KOLKATA: Soumitra Chatterjee, who straddled the world of Bengali cinema like a colossus from 1959, passed away at a private hospital in Kolkata at 12.15 on Sunday afternoon. He was 85.
Chatterjee, who was admitted to Belle Vue Clinic on October 6, was suffering from Covid-induced encephalopathy that had been steadily affecting his consciousness and eventually led to multi-organ failure, said Belle Vue critical care head Arindam Kar.
“We know that everyone is grieving today. But let us celebrate his life and achievements, for that is how he would have wanted us to remember him,” Chatterjee’s daughter, Poulomi Bose, said. “Baba will always be there with us in spirit and through his work.”
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee was one of the first to reach out to the bereaved family. "We have lost a part of our history today. Soumitra Chatterjee was a multi-faceted personality who excelled not only as an actor, but also as a poet, elocutionist and as an active participant in people’s movements," she said. Condolences poured in from the rest of the country, too. PM Narendra Modi said it was a "colossal loss to the world of cinema". Another screen legend, Amitabh Bachchan, tweeted late in the night that "one of the mightiest pillars of the Film Industry, .. has fallen".
Chatterjee, who made his first screen appearance in Satyajit Ray’s ‘Apur Sansar’ in 1959 and worked with the director in 14 of his masterpieces, had become, by the 1960s, the face of middle-of-the-road Bengali cinema, which pulled in the middle-class crowd to Kolkata theatres. Quite appropriately, he became the mascot for a much younger generation of Bengali film directors when the medium witnessed a commercial revival while returning to middle-of-the-road cinema that was popular in the 1960s and the 1970s, appealing to the urban base.
A man of many parts with varied interests and achievements, Chatterjee acted on stage, was a poet, essayist, editor of a literary magazine, painter, reciter and a recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke award. He is survived by wife Deepa, son Sougato and daughter Poulami.
His condition suffered a sharp deterioration on Friday, with his consciousness level — that had been low — dipping further and his cardiac condition worsening. Even as his breathing distress intensified, requiring greater oxygen support, his kidneys malfunctioned. By Saturday, doctors had almost given up all hope of a revival and said only a miracle could save him.
For millions of his admirers across the globe, their legend for more than several decades now becomes immortal. For someone who would happily confess that death made the small joys of living more meaningful, and whose “dream” was “to pass away while acting”, it was quite a coincidence that he shot for a docu-series, titled ‘Aami Chatterjee’, just days before being hospitalized.
Known for his seamless acting and ability to withstand the vagaries of time, straddle genres with his ability to reinvent his art and craft, and for being an engaging adda companion who could talk about various subjects — from the standard of acting in Hollywood to cricket — Chatterjee always wore his star status very casually.
Director Sandip Ray, with whom he discussed Satyajit Ray at the shooting of this docu-series on September 30, described him as “a storehouse of dedication for cinema”, who even willingly pushed trolleys on the sets of ‘Ashani Sanket’ just to ensure that the shooting went undisturbed. His ‘Apur Sansar’ and ‘Aranyer Din Ratri’ co-star Sharmila Tagore described him as a “banyan tree” that grew over the years and continued to reinvent. Aparna Sen, with whom he shared the screen in ‘Samapti’, called him “forever contemporary” and her “guardian”.
He should have got many more acting awards: Sandip Ray
Filmmaker Buddhadeb Dasgupta, who was the jury chairman when Chatterjee had received the sole National Award in his acting career for Suman Ghosh’s “Podokkhep”, could compare him only to Balraj Sahni.
Chatterjee got introduced to acting at a very early age, when he would take part in children’s plays at his ancestral home at Krishnagar. His popularity as a child actor in his backyard increased so much that he would often end up getting on-the-spot prizes from neighbours in recognition of his talent. This on-the-spot recognition, Chatterjee would often recall, was the primary trigger for his wanting to be an actor. However, he didn’t embark on an acting career right away. He had even faced rejection at a screen test and concluded he wasn’t photogenic. Few know that he had initially taken up a job as a radio announcer and worked as an LIC agent.
Thankfully, he wasn’t a success there and could manage to get only one client a year. Had he managed more, Indian cinema would have lost out on some stellar performances as Ray’s Apu, the Charminar-smoking Feluda in “Sonar Kella” and “Joi Baba Felunath”, the grim taxi driver Narsingh in “Abhijan”, the effervescent Amal in “Charulata”, the teacher unable to feed his family during the Bengal famine in “Ashani Sanket”, the freedom fighter in “Ghare Baire” and the frustrated rationalist battling superstition in “Ganashatru”.
The Ray-Chatterjee relationship that developed over 14 films have left admirers spoilt for choice. The actor-director combination was so terrific that many even compared it with that of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune in Japanese cinema and Federico Fellini and Marcello Mastroianni in Italian cinema. Despite such a rich body of work, a Dadasaheb Phalke, Order of Arts and Letters and with the Legion of Honour, international awards for his acting surprisingly didn’t come by. Even his only National Award for Best Actor came only in 2008.
In a way, he was much, much more than what the official awards seem to suggest. “He is an actor who is known worldwide. I definitely think he should have got many more acting awards, at least for the films that he did with my father. To some extent, this is an injustice to his acting talent,” Sandip Ray summed up.