Uttam Kumar Always Came Prepared: Dhritiman

RBN Web Desk: Veteran actor Dhritiman Chatterjee, recalling his experience of working with Uttam Kumar, has said that the Bengal matinee idol was always prepared on the sets for the role he was supposed to play. Dhritiman and Uttam shared screen space in the 1974 film Jadu Bansha.

Directed by Partha Pratim Choudhury, Jadu Bansha was unlike most mainstream films produced back in the sixties and seventies. It was a cinematic treatise on the Naxal movement in Bengal, and highlighted both the involvement of the educated youth, and the later disillusionment of an entire generation. Choudhury forged a coup of sorts by roping in Aparna Sen, Sharmila Tagore, and Santosh Dutta, besides Uttam and Dhritiman, for Jadu Bansha. All of them had earlier played major roles in Satyajit Ray’s films.

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Speaking to the media recently about working with Uttam Kumar in Jadu Bansha, Dhritiman said, he did not have many scenes with him and both of them concentrated on the shot. Interactions were mostly formal. He had only three days of work with Uttam and none of them got to know each other within that limited time. But he noticed that Uttam Kumar arrived on the sets fully prepared for his role. He would sit quiet and read his lines, even in the insufferable hot and humid conditions in the studios back then, the 73-year old actor recalled.

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Jadu Bansha was an experimental film and was praised by the critics. It was filmed in a modernist style. Uttam Kumar returned a restrained performance as a middle-aged businessman faced with dejection and tragedy in life. It’s often considered among his best performances.

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