Hire Manik was a noble venture.

Hire Manik was a noble venture.

Director Salil Dutta made a noble venture with the film Hire Manik in the late 70s. The film was related to the story of two small children Hire and Manik and released in 1979.

Their father Asim Kumar and mother were on a drive when a lorry collided with their car and both were spot dead leaving the two children as orphans. But Asim Kumar’s Fixed Deposits earned a lot of interest and his lawyer Ajitesh Banerjee asked his brother Bikash Roy to take care of the two children and use the money.

Bikash Roy’s brother in law Chinmoy Roy hammered the children and their life was in misery. At that point they escaped from the house and went to a Dhaba. The owner of the Dhaba gave them work of washing dishes. But Chinmoy Roy chased them up with his assistant, a dog named Bruno and a car. The two children got on Satya Banerjee’s lorry and escaped into a forest.

They reached the house of Anil Chatterjee and Sabitri Chatterjee. Sabitri Chatterjee lost her own son and loved the two children and treated them when they were sick. But just because she suspected that they stole a toy from a shop she asked them to leave. They were confronted with an elephant in the forest who was looking for the young one. At the end of the film, they were rescued by Anil Chatterjee, Ajitesh and Sabitri and brought back to their house.

Mrinal Banerjee, the music composer composed impressive tunes including “aaj amader jatra shuru” sung by Arati Mukherjee, “jongol er naam jongol” sung by Manna Dey and other songs. The performances of the two children Hire and Manik were excellent along with the effort of Chinmoy Roy, Anil Chatterjee, Sabitri Chatterjee and others.

Salil Dutta made a fruitful venture in the late 70s and the film still remains one of the popular Bengali films made only for children.

Shesh Anka was an excellent crime thriller.

Shesh Anka was an excellent crime thriller.

Haridas Bhattacharya, the director of the film Shesh Anka made an excellent film Shesh Anka released in 1963. The film was based on a crime-related suspense story. Uttam Kumar was in love with Sharmila Tagore, the daughter of Pahari Sanyal.

Bikash Roy, the detective in the film, appointed Kamal Mitra, the lawyer of Sabitri Chatterjee, whom he asked to pretend to be the first wife of Uttam Kumar. Uttam Kumar told everyone that his first wife committed suicide by laying down in a railway track.

Uttam Kumar contacted the Police Officer Dipak Mukherjee, who asked him to file case relating to cheating against Sabitri Chatterjee. His lawyer Utpal Dutta produced the post mortem report and death certificate of his first wife. But Kamal Mitra proved that those documents could not establish the death of his first wife and allegation against Sabitri Chatterjee.

The last witness in the case was the naval officer Tarun Kumar who was the brother of Uttam Kumar’s first wife. He came to Uttam Kumar’s house and when he was shown Sabitri’s photo, he said it was the photo of his sister. Uttam Kumar slapped him and confessed before Sharmila that he had killed his first wife and himself threw her in a railway to be killed by a train. Bikash Roy said that there was no other cogent evidence other than Uttam Kumar’s own confession which could prove the crime.

The film did excellent business. All the performers in the film were brilliant including Uttam Kumar, Kamal Mitra, Sabitri Chatterjee, Tarun Kumar, Bikash Roy and others. Uttam Kumar was very bold enough to accept a negative role at the prime of his career when he was the greatest matinee idol of Bengal. The music was composed by Pabitra Chatterjee.

Haridas Bhattacharya, the husband of Kanan Debi, who was associated with Sarat Chandra Chatterjee’s literature like Abhaya Srikanto, Rajlakshi Srikanto, experimented with a crime thriller and got the appreciation of the intellectual community of Bengal. The film should be preserved and restored.

Review of Uttam Kumar's Kuhak.

Review of Uttam Kumar’s Kuhak.

Uttam Kumar was considered to be the greatest romantic actor to have been born in Indian soil in the golden age, that is 40s, 50s, and 60s. But after giving legendary romantic films with Suchitra Sen (both of them acted in 30 films), Uttam Kumar tried to change his image in some of the films.

