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, of ce 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 certi cate 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

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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 veri able, 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. broke the boundaries of economic, cultural and Uttam Kumar had a rewarding artistic career de nitely gender classi cations, a little bit of as the leading gure in the Bengali lm industry personal overreach accentuated the aura. While – doubtlessly once the most critically discerning saying so, it would be good to remember that and artistically progressiveCopyright fraternity among the Intellect cinema itself is a2012 product of the modern indus- few language-based lm industries that com- trial age, where proliferation of information is prise Indian cinema, itsDo all-pervasive not Hindi distribute (now the other name of publicity. But Uttam Kumar Bollywood) industry included. Actually it would is both a classic case of matinee idolatry and be an understatement to say that he was a lead- a unique case in cultural history. There are no ing gure. He, much to his own dismay, virtu- easy answers to those enquiring into his case, a ally colonized the industry. In fact, Atlas-like he case that has lately been bolstered by attempts carried an entire industry on his shoulders, and at Kumar’s political appropriation. like Prometheus, gave the industry’s underclass Kumar was already a political subject, as the as well as its shenanigans, the re of livelihood communist unease with him shows. In fact for three decades. the communists later came under re in public Any great actor would want his act, his art, to forums for denying Uttam Kumar even a per- extend beyond the screen into the continuum, functory state service. Incidentally the Trevi into the great open, into the giant unknown Fountain in Rome, associated with his role in that coalesces into collective memory. Uttam Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960), was turned not only managed that effortlessly but seems off and draped in black as a tribute to Marcello to be unique in that in his death, he stands like Mastroianni on his death in 1996. After Kumar’s a giant talisman whose shadow seems to grow death, the people who adored and worshipped bigger and bigger over the industry he had once Kumar uninchingly expected something de ned. similarly signi cant and unambiguous from In other words, 32 years into his afterlife, the government. But such was the arrogance of Uttam Kumar remains what he died as: the local-bred communists that they always failed greatest icon ever to have graced Bengali cin- to realize the role of the public beyond the reach ema. Uttam Kumar has de ned one of the most and riches of political mobilization, as signi- curious cases of ‘increasing utility of post- ed unequivocally during Kumar’s funeral. humous value’ in any lm culture across the This lapse assumes much greater signi cance globe, a case that must be looked at with as in the current political climate of Bengal, much interest as the calibration that goes into when so many years after his death, Kumar’s

