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It was sometime in May 1966 when Uttam Kumar received a phone call from Satyajit Ray. “Uttam, Nayak will be premiering tomorrow at Indira Cinema. I hope you will be there,” Ray reportedly said. “But Manikda, the press and public will also be there. Do you think I should go? There will be pandemonium,” he had replied. “Uttam, don’t forget it’s a Satyajit Ray film. Please be there,” Ray had commanded. The next day, the news of Uttam Kumar’s presence at the cinema hall spread and all hell broke loose that day. By late afternoon, roads leading to Bhowanipore were barricaded. Uttam Kumar’s car – by most accounts a Chevrolet Impala – had to be piloted through the by-lanes. The theatre was literally shaking under the weight of uproarious chanting, ‘Guru, guru’, with demands to get a glimpse of the star. The hall manager rushed to Ray. “Sir, if we don’t bring him up on stage there will be a serious law-and-order issue.” Minutes later, t
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Satyajit Rayâs Charulata To Aishwarya Rai Bachchan In Chokher Bali: Remembering Rabindranath Tagore & His Eternal Influence On Indian Cinema
Rabindranath Tagore wasnât just another soul to have walked on the face of this Earth, but a living, breathing embodiment of art.
May 10, 2021
Charulata, Chokher Bali To Do Bigha Zameen, Films Adapted From Rabindranath Tagoreâs Stories (Photo Credit: IMDb)
Rabindranath Tagore is not just a name, but a whole culture in one. Be it our national anthem, to the literature chapters in our textbooks, to the soul-stirring music, to the stories that made us feel good, and shattered us some time, Tagore and his brilliance have followed us at each stage of our lives. âJodi tor dak shune keu na ashe tobe ekla cholo re,â Tagore wrote these iconic words and inspired the whole world with them.
A marked shift in realising this moral decay on screen is apparent from
Aranyer Din Ratri to his Calcutta trilogy
Pratidwandi,
Jana Aranya. In
Pratidwandi, Dhritiman Chatterjee’s Siddhartha declares that he doesn’t want to leave Kolkata, no matter that he is unemployed, with his mind unable to find an ideological footing. The film coincided with the Naxalite movement that began in Bengal, with the caste system and land rights at its root.
Still from ‘Pratidwandi’.
It’s no coincidence that the trilogy charted the course of Indira Gandhi’s India as it inched towards Emergency, creating a swelling anger at the state. Ray’s films still focused on capturing the Bengali Brahmin’s, or more importantly, India’s ruling class’s frustration with itself and the country. The trilogy’s protagonists Siddhartha in