Ogo Bodhu Sundari

Of the innumerable tributes to the late Uttam Kumar this year,one is in celluloid form. Its called Ogo Bodhu Sundari,the name of his last film starring Sumitra Mukherjee as his wife,Moushumi Chatterjee as the rustic girl he takes on to polish and Ranjit Mullick as the friend who helps him in his endeavour to make the rustic girl sophisticated and falls in love with her. This is the umpteenth rehash of Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion turned into My Fair Lady starring Audrey Hepburn followed by Dev Anand’s Tina Munim-starrer Man Pasand.

I fail to fathom why Sunando Mitra has taken the ‘credit’ for the story as it’s not his original work. He has tweaked Shaw’s original play. The hero is called Uttam Kumar Chatterjee (Babul Supriyo) by his parents who are die-hard fans of the late superstar. Young Uttam’s wife Sucharita (Sreelekha Mitra) walks out in a huff when he forgets their wedding anniversary. Sucharita’s feminist grandmother (Sabitri Chatterjee) promptly calls the lawyer to file for divorce. In trying to bring the estranged couple together,Sucharita’s brother takes the help of Uttam’s grandfather (Haradhan Banerjee),a Feluda (Satyajit Ray) fan and a funny and fat man (Kharaj Mukherjee) to recreate the events of the original Ogo Bodhu Sundari. If the film had some semblance of credibility and originality,it promptly begins to collapse with the entry of a Santhali girl Phoolmani (Monami Ghosh) from Shantiniketan to pull Sucharita back to the pavilion. Rough corners smoothed,everything ends happily.

Babul Supriyo has rendered three musical hits from the original film,along with a couple of Tagore songs beautifully,backed by the wonderful musical score of Bappi Lahiri. But Supriyo should stick to singing. His good looks do not translate into a notable screen presence or strong acting. The director’s desperate attempt to bring out a merger between Uttam Kumar,who acted in the 1981 film and Kishore Kumar,who sang the songs,has flopped miserably. Monami is good as Phoolmani,but it is noneagarian Haradhan Banerjee who should bag the best acting trophy with Sabitri Chatterjee. While you are watching the film,a massive black-and-white photograph of a bespectacled Uttam Kumar keeps smiling at the proceedings. It’s good that the director did not make the portrait come alive because if he did,the late Uttam Kumar would have rolled in his grave!

The film deserves two stars,one for the lilting and wonderful musical score and one for Haradhan and Sabitri’s acting.