Once Upon a Cinema: Uttam Kumar's Last Bow

July 24, 1980. Calcutta. Cries of “Guru tumi phire esho! (Guru, please come back!)” and “Uttam Kumar amar rahey!” rent the air. Thousands of people beat the heat and had come out on the streets to see off their beloved Mahanayak, their Guru. Most of them were women and young men. As the procession passed Gariahat Road and approached Dhakuria, the roads were brimming with people. Calcutta hadn’t seen this kind of crowd spill over on the streets since the passing of Rabindranath Tagore, 39 years prior. It was 3 in the afternoon when they reached the gates of New Theatres studio no. 2. The narrow seems ill at ease with so many people jostling against each other. A stampede seemed imminent. The thousands-strong crowd forced themselves through the gate and into the studio.

It’s near impossible to explain the phenomenon of Uttam Kumar to those who haven’t grown up experiencing it in some form. Only a handful of people in the entire subcontinent have inspired that kind of frenzy in a people. Amitabh Bachchan remained Bollywood’s one-man industry for around 15 years. By that I mean the industry was leaning on this one star to keep its machine well-oiled and its coffers filled. For more than three decades – throughout the 50s, 60s, and 70s, Uttam Kumar played that role for the Bengali film industry. The parts he did were devoid of machismo; there were no slow-mo “entry scenes”, no action sequences, no foot-tapping dance numbers, and in the opening credits, his name appeared along with other cast members. Yet, the audience waited with bated breath for him to arrive on screen. The moment they saw his face, the crowd burst into thunderous applause, with some of them yelling “Guru! Guru!” at the top of their voices.

It was a routine occurrence for even his average films to be declared houseful at the advance booking stage. Several irredeemable films became hits just because they starred Uttam Kumar. For many of these mainstream films during the late 60s and 70s, neither the audience nor the producers cared what the film was about, who had written or directed it, all they cared to know is if it had Uttam Kumar in it. If he was there, nothing else really mattered. Bengali cinema was synonymous with Uttam Kumar. And yet, the first movie he signed was in Hindi. He was known as Arun Kumar Chattopadhyay then. Arun’s only connection to films was that his father was an employee at various leading cinema halls in those days, including the famous Metro Cinema. Arun had made a name for himself acting in local plays. In fact, his extended family had a theatre group called ‘Suhrid Samaj’. He did amateur theatre extensively during his college days. A neighbour named Ganesh Da had some connections in the film industry. It was he who got him a job as an extra at Bharatlaxmi Studios. Mayador (1948), a Hindi film, was on the floors.  The film didn’t see release, but Arun Chattopadhyay had tasted blood. He kept making rounds of the various studios in Calcutta, scouting for work. Calcutta was a thriving movie-making centre in those days. Arun heard about a young filmmaker named Bimal Roy launching his directorial debut Udayer Pathe. He is said to have met the director to seek a job in the film. But as usual, Arun was turned down. His second release was Drishtidan (1948). Marjyada (1950) was his debut as a leading man. None of these films seemed to work. After a succession of flops, Arun acquired the moniker “Flop Master General”. That’s what many of his colleagues called him behind his back. For a brief period, his screen name was Arup Kumar. Later, he adopted the nickname his grandfather gave him when he was born: Uttam.

During the 1930s and 40s, Bengali films had many big stars, heroes and heroines that captured the popular imagination. Among them were P.C. Barua, Asit Baran, Bikash Ray, Robin Majumdar, Kanan Devi, K.L. Saigal, Ahindra Chowdhury, Dhiraj Bhattacharya and many others. They had their share of fame and fan following, but by the onset of the 50s, the glimmer of Hindi film stars was all-consuming. Ashok Kumar, Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Madhubala were attracting the Bengali filmgoing crowds. What these people had and the Bengali film stars lacked was glamour. This changed with the coming of Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen. The duo met on the sets of Nirmal Dey’s Sharey Chuattar (1953), which was an ensemble comedy featuring some of the best talents Bengali cinema could offer. The film was the first big hit of Uttam-Suchitra, but the film that changed the game was Agni Pariksha (1954). They brought in the glamour quotient in oodles, and that swept the audience off its feet. Uttam and Suchitra’s position as the fulfillers of every Bengali’s romantic aspirations was further strengthened with Agradoot’s Pathey Holo Deri and Asit Sen’s Harano Sur (both 1957). But it was Asit Sen’s Saptapadi (1961) that continues to be iconic and a pop culture phenomenon, more than six decades after its release.

