Tag Archives: Bharati Devi

Nayak (1966)

Posted on by

14

In Satyajit Ray’s 1966 film Nayak (‘The Hero’), the eponymous ‘hero’, the hugely popular superstar Arindam Mukherjee (Uttam Kumar), is travelling by train from Kolkata to Delhi to receive an award. He is sharing a compartment with a family, of whom the father, Mr Bose (Ranjit Sen) spends most of his time outside the compartment. The mother (Bharati Devi) is left pretty much on her own to look after their teenaged daughter Bulbul (Lali Chowdhury), who is unwell and is lying on the upper berth.

When Arindam first enters their compartment, the effect of his arrival is palpable. Bulbul has been reading a book; one look at him and the book ends up beside her, forgotten. On the berth underneath, Mrs Bose, having settled in (and informed Arindam that her daughter is a fan of his) surreptitiously opens her handbag, takes out a mirror and takes a quick peek at herself.

Such is the effect of close proximity to a celebrity.

Continue reading →

Doctor (1941)

Posted on by

40

I tend not to watch too many Hindi films from before the 1950s, and even those that I do, don’t always end up getting reviewed. Mostly, that’s because I either find them fairly forgettable (though there are exceptions, like the superb Neecha Nagar) or otherwise not landmark films in any sense. Nothing that deserves a review.

This one, though, probably needs to be reviewed, even though it’s not extraordinary. Based on a story by Sailajanand Mukhopadhyay (the same story being remade in 1977 as the Uttam Kumar-Sharmila Tagore starrer Anand Ashram), Doctor was made simultaneously in Hindi and Bengali. This was the first Pankaj Mullick film I’ve seen (though I’ve heard his songs many times earlier); and given its music, it deserved, I thought, a review.

Doctor begins with the eponymous doctor, a young man named Amarnath (Pankaj Mullick) returning by train to his ancestral home in the village after finishing medical studies.

Continue reading →