84 | lm international issue - Articles The Heroic Laughter of Modernity name, though far from lost, is being exhumed gure. Second, they show clearly that 32 years unabashedly for political gain by those to whom after his death, Kumar is as alive, and as much the unseated communists have been forced to in the centre of a new politicization of culture bequeath power. by virtue of having remained as always, a highly That Kumar’s name and fame is still t for useful magnet for mass mobilization! political appropriation shows not just the This is a crucial aspect of understanding degree of his posthumous popularity but also the subject of our discussion but not the most the despondency of the new ruling party to astonishing. The biggest factor of Kumar’s leg- penetrate a middle-class constituency. The acy, especially so for a cultural theorist, is that current government wrested power from the keeping his charisma and his persona intact, incumbent communists largely by virtue of its how could he appeal to a completely new gen- mobilization of classes outside the middle class. eration of viewers in the last three decades In order to suf ciently arouse middle-class since his death, generations so removed from interest in the government that assumed of ce his time and cultural climate. Whenever we in May 2010, the government wanted to capital- look at his work, we must also look at how he ize on the Bengali middle class’s most closely rede ned immortality, of himself and his art. held talismans: Poet Rabindranath Tagore and Kumar was a product of the quicksilver visual Uttam Kumar. Tagore of course is a gure of proigacy that is intrinsic to his art and was universal repute. But Kumar was just a matinee yet so effortlessly beyond it’s reductive, deduc- idol, an actor of some serious talent doubt- tive and scopophilic manipulation. How could lessly but no universal gure and there are that be? And to get to that we must start by other much more globally feted gures who are understanding why Uttam Kumar – Bengal’s perhaps better signi ers of the middle class’s immortal, unrivalled matinee idol – is actually cultural self-fashioning in Bengal. But no, it had a fascinating study in middle-class cultural ico- to be Uttam Kumar because he is beyond any nography. serious threat to hisCopyright name, beyond the cultural Intellect 2012 atavism of a particular class, beyond any parti- 2 san interest. In short,Do he is safelynot appropriable. distribute It started during the opposition’s election To the western audience, this mythicality of the campaign when part of its election promise matinee idol is integral to their understanding centred on the institutionalized celebration of cinema as a mass medium and its citation, that the then opposition promised erect around both as an object of dei cation as well as of Kumar’s already tall name. It needs to be noted derision – from Marcello Mastroianni and Jean that Kumar’s death anniversary every year for Paul Belmondo – is often considered de rigueur the last 32 years is usually considered a pub- of New Wave cinema. Godly men in sartorial lic day, marked through remembrance of his three-piece, often behind dark glasses, bat- genius, several retrospective screenings of his tling the trails of fame and fortune as Tinsel lms and other sundry activities all of which town charmers or acting as their own carica- reinforce his continuing relevance. Now that ture is a much hallowed cinematic sub-genre. it has been brought to power, the promise to This was preceded by the era of Gary Cooper, serve Kumar’s lasting legacy having borne fruit, Burt Lancaster and Humphrey Bogart, the era the new government has announced a slew of of the Hollywood studio star. In fact, as is well projects – a permanent memorabilia museum known, there was an entire industry that was on Kumar, a restoration archive of his cin- unleashed to control, manipulate and subjectify ema, an annual award in his name, a lm city, matinee idolatry/the star system in Hollwood. etc. Whether they will see any light of day is Richard Dyer’s seminal Stars (1979), Chris- another matter but what’s critical is that a man tine Gledhill’s Stardom: Industry of Desire (1991) dead 32 years ago could still be leveraged politi- and more recently Paul McDonald’s The Star cally and successfully. System: Hollywood’s Production of Popular Identi- Ironically, these events will only help, rst, ties (2000) have elaborated, with both author- to institutionalize what is already a publicly ity and insight, the entire process of making known fact: that Kumar is a major cultural meaning inside the Hollywood stardom clique.

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Stars, they conclude, are not only a product of There were no stars in a climate-controlled system of capital, labour the early phase of Bengali and the proliferation of image-making – often repetitively, tediously so – but are also a union cinema… of the phenomenon of both production and consumption. By the latter they meant that in ers, producers and banners. So in a way and stars co-habited the studio and the public, the ironically, the biggest star of Bengali cinema rst trying to extol his/her appeal while the lat- was born out of the ruins of the studio-system ter madly reinforcing it. Stars would inevitably and not because of it. Perhaps that’s one reason dwarf script and direction to establish a direct why, as his popularity grew to phenomenal contact with the audience, a contact unhin- proportions by the mid-1950s, the commercial dered by either the role or the setting (often at industry was happy to lodge behind him so the cost of causing harm to serious cinema). unquestioningly and so wholeheartedly. This much told story is important to identify a In fact, Bengali cinema’s advent into moder- historicity of stars (stardom). But at the same nity in the early 1950s saw two distinct narra- time it is important to enquire into stardom’s tive and aesthetic practices. If one, embodied by a-historicity – in the sense of it subverting age, the likes of Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak, cre- fashion, taste and a value-induced economy of ated the cult of ‘new art cinema’, the other took culture while remaining steeped in the produc- umbrage under the name and fame, the appeal tion/consumption ethic of a particular time. and cult of Uttam Kumar. Stardom’s inevitability in cinema makes imper- Kumar was born in 1926 and had an undistin- ative that we study not only the settings which guished life in school and college. He had been made them but also their legacy and what has trying his luck at professional theatre when he worked to keep their value as cultural memory made his lm debut in 1948 with Drishtidan. He intact decades after their time. worked till 1980. His rst commercial success We must note both theseCopyright aspects while read- Intellectcame with the 1952 2012 hits Basu Paribar and Sare ing Uttam Kumar’s stardom. To start with, the Chuattor, which also launched, incidentally, his studio-system could onlyDo nurture not Bengali distribute cin- legendary pairing with actor Suchitra Sen. The ema up to its days of young adulthood. Calcutta year 1952 was also the year of the making of and almost immediately Bombay (now Mumbai) Ritwik Ghatak’s unreleased debut lm Nagarik was the seat of the cinema industry in India which along with Nemai Ghosh’s Chhinnamul and the rst generation of lm-makers did set remain two of the early precursors of Ray’s Song up studios in accordance with global practices. of the Road (Pather Panchali) and now recognized New Theatres and Movietone are two of the as seminal to the Indian New Wave. iconic studios in Calcutta, which were based on Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen went on to the repertory system of paid actors and techni- pair in some of the classic romantic melodra- cians and controlled distribution. But by the late mas of the time – Agnipariksha Soptopodi, Pothe 1940s, largely because of new commercial inter- Holo Deri, Harano Sur, Chaowa-Paowa, Bipasha, ests, the passing away of visionary men who Sagorika, etc. The lms established them as a had set them up, new censorship laws, the wave leading romantic pair, emboldened the indus- of nationalist ethic sweeping across the country try’s nances and gave a cheer to the belea- and other factors, the studio system declined in guered collective imagination of the mass India. By the time Uttam Kumar started work- audience in Bengal. ing (in his rst lm in 1948, aged 22), the studio Uttam acted in 202 censor-certi ed lms, hav- system was giving way to a more free-owing ing almost a dozen releases every year between lm-making and distribution practice. 1956 and 1960. By the late 1950s he had also There were no stars in the early phase of Ben- produced a few of his own lms to considerable gali cinema but popular actors, like Pramathesh acclaim and was always seen as trying to break Barua, who were linked organically to the stu- out of the mould of the romantic hero and trying dios of the era. The rise of Uttam Kumar to fame to add new dimensions to the characters while in the early 1950s coincided with the demise sticking to an endearing and apparently simpler of the studios and the rise of individual mak- template of the romantic hero. He managed

