Uttam Kumar: The man beyond his films

The date was July 24, 1980. My mother picked me up from school and when we disembarked from the tram, I was thinking we would walk the rest of the way home as we did every day. But we didn’t. We stood there by the tramline on Rash Behari Avenue, somewhere near Gariahat, my mother looking visibly distressed. “Uttam Kumar has passed away today. We are not going home till the truck comes this way,” she said.

At 5, I didn’t know who Uttam Kumar was, but was sure that he was a very important person. As we stood there in the sun, my mother forgetting I was famished, the crowd around us kept swelling. I remember vaguely when the truck came, followed by a huge procession; many people shouting, crying and going berserk. It’s exactly 44 years since then and that memory is still stuck in my head.

I shared this experience at a friend’s 50^th birthday party recently where I met a few friends from school, who were neighbours to Uttam Kumar. On screen, he never allowed the audience’s attention to waver from him, the same way in this discussion he remained the hero, who ruled the evening. It is amazing how more than four decades after his demise, the star’s memory remains so overwhelming.

His autobiography, Aamar Ami, his words penned by journalist Gourangaprasad Ghosh, published by Dey’s Publishing, gives a rare insight into his formative years, the pain of losing a loved one, his first crush and his youthful love story. In this post, I am sharing my understanding of these life-altering incidents of Uttam Kumar’s life.

Check this article: The day Uttam Kumar died

As a child, Uttam Kumar hid and watched rehearsals

Uttam Kumar’s father was the chief operator of Metro Cinema and most of the days, he returned home after the night show when his children had already slept off. He lived in an extended middle-class family, who spent happy evenings together, weren’t ambitious about becoming rich and were inclined towards jatra and theatre. So they had founded a theatre group Suhrid Samaj. They rehearsed plays and jatra in the local clubroom and staged it in the locality.

As a child, Uttam Kumar had strict parents who expected him to sit with his books in the evening, but when he would sneak out of the house and watch the rehearsals from the window of the club room, he was scared of getting caught. He wasn’t paranoid though because his parents never beat him up in his entire life. Sometimes, he would even place his ears on the club door and try to hear the dialogues and rehearse it on his own at home.

His elder sister Putuldi caught him one day. Being very close to him she agreed to not tell their parents about his escapades.

He even enacted a scene from the play in front of her. She giggled and told him that he should move around more and not keep standing in one place.

But the bigger challenge came when his elder uncle (Jyathamoshai) caught him one day. Instead of rebuking him he was happy to see him interested in the arts and asked him to step inside the club room every day and see the rehearsals upfront.

His sister Putuldi’s death left him devastated

Throughout the book in bits and pieces, Uttam Kumar does mention about his brothers. When he talks about his sister, it’s clear that he had a different bond with her and her passing left a gaping hole in his young heart.

One day after coming home, he was calling out to his sister expecting her to run out hearing her name. Instead, his mother came with a sombre face informing him that Putuldi was running a high fever and had been diagnosed with typhoid. In just a day’s fever, she had become pale, but she called him into the room and told him he should learn jatra, it would be a lot of fun.

She never recovered and many times later in his life, looking up at the blue sky in moments of solitude, he could hear Putuldi’s last words to him. At a very early age, losing someone so close to him left him devastated and he didn’t feel like doing anything. Then gradually, he picked up the pieces of his shattered heart and started going to the Suhrid Samaj rehearsals again. But he dearly missed the security guard who kept a watch on him at home – his Putuldi.

Also read: ‘Uttam wanted to meet Suchitra Sen a week before his death’ | Hindi Movie News – Times of India (indiatimes.com)

His first play

Uttam Kumar first studied in Chakraberia School which was at a walking distance from his home and then in Class 7, he moved to South Suburban School where he made friends with Lalmohan Mukherjee (Lalu) who went on to become a famous doctor and stayed by his side till his last day.

Uttam Kumar mentioned that if there was one thing he despised it was slagging off. So, he studied hard and at the same time theatre had his heart.

The boys of the locality borrowed sarees and bed sheets from different homes and put those together with safety pins to create wings for the make-shift stage.

Silver foil was used to make crowns and powder for make-up. With infrastructure like this, they staged their first play Rabindranath Tagore’s Mukut.

As an offshoot of Suhrid Sangha, the young people of the locality founded the Lunar Club from where this play was staged. Mukut turned out to be such a hit that they were even offered a room for their rehearsals at a neighbour’s home.

You may also like: They had never met but Uttam Kumar and Supriya Devi stayed in their home …what happened then?

