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Bicycle Thieves is a movie that is said to have inspired most filmmakers. It was no different for Basu Chatterji.
“My reaction to the film was very similar to other viewers. All felt it was part of their lives,” he is quoted in a splendid new book ‘Basu Chatterji, And Middle of the Road Cinema’ dedicated to his work.
Authored by seasoned film writer Anirudha Bhattacharjee, the book deals with his love for cinema that featured the common man through some non-professional actors, much like Bicycle Thieves.
Bhattacharjee picks Khatta Meetha, Sara Akash, Rajnigandha, and Swami as subjects to paint Chatterji’s work on a canvas that takes the reader on a delightful journey. Bhattacharjee’s strong point is his style of writing which keeps one engaged. Basu Chatterji did not aim for box office success.
As Bhattacharjee notes, “His films, whether it be Choti Si Baat or Rajnigandha or Chitchor, were about the common people and common problems, such as employment and love, social and economic inequalities, and joint family conflicts.”
The office-goers’ romance
Bhattacharjee laces the narrative with rich anecdotes and some monumental research. For Rajnigandha, he says Chatterji had originally thought of Amitabh Bachchan for the role that Amol Palekar essayed and Shashi Kapoor for the part played by Dinesh Thakur.
His first choice for the heroine’s role was Sharmila Tagore and not Vidya Sinha. Well it all changed for the better and Chatterji gave the youth of the times a movie to remember a year after Bobby had taken the country by storm. If Bobby had caught the imagination of the teenagers, Rajnigandha was a hit with the office-goers, who had their own romantic stories of delight.
Palekar, working with Bank of India, walked into the role of Sanjay, who is constantly yearning for promotion in competition with one Ranganathan. Vidya Sinha shone as Deepa, who is tormented between her first love, Naveen (Thakur), and Sanjay.
The shots were taken at Chatterji’s flat in Worli before the story moves to Delhi, where a flat in Defence Colony was used. The taxi scene featuring Vidya Sinha and Dinesh Thakur was shot with the song (Kai baar yoon bhi dekha hai) not even recorded.
As Bhattacharjee writes, “The song came to Mukesh on rebound. Lata was the original choice.” He notes, “Rajnigandha was a game changer. It shattered a few archetypes. A hero needn’t be handsome, dapper or rich to win the heart of the heroine.”
Rajnigandha won Chatterji fans from all over the world. He shares his joy, “I got many letters after Rajnigandha. One letter was from a woman from Pakistan. She wrote in Hindi mixed with Urdu. How truly you have described. We all had a lover in our college days but we never married him. We married someone else.”
This was the story of Deepa of Rajnigandha, who loved Naveen but married Sanjay.
A winning combination
Choti Si Baat had the same lead pair — Palekar and Vidya Sinha — with a brilliant cast that featured Ashok Kumar and Asrani. There was music by Salil Chowdhury again to liven up the narrative where the hero takes lessons in winning the heart of his lady love.
The audience accepted Choti Si Baat gleefully with Palekar and Vidya Sinha producing sterling performances. Riding the wave of Choti Si Baat’s success, Chatterji came up with Chitchor, which was the third back-to-back Basu Chatterji-Amol Palekar film to celebrate a silver jubilee. Chitchor also flourished on the strength of a melodious contribution by Ravindra Jain
In the segment dedicated to bringing us some fascinating stories related to the making of Baton Baton Mein, Bhattacharjee speaks to the key men who toiled behind the scene to create magic on the screen.
He gets details like a train being hired to shoot the sequences between 11 am and 4 pm from Churchgate to Dahisar with junior artistes filling up as co-passengers. The train had make-up rooms, and change rooms for costumes. The shooting was guided by AK Bir, the cinematographer acknowledged as a master of train shoots.
Bhattacharjee digs into Chatterji’s career with some meticulous research and interviews with important people who were part of his awesome journey as a filmmaker. The author feels Chatterji did not get due recognition.
“I don’t think Basu-da got his due as a towering filmmaker. Not even a Padma award. Unbelievable. Bimal Roy and Hrishikesh Mukherjee (HM) made bigger films. Bimal Roy remains one of the best-ever directors in India. I don’t think HM or Basu-da could be compared to him. HM’s films were faster, had more stars, more colour, more emotion, and more action. Basu-da was against creating drama, something he felt was not an essential component of cinema. He wanted to capture life as it was.”
In support of Chatterji, the author adds, “Overall, I would say HM made films which were more viewer-friendly, while Basu created a select class of viewers. HM used stars — Raj Kapoor, Dharmendra, Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan, Sharmila Tagore, Dev Anand, etc., were regulars in his films. Basu-da created stars out of unknown actors. Case in point — Amol Palekar, Vidya Sinha, Zarina Wahab, and Bindiya Goswami. To sum it up — Hrishikesh could make an Anand but not a Sara Akash. Basu could make a Swami but not a Gol Maal. Though, in hindsight, their style of filmmaking was very similar.”
Bhattacharjee concludes the book by highlighting Chatterji’s foray into television where he came up with the iconic Rajani, played by Priya Tendulkar. The book is a fitting tribute to the unsung Basu Chatterji.
(Vijay Lokapally is a senior journalist and an author)
Check out the book on Amazon.
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