86 | lm international issue - Articles The Heroic Laughter of Modernity to act with every major popular and arthouse Popular cinema was director as well as actress of his time and man- entertainment surely but aged to create a certain chemistry with all of his leading ladies on-screen, notwithstanding the intelligent, socially relevant pairing with Sen. Like the myriad characters he entertainment. played, this chemistry with his actresses was also subtly, tonally different from each other. If with Sen the pairing was about tragic-comic which once epitomized his career and which he romance, with Sabitri Chatterjee it was genial embodied, must be seen in the context of this comedy (Bhrantibilas, Dhonni Meye), with Supriya social capital, especially throughout the 1950s. Chowdhuri, sensual complexity (Kal Tumi Aleya, No wonder even the best of his romance lms Sudhu Ekti Bochor) and with Arundhati Debi, (some more of them being Indrani, Bipasha, Cha- matured couplehood (Bicharak, Jotugriha). owa Pawa, Shilpi) could never become complete In the case of Kumar, the black-and-white escapades into the fantastic but in fact were romance was, as expected, the art-de rigueur of rooted in the economies of social and cultural his stardom. Here we must briey note the con- capital. Housing problems, poverty, unemploy- text in which his fame cemented in the early ment, arriviste anxieties, urban loneliness, to mid-1950s. The Bengali lm industry had, by middle-class moral coda, the tragic life of true the early 1950s, been about three decades old. artists, etc. were serious themes often woven Under colonial (British India) policies, rst the around the central theme of romance which silent lms and then the studio-backed talkies made even his most commercially assuaged (1930s to the end of the 1940s) had their own cinema a critical social document. In fact much aesthetic, commercial and cultural logic, and of the charm of Kumar lay in the characters most of it, as discussed, was dominated by the of his early lms being extraordinary in their studios. deliverance even in the most mundane or trying As many studies ofCopyright post-Independence Intellectof circumstances. 2012 In other words his lms did Indian cinema have shown, with the advent of not provide an escape from the mundane but the Nehruvian era (so-calledDo not after the distribute quasi- an honest effort to overcome its pettiness, they socialist imperative of Jawaharlal Nehru, the provided no sanctimony of morality but genu- rst prime minister of Independent India who ine, earnest aspiration towards a greater com- assumed of ce in 1947), newer claims were mon good. Of course a whole bunch of talented made of cinema. Post-colonial Indian cinema writers, makers, technicians, staff and pro- and surely Bengali cinema found itself in need ducers were involved but they conglomerated of serious reconstruction. Hence it would not around the believable gure of Uttam Kumar, be wrong to consider the early years of the who gave them the commercial safety while 1950s, when Uttam Kumar debuted, as edging his lms hardly betrayed the easy sympathy he years for this new cinema industry. Though not shared with even the poorest of his spectators. immediately burdened by the cross of ‘social Uttam Kumar – by an interesting concoction relevance’ like the parallel cinema movement of natural talent, cultural essentialism, social that burst onto the scene almost at the same mobility, economic stasis and newfound politi- time (Ray’s Song of the Road being a universally cal freedom – came to embody an archetype recognized case), popular cinema had to keep which every Bengali spectator aspired to or felt its own credulity in mind. Popular cinema was empathy for. Uttam, in his lms, was everyman entertainment surely but intelligent, socially and yet the only one who could become truly relevant entertainment. one. Moreover, for Bengali cinema, the 1950s was a But Kumar was always hungry to grow as an period of great tension and upheaval following actor. And what divides the complex, second the Great Partition of the late 1940s and early phase of his career from the earlier, simpler 1950s, which saw huge movement of people phase of his stardom, Kumar most gradually and goods from Bangladesh to Bengal. Partition shifted to, and then successfully represented changed Bengal’s economy and culture irrevers- the crossover genre in Indian cinema. A decade ibly. Kumar’s black-and-white romance lms, into a successful career as a matinee idol, by

