Our Apu And Feluda

The legend of Soumitra Chatterjee straddled being a cult figure as well as top star

- Sharmistha Gooptu

Soumitra Chatterjee is one of the very few great stars of the regional cinema of all time who had reached a pinnacle of stardom, and still stayed away from that mecca of Indian stardom, the Bombay film industry. On the face of it, it would seem to be the language factor, as his mentor Satyajit Ray had noted on being asked about his preference for not working in Hindi (except for two films). But even more than that, it was a question of preferences and beliefs, a belief in a system of creative values that might not have been best served by this more ostensible bifurcation between art and commerce that ruled the contemporary perspective.

Bombay was recognised as the commercial hub of a pan-Indian cinema, Calcutta as the heart of the art film movement. While a star-like Sharmila Tagore straddled these separate industries with equal ease, it was a Soumitra Chatterjee, who, through his entire oeuvre actually debunked this whole dichotomy of art versus commerce. In his entire career, he played roles of remarkable versatility and in his persona brought art and commerce closer to each other, at a time when they were spoken of as very distinct things. In that, he was closer to his guru Satyajit Ray than is usually recognised, for Ray, through his life’s work, had himself breached these barriers of art and commerce.