bengali actress Sabitri Chatterjee, who turned 86 last week and has a film career spanning more than six decades]
‘Who in your opinion is the finest actress Bengal has produced?’ Responding to an influential journalist friend’s question, Satyajit Ray said, without a moment’s hesitation: ‘Sabitri Chatterjee.’ Not Suchitra Sen, not Supriya Devi, not Madhabi Mukherjee (whom Ray had directed in three classics). Then, after a pause, he added: ‘The only other actor who comes anywhere close is Mahua Roy Choudhury.’ (Mahua died tragically young in 1985.)
Almost 40 years after Ray had given his definitive opinion, Suman Ghosh, who directed Sabitri Chatterjee in one of her few recent film appearances (Podokkhep), had this delightful anecdote to narrate in his book, Soumitra Chatterjee: A Film-maker Remembers. ‘Soumitra kaku had always told me how he thought Sabitri Chatterjee was one of the greatest actors Bengali cinema had seen over the years. One day, much after his shoot was over for the day, and we were supposed to continue shooting with Nandita Das and Sabitri Chatterjee, I saw him sitting in a corner silently. I went up to him and told him that his shoot was over and he could go home, lest my team had not communicated the information to him. He told me that he had stayed back to watch Sabitri Chatterjee perform. “Suman, it is still such a delight to watch her act. Just notice the comic timing in the scene she just shot,” he said.’ In fact, speaking to Suman Ghosh, Soumitra Chatterjee would rank Tulsi Chakraborty and Sabitri as the greatest Bengali actors ever.
These testimonials – not that an actor of her stature requires any – say a lot about Sabitri, more so given that she worked in an era that had some of the best actresses working in tandem. Though she was neither a classic beauty in the Suchitra Sen mould, nor oozed sensuality like Supriya Devi, and never had an author-driven role like Madhabi had in, say, Charulata or Mahanagar, there was something Sabitri brought to the table that made her stand out in the crowd. Of all the actors of the era, there was none as spontaneous as she was. There was nothing mannered about her on screen – she was a natural. And those expressive eyes – which had Uttam Kumar gushing, ‘Sabi’s eyes were so powerful and mesmerising that it was often difficult to act while looking into her doe-shaped eyes!’ – did the rest. Just witness the contrast between her quiet widow in Grihadaha (besting an ‘aggressive’ Suchitra Sen) and the hysteric wife in Mouchak (1974).
‘Films were never a part of our lives’
Born in 1937, in the Comilla district of present-day Bangladesh, Sabitri, the youngest of ten sisters, moved to Kolkata with her family after the Partition, giving up their huge house for a one-room tenement.
Reminiscing about her childhood, she says, “During the Partition, my father had to leave everything and migrate to Kolkata. We were ten sisters. Eight of them were married by then. We found a small house to live near Tollygunge. We were very poor. There were days we did not have any food. Films were never a part of our lives. In Dhaka, we hardly watched one movie a year. I had visited Kolkata earlier, at a very young age, with a neighbouring family who were coming to the city for treatment. I requested my father to permit me to go to Kolkata with them. I wanted to see the city. I wanted to ride the trams. My elder sister’s father-in-law, who was with the police, was transferred to Baranagar. I used to stay with them in Kolkata. He was later transferred to Tollygunge police station. A lot of celebrities used to visit the police station compound in Tollygunge. Kanan Devi came one day. She called me. At the time, I didn’t know who she was. Her husband Haridas Bhattacharjee looked at me and told her, ‘See, her eyes are exactly like yours.’ I was so happy that I went to all my friends and family members and said, ‘My eyes look like Kanan Devi’s and I will be an actor.’ I spent a lot of time standing near the studios at Tollygunge, watching celebrities pass by. I missed school regularly. I spent days thinking about them. I even wrote letters to the actors. I used to perform as an extra and accompanied the junior artists. I was paid 10-20 rupees for that.”
Meeting Bhanu Bandopadhyay
It was this celebrity-gazing and a love for paan that paved the way for her entry into, first, theatre, and then films. The first step towards this was a fortuitous meeting with legendary Bengali comic actor Bhanu Bandopadhyay, who was at the time involved with the theatre group Uttar Sarathi.
In her own words, “I loved paan. I used to save money so that I could have a paan every day. I remember this well-known paan shop near Rashbehari, where a lot of film celebrities gathered to chat. I used to stare at them. One day Bhanu Bandopadhyay approached me and said that he was looking for an actress for a play. I asked him to take permission from my father. I didn’t even know how to speak in Bengali. I had a Bangaal accent. He came to meet my father. During the conversation, we discovered that he was a distant relative. My father gave me permission but on the condition that Bhanuda would have to pick me up and drop me at my home. The next day, Bhanuda took me to the rehearsals. On our way he noticed that I was not wearing any shoes. He asked me why. I told him that I had only one pair which I wore to school and it was dirty. He bought me a pair of slippers. I kept those for a long time. However, the meeting with the director of the play was disappointing. He rejected me. He was not confident about me playing the heroine’s role because I looked like a kid. After a year they came to meet me again. They wanted to take me now. They were very impressed with me from the first day of the rehearsals. The play became a huge hit. Even Sisir Kumar Bhaduri was impressed by my performance. He said that I was the best amongst all. After the success of the play, we did shows in many places. People started recognising me.”