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In fact, no single entity in the history of Bengali culture has so neatly embodied, both the limits and illusions of the middle class.

the 1960s, Kumar regularly promoted a more course was outdated but the easy charm of the self-consciously crossover genre of cinema, romance was not, and though Kumar had long apart from the romance genre which sus- since forgone playing those characters, none of tained his popularity. These lms (Khokababur the new actors and lm-makers could rekindle Protyaborton, Thana Theke Aschi, Kal Tumi Aleya, or replenish the romance formula.) His death Kokhono Megh, Ami, Se O Sakha, Nagar Darpan, in fact left Bengali cinema deeply divided into Jodubonsho, Baghbandi Khela) had their popu- categories of entertainment (mostly gaudy, lar trappings: popular actors, an eye on com- sickening melodrama – in the popular sense) merce, but also a strong storyline, carefully and morbid arthouse cinema. drawn characters, a degree of evolved realism Kumar was abundantly and numerously and deeply etched moments of drama. And feted. He was the rst winner of the newly con- most importantly, they avoided the safety net stituted National Award for Best Actor (Bharat of hero-meets heroine routine or Uttam Kumar Award) in 1967, which he won for Satyajit Ray’s as a romantic hero. Instead he plays a variety The Zoo (Chiriyakhana, 1967) and Sunnil Ban- of complex, often ageing and helpless – even nerjee’s Antony Firingee (1967). Incidentally the contrarian – characters that stand in opposi- setting of Ray’s Nayak, made a year before in tion to the long-held image of a romantic hero 1966, was that of the actor travelling to Delhi to with gifts to overcome every impediment to collect a prestigious award. Nayak also won the love and a middle-class search for security. This Special Jury Award at the ‘Berlin Film Festival’ was a radical shift andCopyright one which cemented his Intellect to which Uttam Kumar2012 accompanied Ray. reputation as not just a star but also an actor of great range and intelligence.Do not distribute3 Moreover, though he could never completely eschew his mannerisms, so typical of acting Kumar’s exceptional range as an actor and cult cultures that he inherited, he could put all his as a matinee idol is best examined through one performances into neatly divided and appre- Ray lm already mentioned. Satyajit Ray was ciable identities, which spanned almost every so impressed and intrigued by the phenom- aspect of middle-class life. In fact, no single enal popularity of Uttam Kumar that he was entity in the history of Bengali culture has so inspired to write what was his second original neatly embodied, both the limits and illusions screenplay (after Kanchenjunga in 1962) around of the middle class. It is both the genesis and the myth that Kumar found himself enveloped the best reason behind his enduring appeal. by. This became the celebrated, deconstructive So Kumar, as much as he imbibed a techni- Nayak: The Hero. In his own admission Ray, who cal, logistic and organized lm manufacturing stood clear of celluloid glamour and a com- tradition, found himself in a position to rede- mercially assuaging lm economy, wanted to ne that tradition, and he did masterfully. He understand the phenomenon of the matinee helped evolve a new storytelling practice, a new idol, his rise to fame from a humble middle- characterization, a new reception culture and class upbringing, the perils of the ownership of course, a new de nition of stardom. In the of an iconic name, his vulnerabilities, and the process, as is common in the culture industry, essentially make-believe world of meaning- he stood at the forefront of a new tradition, making in popular cinema and those who pop- a new popular cinema. He had so completely ulate it. In the stiff upper lip arthouse circles personi ed this genre of lm-making, both however this choice of casting Uttam Kumar the black-and-white romance and the seri- came as a kind of surprise, if not shock. In fact ous crossover genre, that both vanished after for a legion of Ray loyalists the lm was noth- his death. (By the 1980s, black-and-white of ing more than an unnecessary detour for the

