Kolkata :

How did Satyajit Ray cast Soumitra Chatterjee in ‘Apur Sansar’ ? How did Chhabi Biswas teach Chatterjee to say his dialogues? How did Tapan Sinha hand-hold him to teach him how to walk properly while preparing to act in ‘ Kshudhita Pashan’ ? On Wednesday evening, the 80-year-old Dadasaheb Phalke award winner came over to the TOI office for a chat and effortlessly dug into his life to relive the memories of his screen journey. Added to that was his rendition of two Tagore poems and a special autograph for the TOI family. It was one of the most treasured events at the TOI office in the recent past.

Director Shiboprasad Mukhopadhyay, who was the anchor of the evening, started off remembering how he and co-director Nandita Roy had approached Chatterjee to do a one-scene role in ‘Alikh Sukh’ that later on went on to become the heart of the movie. ” After hearing our script, he immediately asked us when we would begin shooting. That response was a huge gift for us. After ‘Alikh Sukh’ , we went on to do ‘ Belaseshe’ with him,” Mukhopadhyay said, before asking Chatterjee to share in his own inimitable style how Ray had got around to casting him as Apu.

Fascinating recollections of his tryst with Ray, how he has lost a diary that he had penned on Apu, some known and a lot unknown tales of his interaction with the master director flew thick and fast. ” When Tapan Sinha had offered to cast me in ‘ Kshudhita Pashan’ after watching ‘Apur Sansar’ , I had first told Manik-da (Ray) about it. Manik-da emphatically insisted that I do the film. Tapan-da was so methodical in his teaching. He had got the sets ready some 25 days in advance so that I could master the gait of my character,” Chatterjee said, before adding how Ray and Sinha had so many things in common.

” Neither of them wanted to repeat themselves. Manik-da was so protective about his actors that even the most insignificant actor would feel that his contribution was valuable. He treated everyone as equals. Tapan-da also knew how to get the best out of his actors. They both liked a sublime form of acting,” he pointed out.

Not many are aware of an incident when Ray, Uttam Kumar and Chatterjee had been given the responsibility by Tollywood to talk to the government to address the power-cut issues in the studios. ” While travelling together, Manik-da had admitted to us that he had stopped writing scripts for elderly actors after Chhabi Biswas had passed away. I was young then. On a lighter vein, I had told Manik-da that the day Uttam-da and I grow old, he might start thinking of writing movies with elderly actors.”

While Chatterjee continued with his talk, Mukhopadhyay requested him to repeat how Uttam Kumar had taught him to be unapologetic about asking for retakes if he wasn’ t happy with a scene. ” When Uttam-da asked for retakes, it seemed as if he was doing the director a favour by asking so,” Chatterjee smiled.

Another story on how Ray had drawn an impromptu replica of the postal stamp on an inland letter for ‘Sonar Kella’ was no less exciting. While Ray stories, obviously, took up most of the chat, Chatterjee also spoke at length about his interaction with Biswas. Stories of how everyone, including director Ajoy Kar, would be petrified of Biswas’ commanding personality on the sets were punctuated by micro-acting sessions of Chatterjee showing how exactly Biswas would react on the sets. ” Chhabi-da had a very sharp memory. Yet, on one day on the sets of ‘Atal Joler Ahoban’ , he just couldn’ t get the shot right. And everytime he got it wrong, he started scolding others around him,” Chatterjee recalled.

Chatterjee had understood that something was irritating the legendary actor. Risking everything, he had walked up to Biswas and told him to unbutton his coat and breathe easy while rehearsing. ” Imagine my audacity — I was asking an actor of his stature to do this! But he agreed to listen to me. Another day, he even acted out my scene and mouthed my dialogues to teach me how to get my act right,” he said.

On yet another occasion, Biswas had appeared a bit depressed on the sets. ” I asked him the reason, and he said he wanted to bid adieu to acting. I said he shouldn’ t think that way because there weren’t any crown princes around to take his place. He just looked at me and said: ‘ The crown prince is preparing for his coronation.’ ”

Biswas apart, the conversation also veered towards his assessment of Bikas Roy. Acknowledging his greatness as an actor, Chatterjee, however, mentioned Roy was at times trapped in mannerisms.

The session concluded with Chatterjee’ s rendition of ‘ Jhorer Din’ and ‘ Nimontron’ . As his baritone echoed in the room, the audience was left spellbound. Before leaving with the promise to return, Chatterjee left his stamp on canvas with the lines: ‘ Ki likhbo lekhar kichhu nai/ Sada kagoj bhoriye taate soi korlam tai’ .

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kolkata / by Priyanka DasGupta, TNN / August 20th, 2015

Kolkata :

Painter Sunil Das died of a massive heart attack on Monday morning. He was 76.

Rabin Mondale, whose exhibition Das was scheduled to inaugurate on Wednesday, recalled how his friend had earned the moniker of ‘Ghora Das’ because of his passion for horses. “Though he was more than 10 years younger to me, we addressed each other by our first names. When I was a clerk with the railways, I would often go over to Sunil’s office adda. I can’t believe he won’t be there to inaugurate my show,” said Mondal, recalling the days when Das was the youngest recipient of the National Award from Lalit Kala Akademi. He was still a student of Government College of Arts then.

Artist Manu Parekh said: “I first heard about his horses when he was only in his third year. But his sketches had qualities of great masters.”

Painter Sanat Kar, who was founder secretary of Society of Contemporary Artists, remembers the day when he got a young Das to join the society. “While on a French Government Scholarship to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Sunil went to Spain and watched bullfights. That inspired him to sketch bulls too,” Kar said.

According to art historian Pranabranjan Ray, what set Das’ horses apart from those drawn by MF Husain and Nikhil Biswas was their dynamic energy. In a yet-unreleased documentary titled ‘Sunil: The Lyrical Artist’, director Arun Kumar Chakraborty has interviewed Das about how he developed his fascination for horses. The documentary has footage of Das saying: “I would spend days and nights at the stable of Mounted Police to understand the details and body contours of horses.”

At Keoratala crematorium, an emotional Chakraborty said, “During his discussions in front of poet Alokranjan Dasgupta and painter Tapan Mitra, Sunil-da had told us that he had wanted his body to kept sitting in a chair before his cremation. He was so full of energy that he never wanted to lie down even during his last journey,” Chakraborty said.

Mitra said, “He had even told us that he had kept Rs 5 lakh aside so that he is cremated with sandalwood. Unfortunately, his wishes were left unfulfilled.”

On Sunday evening, Das had called up Mitra to say he also wanted to build a Sunil Das Artist Guest House. From being someone whose father had warned him that he would go hungry to bed if he took up painting as a career, Das used a large part of his savings to support financially weak artists. “His last call to me at 6.39pm on Sunday was to inquire about the progress of the guest house,” Mitra said.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kolkata / TNN / August 11th, 2015