In Goli Theke Rajpoth he was involved in unlawful activities, in Abak Prithibi, he was a thief who was reformed by a small child, and in Kuhak he was a thief again. He broke his image in Kuhak directed by Agradoot.

In Kuhak, the film opened with a scene in the jail where Uttam Kumar met Tarun Kumar. Uttam Kumar spoke about his activities relating to theft. Tarun Kumar disclosed about his capabilities relating to opening any lock in any almirah or cupboard and he was imprisoned for those activities.

Uttam Kumar after being released from jail came to the same village where Tarun Kumar lived with his two sons and sister played by Sabitri Chatterji. Uttam Kumar was a singer and with the team of Premangshu Bose used to perform in the role of Chaitanyadev in village plays (jatras).

Most of the villagers started thinking that Uttam Kumar was actual Chaitanyadeb. Tarn Kumar told Uttam Kumar that he stole Rs 30000 from a locker in a nearby house, but when he tried to escape from the police, he was fired by the police and died. He showed the place where he kept the money to his son. Both Uttam Kumar and Premangshu Bose stayed back in the village to take that money that was kept by Tarun Kumar.

Uttam Kumar fell sorry for Sabitri Chatterjee, the sister of Tarun Kumar and fell in love with her. The last part of the film showed the fight between Uttam Kumar and Premangshu Bose in extracting the stolen money.

The music of the film was impressive, with Uttam Kumar giving brilliant lips in Hemant Kumar’s song “bishnupriya go”. There were many other songs sung by Hemant Kumar for Uttam Kumar and the character of Uttam Kumar being a singer was bolstered with the music.

The film should be restored for the young generation to show them that director Agradoot had the skills of making crime thrillers with the background of stories based on village life of Bengal.

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Uttam Kumar and comedy films like Mouchak

Uttam Kumar and comedy films like Mouchak.

Uttam Kumar, the most versatile superstar of Bengali films became one man industry in the 70s. Viewers were not that bothered about who was his heroine in the film or the co-actors or actresses. The moment the name of Uttam Kumar flashed in the silver screen the viewers knew that he had the potentiality of pulling on the film alone.

Arun Kumar Chatterji, better known as Uttam Kumar acted in Arobindo Mukherjee’s film Mouhak in 1975. Aurobindo Mukherjee had experimented with Uttam Kumar and Sabitri Chatterji in the films Nishipadda and Dhanni Meye. In Mouchak, Uttam Kumar was the elder brother of Ranjit Mullick who got a job outside Kolkata.

When he came to his workplace, he found that right from the CEO of the company to the different officers, people were looking for qualified men to get married to their daughters. Even the house that was rented to Ranjit Mullick was in the vicinity of all these persons who wanted to keep him in close watch and convince him to marry their daughters.

The situation became so worst that Uttam Kumar had to come to that place and artificially campaign about the bad character of Ranjit Mullick. He told all the officers that Ranjit Mullick was a drunkard, gambler and anti-social. Even after that the fathers of these girls never stopped coming to his house and convincing him about marrying their daughters.

At the end of the film Ranjit Mullick entered into an affair with Mithu Mukherjee, and after the acceptance of her both from Uttam Kumar and Sabitri Chatterji, the marriage was solemnized. The film showed the crude reality of fathers of unmarried daughters in Bengal in the mid-70s who generally were in need of qualified bachelors to get their daughters married to them.

Even the lips given by Uttam Kumar in Manna Dey’s songs like “Jodi jagai madhai”, “ebar mole suto hobo”, “paglagarod kothay ache”, etc., was equally brilliant.

Uttam Kumar died almost 29 years back. Bengali films these days get lot of sponsorship and technical development had taken place in the film industry. Yet the vacuum created by superstar Uttam Kumar neither had been filled up, nor can be filled up by anyone else. Comedy films like Mouchak should be restored to show the contribution of Uttam Kumar in those types of films.