88 | lm international issue - Top row Hayak: Chiriakhana (1967) Articles The Heroic Laughter of Modernity Bottom row Bicharak (1928)

By Ray’s own admission and that of the public at large, Kumar wonCopyright the day. Intellect 2012 Do not distribute director. In fact, Marie Seton writes in her book Before reaching the nadir of his career, Ray on Ray, Portrait of a Director: made Nayak (1966) from a story he himself wrote and with Uttam Kumar, Bengal’s tal- Some of Ray’s admirers, particularly Indians, ented matinee idol, as its hero. Like Kanchan- were and are dubious about Nayak. They were jungha, again creates a highly symmetrical, rather mysti ed by the choice of a lm star tight and four-square framework. The entire to stand for the Hero image. It was a central action takes place during the hero’s one- character which directors has explored in night train ride to Delhi to collect an award other countries and more dramatically and for a performance. Uttam Kumar, an actor with a ercer bite. The quietness of Nayak of considerable intelligence, sophistication spread a certain confusion. Not too friendly and popularity, is, as it were, playing himself. speculation also centred around the fact (1994: 89) that Ray had written the script with the star Uttam Kumar in mind. The expectation seems Clearly Kumar had the approval but Ray did not. to have been that having done so, Ray would Most people made the mistake of thinking that surely unveil the sordidness of the lm indus- Kumar was playing himself but Ray was ply- try and the evils of the star system. Instead ing himself into commercial cinema. Dasgupta the Hero is revealed as an actor of some wrote in the original critique of the lm: talent, some conscience and a good deal of mediocrity (Seton 1971). It is in turning the hero from a type to an individual that Ray reveals behind the expert Such disapproval is evident even in Ray’s friend craftsmanship, the inner emptiness which and chief critic Chidananda Dasgupta. In his appears to plague him in this period. The The Cinema of Satyajit Ray he writes: individual whom he tries to reveal in the