Bagging a role in school

Uttam Kumar was probably in Class 3 or 4 when the headmaster of Chakraberia School came to his classroom and asked if anyone would be interested to take part in a play. There was pin drop silence in the classroom, but the would-be star got up with a racing heart and said with confidence he could do it.

The boys in the class stayed back after school to see how he fared in the trials. He passed with flying colours and bagged the role of a younger Gayasur. On D-Day, he peeked through the screen at the brimming auditorium and felt the nerves when he sat down to get his make-up done. Once on stage, the nerves vanished and he came up with a performance that got him hugs and accolades in the dressing room later.

However, during the play, the temporary stage constructed on bamboo poles had collapsed because the boy in the elder Gayasur’s role was jumping around too much.

It was quickly put back together and the play was completed.

For the first full-fledged role of his life, he bagged two medals in school. His heart was filled with happiness and he ran back home with the medals. Everyone was happy at his accomplishment.

Uttam Kumar’s first crush

In the later part of his life, we have seen Uttam Kumar mostly with Surpriya Devi, his partner for 17 years. He only talks about her in the later part. He admits that Benu, as he called Supriya, got upset after seeing the draft of his autobiography, so he added the latter bit mentioning how the friendship with her transformed into an inseparable bond.

In the first part of the book, he talks at length about his first crush Gauri in the most endearing and spontaneous way.

He first saw the pretty young girl walking out of his house with his cousin Annapurna and liked her immensely. It was kind of love at first sight. When he asked Annapurna the girl’s name, she revealed it as Gaurirani Ganguly.

He had just joined a job in the cash department of Port Commissioners for a salary of Rs 275. He was dejected that his acting ambitions were going nowhere. At the same time, the thought of seeing this girl again got him excited. He would come home from work and miss the rehearsals at the Lunar Club. Instead, he kept loitering around the house waiting for Gauri. She never came.   

How he got Gauri’s attention

Many weeks later, he suddenly saw her entering his house. He used to sing well. Uttam Kumar took out his harmonium and started singing. In his young heart, he was sure his mellifluous voice would draw her up the stairs to his door. He thiught he would look up from the harmonium and see her standing there shyly. To his immense frustration, he kept singing but there was no sign of Gauri.

Finally, he gave up. His cousin Annapurna came up the stairs and told him that Gauri left a message for him. Uttam Kumar’s heart skipped a beat. She said: “You sing very well. She is keen to know you better.” Mission accomplished, thought the handsome man. He started weaving dreams around Gauri, feeling restless to see her. She again stopped coming.

He won her heart

He wasn’t enjoying his job as a clerk and neither was he able to make headway, as he relentlessly made rounds of the studios. One day he ended up on the banks of the Ganges. Sitting there, all he wanted to do was see Gauri. So, from there he went straight to her school.

The security guard of their house was with her, but with her eye gesture she asked Uttam Kumar to come when school ended. He did. She managed to steal a few moments with him and assured him she would go to their house soon. Finally, when she came to their house he professed his love for her and he also told her that he wanted to make a career in films and if she was alright with that. She said she would be too happy if he became a hero.

He had asked her that crucial question because he had just landed his first role in a film. The name of the film was Mayador, which wasn’t released eventually.

He had the role of a groom who would be beaten up at the mandap. He had to shoot for five days and he was paid 5 siki for each day as a junior artiste.

The real-life drama unfolds

Uttam Kumar started getting roles thereafter. Sometimes blink-and-miss ones, sometimes he had a bit more screen time. But the lead role eluded him. Gauri was however very happy to see him on screen and she ended up expressing that to her paternal grandmother.

Uttam Kumar played the younger version of Asit Baran in the film Drishtidan directed by Nitin Basu. Gauri had gone to watch the film with her grandmother and the elderly lady had jokingly asked her which actor she liked on screen. Gauri had pointed out Uttam Kumar. Soon her grandmom realised that she could have asked the question in jest but her granddaughter was very serious when she answered.

From that day, Gauri was not allowed to leave home and soon her match was fixed. She managed to sneak out and went straight to her handsome love. He wasn’t earning that well, neither had his film career taken off, but he immediately agreed to meet Gauri’s father and ask for her hand in marriage. Gauri’s wealthy father was convinced by Uttam Kumar’s genuine intentions and he gave his consent for marriage.

By then, he had already bagged his first lead role in the film Kamona.

Would you want to know more about Uttam Kumar? Please leave a comment in the blog/post and let me know.