Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 19, 2020)

“I never saw Dada without a book on the sets. Between shots, he was always immersed in an English novel whose cover changed every few days,” recalls filmmaker Ashim Samanta about his father producer-director Shakti Samanta’s frequent collaborator Utpal Dutt. “Curious, I once asked him how long it took him to complete one and Dada said three-five days. A voracious reader, he must have also read Shakespeare a million times.”

When still in college, Dutt toured with Geoffrey Kendal’s Shakespeareana Theatre Company across India and Pakistan for two years, playing Brutus in Julius Ceaser, Horatio in Hamlet and Antonio in The Merchant Of Venice. Within three years of Independence, he set up a cosmopolitan theatre group, Amateur Shakespearana, adapting Julius Ceaser in contemporary costumes and bringing a World War setting to the stage. For him it was, to quote Jacques from As You Like It, “All the world’s a stage; And all the men and women merely players.” And it was in a play in Kolkata, in the early ’70s, that Shakti da spotted him. He had already accepted Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Guddi to pay off a Rs 12 lakh debt brought on by theatre, and agreed to play the main villain in Shaktida’s Hindi-Bengali bilingual, Amanush.

Based on a novel by Shaktipada Rajguru, the film revolved around the misunderstood scion of a zamindar family, Madhusudhan Roy Chaudhury, reduced to a much-maligned, misunderstood penniless drunk by the family munim, Maheem Ghoshal. Ghoshal is eventually unmasked and Madhu, absolved of all blame, is reunited with his lady love, Rekha, by inspector Bhuvan during a short time in the small fishing village. “It was the description of this village in the Sundarbans that caught dad’s interest. He met the writer and asked him if he’d actually visited this place he had described so vividly. When Rajguru admitted to having been there, dad got into a boat with him and his cinematographer, Aloke Dasgupta, excited to see it for himself,” Ashim recounts.

By the time they reached, it was evening. In the gathering gloom, the place looked deserted, desolate and unlike the Eden of his dreams. Disappointed and far away from home, Shakti da decided to sleep in the boat and spent the night warding off swarms of mosquitoes. At some point, he nodded off. His eyes opened around dawn and the picture he saw took him back to the remote village in the Sundarbans with a unit of 150, which included Bengal’s matinee idol Uttam Kumar, who played Madhu, Sharmila Tagore, who was cast opposite him and Dutt as the wily munim. “Amanush began with the titles playing out against the colours of a glorious sunrise he had woken up to that day and captured on screen for posterity,” he narrates.

The village had only a handful of huts. Shaktida built pucca houses at a height of three-four feet to ward off snakes, as also crocodiles and baby sharks, which infested the surrounding waters. The famous Royal Bengal tigers prowled the surrounding jungles, but the light from three generators he’d carted along, ensured they kept their distance. “They were there for almost 40-50 days and dad was so happy with Dada, both as a person and an actor, that after Amanush, he became a regular in our films,” says Ashim.

He remembers that the introverted Dutt, who only visited their home for the occasional party when in Mumbai, was jovial during shoots. “I was still studying during Amanush, but whenever I dropped by, I’d see dad, Dada and Uttam Kumar laughing. Dada walked with an exaggerated limp in the film and many of the jokes centered around his gait and speech,” Ashim reminisces, pointing out that Dutt had great comic timing which was evident in Amanush, and brought on the laughs in films like Gol Maal, Naram Garam and Shaukeen, starting the trend of comic villains patented by Shakti Kapoor, Kader Khan and Amrish Puri in later years.

Three years after Amanush, Shakti da returned to the Sundarbans. “The houses dad had built for Amanush had been handed over to the locals, who were able to boost tourism by renting them out to holidaymakers and globetrotters. He had them renovated for another long outdoors for Anand Ashram,” informs Ashim, about the film revolving around three generations, with Ashok Kumar as the grandfather, Uttam Kumar as his estranged son and Rakesh Roshan his grandson.

