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Articles The Heroic Laughter of Modernity Below Hayak: The Hero (1966) The Heroic Laughter of Modernity: The life, cinema and afterlife of a Bengali matinee idol you see Uttam Kumar? In a two-hour lm that centers around him, he is perfect from every angle, in every scene. The story, the script, the making is mine. But Uttam made it his own with the charisma and effortless- ness that only an actor of his caliber could do. Discerning viewers of cinema can identify the difference between good performance extolled by the lmmaker and performance that is endowed with the gifts intrinsic to the performer. And I can vouch for the fact that Uttam excelled in the second. I nd no fault Copyright Intellectwith him as an 2012 actor […] There is none like him and there will be no one to ever replace By Sayandeb ChowdhuryDo not distributehim. He was and he is unparalleled in Bengali, even Indian cinema. Satyajit Ray (1980) Keywords: Uttam Kumar, May 6th, July 1966. The previous evening Bengali cinema, Calcutta, Satyajit Ray – the world-feted arthouse direc- tor of Bengali cinema, called up Uttam Kumar, arthouse cinema, popular Bengali matinee idol and the protagonist of his cinema, stardom, ‘posthumous new lm Nayak: The Hero (Nayak, 1966). ‘Uttam, value’, party politics tomorrow is the premiere of Nayak at Indira Cinema. I hope you will be there,’ Ray said. ‘But Manikda, [Ray’s nickname that everyone close Hollywood may have lost much of its to him called him by] you know how it is. The enchantment, but the God and heroes it cre- press and public will be there. Do you think I ated are xed forever in the universal dreams. should go? There will be pandemonium,’ Uttam David Robinson (1975) Kumar tried to reason. ‘Uttam, it’s a Satyajit Ray lm. Please be there.’ Some days ago I saw my lm Nayak after a By early morning of 6 May, the news was out. gap of ten or maybe twelve years. Many of Uttam Kumar was to be present at the premiere you must have seen it too. I saw the lm with of his new lm. Soon, all hell broke loose. By rapt attention and have detected few issues late afternoon, roads leading to the theatre had with my direction. I doubt my own volition, to be barricaded. Police were out in hordes to aspects of my work and the conditions in manage the crowd, which was swelling by the which I have to work and I am not surprised minute. Uttam Kumar’s car had to make end- that I am yet to make a perfect lm. But did less stoppages and had to be piloted through 82 | lm international issue - Articles The Heroic Laughter of Modernity the lanes and bylanes to enable him to reach the which had queued up unfailingly every week for venue. The theatre was chock-a-block. Uttam over three decades to see him on celluloid, had Kumar had to be escorted inside by the police. assembled to see him one last time. Literally, The screening began and within minutes started Calcutta halted to a stop to say adieu to its dar- the uproarious greeting. ‘Guru’, ‘Guru’ (in local ling. As far as one could see, there were count- parlance, which means something between less heads – restive, plaintive. As far as one could ‘the master’ and ‘the champion’). People went see, people were howling. Mourning without berserk. It was impossible to continue with the end. Like they do for a near kin. Calcutta’s box screening. The hall manager rushed to Ray. ‘Sir, ofce draw of the century had, even in his death, if we don’t bring him up on stage there will a be sucked the attention of an entire population. a serious law and order problem.’ Minutes later, For one last time. In life and in death, Kumar the lights came on and Uttam Kumar was ush- remained the darling of the people, a focal point ered onto the platform in front of the screen. He of mass hysteria. raised his hand. The crowd fell silent, as if with While his hearse was being carried atop a sea a magic wand. ‘I request you to please maintain of people from his house to the Technician’s silence and watch the lm. It is a Satyajit Ray Studio down the choked Ashutosh Mukherjee lm. Please.’ Road, a few kilometres away at Alimudin Street, Years later, it was Thursday. By the late hour, in a closed room lled with cigar smoke, sat a Uttam Kumar lay lifeless in Belle View Hospi- few bespectacled men, in starch white kurta and tal in South Calcutta. Even before the doctors dhoti. This was the meeting room of the apparat- could sign the certicate his brother, the actor chiks of the Communist Party of India (Marx- Tarun Kumar, brought his body home to Bhawa- ist), the governing party of the state of Bengal. nipore, the upper-middle-class south Calcutta Letting a pall of smoke out of his Havana Cigar, locality that was once Uttam Kumar’s home, but Pramode Dasgupta or PDG, the Party Tsar (of- not anymore. Here he was wreathed by family cially, Party’s General Secretary) asked his com- members and one womanCopyright named Roma – better Intellect rades, ‘Is our 2012government associating itself with known as the luminous Suchitra Sen, the iconic the funeral of a Tollygunge (the generic name of actor’s most famousDo on-screen not partner. distribute It was the local lm industry) matinee idol?’ Without 12:40 at night. Only a day ago, Kumar was busy haste, the resounding verdict was no. The govern- shooting a lm. He complained of chest pain ment of the people as the CPIM had peddled itself and was hospitalized late that night. He had had to be, was not comfortable in associating itself a heart attack. Next morning he was feeling bet- with the ‘commercially assuaged’ leading gure ter. But things deteriorated in the early evening of a bourgeois culture called cinema. Uttam and at around 9:30 that night, he was declared Kumar must have been for them the indiscreet dead. It was 24 July 1980. The day was to be charm of the bourgeoisie. This was 1980. Com- marked permanently in the crowded annals of munist pretensions were still at large across the Calcutta, a city, which in the twentieth century globe. Later on the same day after lunch, PDG has rarely let history pass it by without having thumped, ‘Tell Buddhadeb [Bhattacharya, then made a mark. Minister of Culture and Information] that the Within hours of Roma having wreathed the decision to stay away is right. But Jyoti Babu [The man she had romanced so many times on- Chief Minister or Head of the Ministerial Cabinet screen, dawn broke. And the news broke out. July of the local government] wants a wreath to be 25th, 1980. The newspapers bugle the demise of sent. Go ahead. I have no objection.’ Rejected by the matinee idol. By late morning, the whole of the government, Uttam Kumar was not laid at Calcutta is in a state of mourning. Thousands Rabindra Sadan, the centre of the CPI(M)’s cul- march towards his Bhawanipore home. The city tural activity, where before and since him many had never seen a day like this since the death of a public soul, with varying degrees of closeness Nobel Laureate Poet Rabindranath Tagore almost to the party, rested after death to let citizens forty years ago. The Nayak – the hero – was dead. pay their last respects, as is a norm in this part The greatest screen legend ever to grace Ben- of the world. Instead Kumar was laid, wreathed gali cinema was no more. He was only 54. His in a mountain of white owers on the porch of favourite city, the city of his birth and work, a theatre called Purna near his home, where www.lmint.nu | 83 Articles The Heroic Laughter of Modernity Uttam Kumar remains what he died as: the greatest icon ever to have graced Bengali cinema. 32 years ago his rst ever lm was released, a celebrating what he was in his lifetime. His is a lm in which he had, like Marcello Mastroianni, strange case of immortality that was prescient been an extra! A truly remarkable journey had in his life and is assured in his afterlife. come to sudden, dramatic end. But what accounts for such an undying popu- The occurrences above, not always veriable, larity? His outstanding work as an actor and are yet bound in a single emotional narrative. It then producer and the cult that built around is about Uttam Kumar – the handsome, charis- him of course stands vigil to his name. Also, as matic and phenomenally talented star of Ben- cultural theorists keenly note, the importance gali cinema for three decades between 1950 and of annals, cultural anecdotes, popular gossip 1980, who was not just a gure of unmatched and industry talk surrounding public gures can adulation and attention, but also in whom never be underestimated. Uttam Kumar had his merged, much before postmodernism was to stake of personal controversies, though he was dismember hegemony in culture, the unrepen- not a man comfortable with lending his name tant cohabitation of both the insightful gaze to wanton sleaze and muddle. But for what is of arthouse cinema and the frenzied prospect a vintage case of matinee idolatry on the part of popular aspiration. To that end he is also a of his ever-growing spectatorship that often unique modernist gure in Indian cinema.

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