Maestro among actors ...Saumitra Chatterjee (19 Jan 1935 --15 Nov 2020) : Obit

Soumitra Chatterjee excelled in recent movies and displayed a different characteristic acting as oldie, grand father, a retired award winning writer, aging father - a senile going dad and so on !! seeing is believing and perhaps here Uttam Kumar had he lived would have faced stiff competition from the illustrious Soumitra 

(In Satyajit Ray's Shakha Prashakha, he acted as a grown up 'abnormal' person but scholarly and honest and living up to his dad's principles while all other brothers had turned corrupt and practical)

Legendary Bengali film star Saumitra/Soumitra Chatterjee is no more. An actor par excellence, he made portraying wide range of characters such an easy and natural phenomenon. He was also a wonderful playwright.

It goes without stating that he was best known for his collaborations with Oscar-winning film maestro Satyajit Ray, with whom he worked in fourteen films. In 1999 Soumitra Chattopadhyay was also, the first Indian film personality, conferred with the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France's highest award for artists. 

In 2011, he was honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, which is India's highest award for cinema.

Chatterjee debuted as an actor in 'Apur Sansar' (1959) and worked with other noted directors, such as Mrinal Sen and Tapan Sinha. 
He was acting even till the last moment and also put up stellar performance in telefilms, short films and on stage.

His performance in 'Charulata' (The Lonely Wife, 1964) as Amal was also a path-breaking role.

In 'Apur Sansar', playing opposite Sharmila Tagore, Saumitra Chatterjee did well to portray the role of a young husband who ultimately makes the 'accidental marriage' turn into a sincere love.

It was considered one of the toughest roles for a young actor. Perhaps the most touching scenes involved his suspicion that his son was responsible for the death of his wife during delivery. The protagonist refuses to see the young boy for a long time as he held him 'responsible' for wife's death. Saumitra also paired with Sharmila Tagore in 'Devi' wherein he played the role of Umaprasad and Sharmila as his wife Dayamayee. The film had legendary Chhaabi Biswas playing Kalinkar Roy, the powerful landlord and a die-hard devotee of the Goddess Durga or Kali hailing the deity as 'Devi'.

It is based on a short story by Provatkumar Mukhopadhyay. There remained an immense challenge for Saumitra for portraying the role.

Kalinkar Roy gets convinced that Dayamoyee is an 'avatar' of Kali. He goes to Dayamoyee and worships at her feet. Taraprasad's wife believes the entire idea is ridiculous, and writes a letter to Umaprasad urging him to return home as soon as possible, and the story develops.

"Saumitra was so learned....," remarked Sharmila Tagore paying homage to the legendary star. "I am very very sad today"

With Madhabi Mukherjee as lover in 'Kapurush-o-Mahapurush'

The climax in the film 'Kapurush-o-Mahapurush' was exemplified so well and so natural by both the stars. When the challenging time comes, Saumitra playing the young lover lacks the courage and develops cold feet to save the lover (Madhabi) from a marriage to someone else.

In several roles played by him even many years later and under younger and new generation film directors, Saumitra portrayed all the roles very sincerely and easily.

"Once I worked with Satyajit Ray and also also 'Pather Panchali', I realised that acting was all about remaining natural. I had tried to remain calm and maintain that easiness," the super star had said a few years back.

Saumitra was of course fortunate to work under Satyajit Ray and also work with the likes of Mrinal Sen, but working under others also he remained the inimitable Saumitra.

"U have done so much ..u can rest in peace ...." - tweeted cricket legend Saurav Ganguly.

Entering the 1980s and 1990s, Saumitra started working with contemporary directors, like Goutam Ghose, Aparna Sen, Anjan Das and Rituparno Ghosh. He performed on television as well. 

The 1986-made film 'Kony' had Saumitra playing the role of a very encouraging swimming coach to a promising youngster and a girl. Directed by Saroj Dey, the film has a catch-phrase from Saumitra 'Gight-Kony-Fight' (Kony being the name of the young girl).

The dialogue became immensely popular with middle class Bengalis and sometime even used in cricket stadium and also in political context. 

 The film is about a young girl from a slum, who wants to become a swimmer. At the 32nd National Film Awards, the film won the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment .Later in a interview, Chatterjee himself rated 'Kony' as one of the best films of his career. He even recalled using film's catch-phrase "Fight-Koni-fight" in hard times, as a chant to himself to lift his "aging spirits". 

Rudraprasad Sengupta, actor and director, said, "It is true Saumitra is deceased, but we ought to say Long Live Saumitra"

PM Modi tweeted:

"Shri Soumitra Chatterjee’s death is a colossal loss to the world of cinema, cultural life of West Bengal and India. Through his works, he came to embody Bengali sensibilities, emotions and ethos. Anguished by his demise. Condolences to his family and admirers. Om Shanti".

COVID encephalopathy had set in in his nervous system and "undid every effort," doctors attending him said. "We tried steroids, immunoglobulin, cardiology, anti- viral therapy, immunology everything," the doctor said adding a huge team of specialists from the fields of neurology, nephrology, cardiology, critical care medicine, ID specialists had put in a lot of effort to revive him in the past 40 days.

With Satyajit Ray 

Ends