Legendary Bengali Actor Soumitra Chatterjee's association with AIR ..

In the image : (L to R) Bengali film actor Soumitra Chatterjee, Vice President of India (1952-1962) Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Bollywood actress Sharmila Tagore and filmmaker Satyajit Ray at the film award ceremony, held in New Delhi, on May 01, 1960

Born in 1935 in Kolkata, Shri Soumitra Chatterjee graduated with honours in Bengali literature from the University of Calcutta. Gifted with a rich voice, he started his career as an announcer in All India Radio, but joined the theatre as an actor soon afterwards. Among the most popular actors of Bengal, Shri Soumitra Chatterjee has performed in a number of plays including Rajkumar, Tapasi, Nabajiban, Ratnadip, Durgesh-nandini, Andha Yug and Bidehi. He has written, directed and acted in plays for theatre from a very early age.

Chatterjee who portrayed a versatile range of lead characters in films by Satyajit Ray made his debut in 1959 with Ray's super-hit movie Apur Sansar. Chatterjee was one of Ray's favourite, and became the lead actor of most of his' classics including Sonar Kella, Charulata, and Ghare Baire. Chatterjee's association with Ray is compared with the chemistry between famous actor-director duos of the world like Akira Kurosowa-Toshiro Mifune and Marcello Mastroianni-Federico Fellini.Soumitra featured as Feluda/Pradosh Chandra Mitter, the famous private investigator from Calcutta in Ray's Feluda series of books. He acted in two films of this series in the 1970s- Sonar Kella and Joy Baba Felunath. in Ghare Baire, an adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore's novel he was cast in a leading role in the character of a radical revolutionary in a love triangle with his friend's wife. These roles helped to showcase his versatility in playing diverse characters, especially in an urban setting.

He was honoured with the National Award in 2008 for his film Podokkhep. He received the prestigious Padma Bhushan award from the President of India in 2004. Soumitra Chatterjee was awarded Dadasaheb Phalke Award for 2012. Soumitra received the Officier des Arts et Metiers, the highest award for arts given by the French government as well as a lifetime achievement award from Italy. He has also been the subject of a full-length documentary named Gaach by French director Catherine Berge.

Contributed by :- Shri. Mitul Kansal
kansalmitul@gmail.com