Meeting Uttam Kumar
The play, titled Natun Yahudi, dealing with the situation of refugees from East Pakistan was directed by Kanu Bandopadhyay, who would later gain fame as Harihar Roy in Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali and Aparajito. It would provide her with two connections that worked wonders for her career in cinema. One of these was Binu Bardhan, an assistant to filmmaker Sudhir Mukherjee, who was also a member of Uttar Sarathi. It is on Bardhan’s recommendation that Sabitri received a call for the screen test of what would be her maiden film. The other meeting would have an everlasting impact on both her personal and professional life. Uttam Kumar, a regular visitor at the rehearsals, was impressed enough by Sabitri to meet her father for permission to allow her to act in his own theatre group.
As Sabitri narrates, “Uttam Kumar was a close friend of Bhanuda. He had come to see one of the rehearsals in Kalika Theatre. At the time he was known as Arun Kumar. I ran as fast as I could to get a glimpse of him, in the process hurting my leg. It was bleeding. But I was unmindful of the pain. I kept staring at him from behind the wings. How beautiful he was! After the rehearsals, Uttam Kumar asked Bhanuda, ‘Where did you get this girl from? We have a group theatre, will she join us?’ He was mesmerised by my acting. The next day, Uttam Kumar came to my house to talk to my father. I was embarrassed that our house was so small and untidy. There was hardly any place to sit. While he was talking, I sat quietly beside my father. My father gave me permission to act in his theatre group. He asked Uttam Kumar for an advance of 100 rupees. I was furious at him, but our financial condition at the time was not good.”
Within a year or so of that first meeting, Sabitri would be acting opposite him in Nirmal Dey’s Basu Paribar (1952), the first of an immensely successful collaboration with the mahanayak, and Uttam Kumar’s first certified success. As Sabitri says with a hint of an impish twinkle in her eyes, “Uttam Kumar was giving a lot of flops. It was this film which brought him back!” But before that came the film that established Sabitri as a star and an actor on her own steam.
Pasher Bari (1952): A Star is Born
Lily (Sabitri Chatterjee) moves in next door to the simpleton Kyabla and immediately casts a spell on him. But even before Kyabla can make a move, he has to contend with her ‘Ga-master’ (as her manservant calls her music teacher Shyam Sundar – ‘ga’ standing for ‘gaan’, in contrast to the other teacher, ‘Na-master’, where ‘na’ stands for ‘nyakhapora’ or academics). To beat Shyam Sundar (Bhanu Bandopadhyay), who is intimate enough to address Lily as ‘amaar Lilu… amaar Liliuah’, Kyabla has to impress her as a singer. A tall ask since he cannot sing a note to save his life. His friend Bhombolda agrees to help him, giving voice to songs which Kyabla lip-syncs to.
Sixteen years before Sunil Dutt addressed his ‘chand ka tukda’ who lived ‘saamnewali khidki mein’ in Kishore Kumar’s voice, Sabitri gave Bengali cinema one of its enduring comedy classics. With nary a trace of first-film blues, Sabitri, hilariously described by Kyabla’s sister as ‘dholani gochher meye’ at the outset, is a hoot right through – sample her chiding Shyam Sundar after he loses a physical bout with Kyabla: ‘Ki khao? Shaak chochhori?’ Then there’s Bhanu Bandopadhyay in a stellar performance as the effeminate singer-suitor whom Kyabla likens to ‘khangra kaathir opor alur dom’ while Bhombolda goes one better, calling him ‘sundari, up-to-date Ballygunge cut-er meye’. It is these almost untranslatable wordplay that makes Pasher Bari the film it is.
Salil Chowdhury’s music may not have the impact of RD Burman’s evergreen score in Padosan (Dhananjay Bhattacharjee’s smash hit Jhir jhir jhir boroshay notwithstanding), a sedate Kono ek gayer bodhu may fill in for the frenzy of Ek chatur naar and there may not be a paan-chewing Kishore Kumar belting out O meri pyaari Bindu, but Sabitri Chatterjee more than compensates with a star-making performance.
Sabitri says, “Director Sudhir Mukherjee was looking for a new face for his film. Bhanuda asked me to go and meet him. I gave a screen test. They conducted several tests before rejecting me, saying that I was too young – I might not look good with the hero. After a long time, when they did not get an actress who could play the part, they approached me again. It was much later that I heard from a few people that they had kept a two-day shoot just to check how I was performing. I did an amazing scene on the first day and they were impressed. In that scene, I had to run from one house to the other and deliver a sentimental dialogue. I was paid only 200 rupees a month. There was no looking back after Pasher Bari.”
(Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri is a film and music buff, editor, publisher, film critic and writer. This article was written with Soujannya Das)