Agni Pariksha was the first step in building Uttam’s image as the definitive romantic hero. He became the quintessential bhadralok lover that generations of Bengali women and men have desired, idolized, and lusted after.  The films that followed consolidated this position. For the next three decades, he continued to be The Man of their dreams. Throughout the 50s, the producers also discovered in Uttam the fabled golden goose by way of a box office guarantee. The hits came in thick and fast: Champadangar Bou (1954), Sanjher Pradip (1955), Raikamal (1955), Shap Mochan (1955), Sagarika (1955), Sabar Uparey (1956), Shaheb Bibi Golam (1956), Chirakumar Sabha (1956), Harano Sur (1957), Pathey Holo Deri (1957), Rajlakshmi O Srikanta (1958), Surya Toran (1958), Indrani (1958), Chawa Pawa (1959) and Bicharak (1959). Phenomenal actors like Bikash Roy and Asit Baran, who were fantastic actors themselves and who were just beginning to enjoy careers as leading men, were relegated to playing character roles. Uttam was on a rampage: annually, the number of films he was doing averaged around 12. This trend continued from the mid-50s till the very end.

Not all these films achieved the same level of greatness, but some of them allowed Uttam to nurture and feed the actor in him. Even setting stardom aside, nobody came close to him in the sheer diversity of roles he managed to bring to life. He has often played characters that exist in the twilight of good and evil, like in Asit Sen’s Jiban Trishna (1957), Prabhat Mukherjee’s Bicharak (1959), Haridas Bhattacharya’s Shesh Anko (1963) or Pijush Bose’s Bagh Bondi Khela (1975). In the 70s, as he drifted towards playing character roles, scripts were still written to accommodate him, so that the film benefits from his star aura. There are reasons to believe that many renowned authors and writers of the time modelled the characters of their novels and short stories on him. He had, by then, graduated from merely being the “Nayak” to “Mahanayak”. For the young men, he was just “Guru”.

But success eluded him when he tried his hands at Hindi cinema. It was a different world, and the fact that neither Hindi nor English were his strong suits didn’t help matters a lot. The ill-advised Chhoti Si Mulaqat (1967) was a disaster. The film had a lot going for it: Shankar Jaikishan’s music, Abrar Alvi's dialogues, songs by Mohammed Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar, and a costar at the height of her career, Vyjayanthimala. But it proved that pulling Uttam Kumar from the drawing room to the ballroom wasn’t a great idea to start with. And the dancing is just one of the problems. Even in the most banal Bengali films he was a part of, Uttam’s roles were author-backed, and his work was centred around expressions and dialogue. It was more internal than external. Here he had to be more flamboyant, and he wanted to prove to the world that he could do all of that. It wasn’t until Shakti Samanta cast him in Amanush (1975) and Anand Ashram (1977) that Uttam Kumar experienced any success or recognition outside of Bengal. This was followed by Gulzar’s Kitaab (1977), Bhimsain’s Dooriyan (1979), Yogesh Saxena’s Plot No. 5 (1981) and finally Manmohan Desai’s Desh Premee (1982). None of these barring the last one was a box office success.

Throughout his long and chequered career Uttam Kumar worked with various directors. But on the two films he did with Satyajit Ray, Nayak (1966) and Chiriyakhana (1967), he was granted free rein. Ray didn’t interfere as long as he was happy with the outcome. Of these two films, Ray modelled the hero’s character in the first film after Uttam himself. But it was Chiriyakhana that won Uttam Kumar the first National Award for Best Actor. Not HIS first, but the first EVER. When  National Award for Best Actor was instituted in 1968, Uttam Kumar became the first recipient. He won it for both Chiriyakhana as well as Anthony Firingee (1967).

When he was asked to speak at Uttam Kumar’s memorial service, actor Bikash Ray said the following:

“We were almost contemporaries. I was just 10 years elder older than him. We joined the industry around the same time. I had fame, name, money and recognition. People started recognizing me on the streets: look, it’s Bikash Ray! I was so happy, I didn’t even notice when Uttam sneaked up on me. Before I knew it, he had surpassed me. By the time I did realise, he had left me far behind. I was taken by surprise. I was agitated but took solace in the fact that I am a good ten years older than him. I have time, I can still defeat him in the last lap. But little did I know how cruel Uttam can be. He has left me behind once again. He walked away like a king, and I just kept gaping at him like a fool.”

He was shooting for Ogo Bodhu Shundori (1981) at Technicians Studio with Sumitra Mukherjee, who played his wife. They were supposed to have a major fight. He was supposed to be shaving. Uttam came down the stairs, his face full of shaving lather. He advised his costar, ‘You must scream as loudly as you can. Otherwise, the fight won’t be as believable.’ Sumitra obliged gladly. The shot was okayed. Uttam left for home and didn’t come back the next day. That shot is forever etched in Bengal’s memory. Uttam Kumar’s last shot.

Amborish is a National Film Award winning writer, biographer and film historian.

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