If you were in Kolkata last week you could not have missed the giant cut outs of a smiling man all over the city. Black and white pictures of a handsome man in a short sleeved shirt, hands on his hips, grinning at the world.
It wasn't a politician or a rock star. These are pictures of Uttam Kumar, a super star actor of Bengali films but he died in 1980 at the age of 54.
Last week was his centenary and the city celebrated.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata
The city hosted an Uttam Kumar film festival with free screenings of a dozen of his some 250 films.
ANNOUNCEMENT1” Audio visual dekhano hobe jeti toiri krechę on Uttam kumar
There were long snaking queues for the films, panel discussions, a popup exhibition of Uttam memorabilia.
A man dressed as Uttam Kumar posed as a living statue for people to take selfies with. People were being asked to enter Kumar talent competitions. Like shout I Love Uttam Kumar as loudly as possible and measure the decibel count. The winner got a little Uttam Kumar badge and declared it would be his cherished possession for life.
WINNER
Couples were invited to come dressed as Uttam Kumar and one of his leading ladies for a Mahanyak Mahanayika contest as in Great Hero and Great Heroine Lookalike contest
LOOK ALIKE
Uttam Kumar wasn’t always a superstar. His first few films flopped so resoundingly he was known as flop master. Then suddenly he clicked especially when paired with the actress Suchitra Sen. The couple became the byword for ultimate romance in Bengal in the 1950s and 60s.
EI POTH JODI
Even the renowned actor Soumitra Chatterjee, better known to cineastes around the world than Uttam thanks to his roles in many Satyajit Ray films, couldn’t match his charm. Soumitra’s daughter Poulomi said at the Kolkata Literary Meet release of a book about her father that even her mother said no one had a smile like Uttam Kumar’s, a smile that made you forget the world.
PC1: Speaker 4: my father, just to irritate my mother, would say, why I have such a beautiful smile. And my mother said, oh, you must just shut up. Just shut up. You don't even come close
But there have been many other stars since then in India. Superstars even. Why did thousands of people of all ages show up to celebrate Uttam Kumar, people who had not even been born when he died? In a panel earlier this year at the Kolkata Literary Meet, contemporary filmmaker Srijit Mukherjee said Uttam Kumar was much more than a romantic matinee idol, he had become a cultural emblem.
SM1: far left the shores of cinema and gone into a much broader spectrum which incorporates, obviously culture, society, sensibility, Bangali, Nana, the the pride of being a Bengali and Bengali dum Bengali hood.
He has done what very few actors can do. Become bigger than his films. He was a humble Port trust employee who reached the stars.
At his peak for people like my mother he represented the aspiration of a young newly independent India, wanting to succeed in love and life.
Now for a new generation he represents a golden past, more genteel and classy. At the Uttam festival a woman says her mother was a fan, she is a fan, her daughter lives in America is a fan. He was the industry. There won’t be a second Uttam Kumar she declares
WOMAN1: Uni sedin nayak noy..Uni ekta industry.
My mother was one such fan. She kept a list of his films in an old falling apart diary held together by elastic bands. She had braved the crowds to watch his funeral procession pass by. I thought of her at this Uttam centennial. As I saw a middle aged woman step up to a mike to warble a song from one of his old black and white films.
SONG1 - Dui bhai theke gaan
Then another woman who was walking by started singing as well and the two women sang together, a sisterhood forged by the light of a long-dead star.
SONG2 - 2nd woman joining in
Neither were great singers. But it was still magical.
I realized what made the man a star wasn’t just his looks, his acting, his smile. He didn’t just light up the screen. He lit up the lives of the people who watched him.
And still does.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata for KALW.