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star-type of Arindam Mukherjee is even more common audience who would line up every typical than the exterior of his personality. week to see his cinema. Nayak was hence not The alcoholism, the death wish, the guilt over just a lm. It was an act of courage on the part deserting a purer art of the theatre and the of Kumar. early leftist links, are all more or less part of One needs to note that since the lm’s popular mythology of the lm star. (1994: 90) release and after, the lm’s easy charm, largely because of the character of the matinee idol In an interview some years later to his biogra- (Arindam Mukherjee) who dominates the nar- pher Andre Robinson, Ray had expressed his rative and the actor who played it effortlessly dismay about how little he knew about Uttam (Uttam Kumar), has retained huge viewership Kumar’s actual life while writing his script. till this day. Apart from the Apu Trilogy, Ray’s On the other hand none of the above traits own favourite The Lonely Wife (Charulata, 1964) mentioned by Dasgupta is true in the case of and two of his lms for children, Nayak perhaps Kumar’s own life as much as they may be for is the most watched Ray lm ever. Especially the matinee idol that Ray is trying to portray. among the Bengali speaking population. The If the life of the matinee idol is drawn from a huge popular appeal of the lm in the last two stock of public imagination, it was not true for decades has also helped revise its original criti- the matinee idol that the public essentially and cal evaluation. Many of the later scholars and unequivocally dei es. So in Arindam Mukher- critics of Ray and Indian cinema now consider jee we see two matinee idols: one, which Ray Nayak not only an important work but also as imagined, and one, which Kumar is in his own closely observant a cultural document as Ray’s lifetime. This meant that there was a constant more feted lms as well as the best lms of tension in the gure of the hero. One has to see other Indian masters. the lm closely to realize how to central gures Kumar here also decisively won, perhaps of two schools of lm-making, respectful of unconsciously, a battle on behalf of his fans each other and yet criticallyCopyright aware of their own Intellectwho were pitted 2012against those of the formidable positions, are trying to invest, in the singular Soumitra Chatterjee, the other great actor of the image of the matinee idol,Do their not most closely distribute times and a Satyajit Ray protégé and staple. The held beliefs about cinema. And that is what Bengali lm-going class was divided down the makes the lm the masterpiece it is. By Ray’s bone in this period when Ray who, before and own admission and that of the public at large, after Nayak and The Zoo, made no less than four- Kumar won the day. The image of the hero is teen lms with Chatterjee, came out and casted restored at the end of the lm and his exami- Kumar as Nayak. Kumar excelled and sealed his nation into his own life during a train journey reputation forever. turns into a heroic self-critique of exceptional Interestingly Uttam Kumar had never played poignancy. Ray was trying to separate the image a mythical character in a lm, which is a com- of the star from the man while Kumar, deeply mon platform to exploit the traditional mores to aware of the vulnerability of the character he sustain extra-cinematic popularity in a country was portraying, ended up salvaging the hero like India. This would de nitely signify a rather from the man. And even if the star did man- conscious engagement with modernity, ref- age to get back to his state of embalmment at ormation and an urban-middle-class cultural the end, the actor in Kumar was permanently ethic on the part of Uttam Kumar as it was for unleashed for the world to see. the industry he lorded over. In fact post-Uttam Blame it on his own hunger for a role of a Kumar Bengali commercial cinema’s poverty of lifetime or his own critique of his stardom, thinking could best be blamed for its deviation saying yes to Nayak was no easy task. Unless from the modernity that once sustained it. The supremely con dent, a man at the peak of entrenched vulgarity of the popular imagina- his career would not have let the best-known tion, till now suppressed by a surfeit of moder- Indian arthouse director have a peek into the nity, was now unleashed and there was no one inner life of stardom, knowing that this lm to hold it at the gates, a function Kumar and could punctuate the carefully conjured and a few others performed with supreme alacrity manufactured mystique of stardom for the over the years.

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Robinson, David (1975), ‘The Movies’, Eventually the hero had to age. And bow- Saturday Review Journal, December. ing to that rule, Kumar had made a quiet and resilient shift towards playing even more som- Seton, Marie (1971), Portrait of a Director, bre character roles, in which he increasingly London: Dennis Dobson. appeared visibly un-heroic. His last ve years were performance-wise unremarkable though his reputation was touched. This was because his audience, which was greying with him, was however happy seeing him on-screen as long as his roles offered him a chance to smile. Because he smiled like a benign, youthful God. His laughter as we know now, is actually that of modernity – of both sophistication and sympa- thy, of ego and of understanding, of next-door charm and universal charisma; about a lean- ness of thought and expression, a prevalence of the rational and the progressive over the mythi- cal and the stagnant. No one and perhaps least Uttam Kumar him- self cares (if he could), if he is being politically appropriated. A great star and performer is or at least should be always politically relevant and beyond this party or that. And that is what is crucial. And that is why Uttam Kumar lives in the mythopoetics of cultural modernity while emerging so many yearsCopyright into his death, as one Intellect 2012 of cinema’s most talented, charming and undy- ing ambassadors. Do not distribute

Contributor’s details Sayandeb Chowdhury is Assistant Professor of English at the School of Liberal Studies at Ambedkar University, Delhi (AUD), where he teaches courses on twentieth century European literature, cinema and cultural history. He has also worked in the media for several years at DNA in Mumbai and Hindustan Times in Delhi. He writes on current affairs, books, cinema and cultural politics. His articles have appeared in Caravan Magazine, Biblio, Moving Arts Journal and Art India magazine, among others. He is currently working on a cultural biography of the life and afterlife of Uttam Kumar.

References Dasgupta, Chidananda (1994), The Cinema of Satyajit Ray, New Delhi: National Book Trust.

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