A third bilingual was Anusandhan/Barsaat Ki Ek Raat, based on another Shaktipada Rajguru novel, Anusandhan, with Dutt as the corrupt Sahuji, who, with his son Kaliram, unleashes a reign of terror in a slumbering hill station, till a stranger in a Sombrero hat comes in their way. “Amjad Khan as Kaali was the main villain, Dada was there only for the first 25-day schedule in Darjeeling and we had a blast,” he reminisces. Their last film together was the Indo-Bangladeshi co-production, Aar Paar. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t go to Bangladesh and very little was shot here. But Dada was absolutely brilliant as the crooked and lecherous greedy Mahesh Manna.”

The world continued to be Utpal Dutt’s stage, till the curtains came down on August 19, 1993.

Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 16, 2018)

This story goes back to Singapore, when Shakti Samanta was shooting his 1960 thriller, Singapore, there with Shammi Kapoor. The filmmaker was going through a rough patch because Naughty Boy, the romcom he was producing and directing with Kishore Kumar and Madhubala, had stopped abruptly after 10 reels. The doctor had forbidden Madhubala to shoot for even a day after they detected a hole in her heart. The film had to be re-shot with a new heroine, Kalpana, leaving Shakti in the red.

“Noticing the worry writ large on his face, Shammi uncle asked him one day why he’d retreat into a shell occasionally and dad explained what had happened,” Shakti’s son Ashim reminisces. “Shammi uncle told him to start another film with him, pointing out that since his market was good, he’d be able to sell it easily and get money. That’s how China Town happened, after which dad never looked back.”

However, while they were shooting the film which had Shammi in a double role, money was tight and Shakti requested Shammi to delay the last instalment till after the release. China Town was a huge hit and 10 days after it opened, the filmmaker went to Shammi’s house with the balance. He was left sitting in the living room for 10 minutes. On his return Shammi told him he’d been speaking to a top actor who when told that Shakti had delayed the payment, had snidely remarked, “Tab to tere paise mile.” “I told him my friends are not like his, you’re here now with the money,” he informed.

Shammi, Shakti and Jaikishan (from the Shankar-Jaikishan composer duo) were the three musketeers who went by the names of Shammi, Shaky and Jacky and it was a given that Kashmir Ki Kali would have music by Shakar-Jaikishan. But just before it rolled, O P Nayyar who’d worked with Shakti in two films, including Howrah Bridge, confided that he was going through a bad patch and had many songs in stock. Not wanting to disappoint, Shakti hopped over to O P Nayyar’s music room where the composer played around 100 tunes for him from which he selected 20. The next day he called Shammi to tell him about this treasure trove. “When he demurred saying they had already decided on Shankar-Jaikishan, dad suggested they visit O P Nayyar’s music room together that evening to listen to these 20 tunes. If he didn’t like them, they’d go back to S-J. Shammi uncle picked 12, eight were used in Kashmir Ki Kali and four in Sawan Ki Ghata,” narrates Ashim.

For An Evening in Paris they went back to Shankar-Jaikishan and for “Aasmaan Se Aaya Farishta” came up with the brainwave of having Shammi serenade Sharmila Tagore from a helicopter with Shammi suggesting he hang out from it. But on the day of the shoot in Beirut, he had an attack of nerves and had to fortify himself with a huge peg of brandy. “But then they realised that the roar of the helicopter was drowning out the music so dad stood right below and mimed the lines with his mouth. Reading his lips while hanging from the sky, Shammi uncle synced it perfectly. It was an incredible feat,” marvels Ashim

They did two more films together, Pagla Kahin Ka and Jaane Anjaane and Ashim remembers his uncle as a flamboyant guy, full of life and fun, and a flirt who’d stand on the balcony attached to their hall, blowing kisses at the girls screaming his name from their balconies and they’d swoon. “He was our Elvis Presley, even off screen. There’s never been another star like Shammi Kapoor,” he asserts.

Shakti Samanta bid the world goodbye on April 9, 2009. On August 14, 2011, it was curtains for Shammi but their “Asmaan Se Aaya Farishta” lives on.