Opinion The magic of Tarun Majumdar’s films: Stories of the common people
Shoma A Chatterji writes: His films narrated the lives, struggles, failures and successes of ordinary men, women and children, enriched with beautiful songs and music, mainly drawn from the creations of Rabindranath Tagore.
On Majumdar’s last journey, his body — which he wanted to donate for medical research — was wrapped with the Marxist-Communist red flag. (Express Archives) 
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Not since the demise of the great Balraj Sahni in 1973 has this happened. Tarun Majumdar, a dedicated Marxist, had wished for his body to not be laid in state or covered by thick garlands. He did not want his funeral to be marked with a gun salute anywhere for people to come and pay their last respects. On Majumdar’s last journey, his body — which he wanted to donate for medical research — was wrapped with the Marxist-Communist red flag. Yet, not one of his films had hinted much at his political leanings. They were unadulterated, wholesome family entertainers with social messages subtly woven in.
The secret to his phenomenal success as a director, both in the mainstream arena and among lovers of “art” cinema, lay in his ability to bring his audience into his films, their stories and the characters fleshed out in them. One could identify with the stories that had a middle-class ethos with a sharp focus on the synthesis that sustained in joint families in Bengal — in the cities, suburbs and villages. The films narrated the lives, struggles, failures and successes of ordinary men, women and children, enriched with beautiful songs and music, mainly drawn from the creations of Rabindranath Tagore. Most of his films are inspired by the works of great litterateurs.
Among the memorable films in his large repertoire is Chaowa Pawa (1959) starring Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen which was directed by Yatrik, a group he had formed along with Dilip Mukherjee and Sachin Mukherjee. He directed two more films under the Yatrik banner, Kancher Swarga (1962) and Palatak (1963), before he went independent with Alor Pipasha (1965). Kancher Swargo, shot almost totally inside a studio-constructed hospital, dealt with a doctor who is faced with the ugly story of his medical past when he had gone wrong and was jailed.
The most memorable film in his entire oeuvre is Balika Badhu (1967) which saw the debut of the 14-year-old Moushumi Chatterjee in the title role and was later produced in Hindi by Shakti Samanta. The film is narrated through the voice-over of an elderly man who happened to be the teenage husband of the child bride many years ago. It is the story of the coming-of-age of the bride, who has no clue about the romantic and sexual side of marriage, with Chatterjee giving a fascinating performance.
Majumdar introduced some of the best talents in Bengali cinema and drew wonderful performances out of actors whose versatility had remained largely unexplored in other films. Perhaps the best example of this was his choice to cast Anup Kumar as the hero in two of his best films, Palatak and Nimantran (1971). The actor had always played comic roles but though Uttam Kumar had expressed a wish to play the lead in Palatak, Tarun Majumdar chose Anup. And what a performance came out of this choice! The three most talented actors Majumdar introduced are Tapas Pal, Moushumi Chatterjee and Sandhya Roy — he married Roy later, although the two separated after some time.
Music, especially Tagore’s compositions, assumed special significance in all of Majumdar’s films not only in terms of rendering but also in the way the songs were visualised and positioned within the narrative. His film Alo (2003), a massive box-office hit, with Rituparna Sengupta playing the title role, was adapted from a Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay story. The film, with seven beautifully rendered and imaginatively positioned Tagore songs, revived interest in Rabindra Sangeet. In Nimantran, another outstanding film which was also based on a Bandopadhyay story, Majumdar used Tagore’s ‘Purano Shei Diner Kawtha Bhulbi Ki Re Hai’ as the theme. Another Tagore song, ‘Doorey Kothai, Doorey Doorey’ was placed beautifully in a picnic sequence to establish the loneliness of a young girl. The film also uses Tagore’s famous poem, Nirjharer Swapno Bhango, recited without dramatic inflections by the hero, played by Anup Kumar, to express his free spirit when he first arrives in Bakulpur.
In Balika Badhu, the resident tutor for the kids, an old man, plays the tunes of Amar Shonar Bangla and Aami Tomay Bhalobashi on his violin. Later in the film, when the police arrive to arrest him, we discover that he was a terrorist in disguise and the significance of the tune is made clear. In his big hit Dadar Kirti, Majumdar uses a beautiful Tagore song — Chawrono Dhorite Diyogo Amaare, Niyona Niyona Shawraaye — sung by the nondescript hero to effectively bring across the climax without the use of a single line of dialogue. The same film begins with a scene from Tagore’s dance drama Chitrangada to introduce the heroine and set the pace of the film.
Majumdar was a director with his heart in the right place. During his last days, when he was very ill, on slips of paper he wrote about the new film he wanted to shoot. He wrote, “The film will be made.” The producer was ready. The recce was over. He was working on the script when he fell ill. He was 91.
The writer is a film scholar and critic
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