“Basu Chatterji remains a very underrated and underappreciated filmmaker”
Anirudha Bhattacharjee’s first book ‘R.D. Burman: The Man, the Music’ won the National Award for Best Book on Cinema. His second book, ‘Gaata Rahe Mera Dil – 50 Classic Hindi Film Songs’ was the winner of the inaugural MAMI Book Award for Excellence in Writing on Cinema. S.D. Burman – ‘The Prince, the Musician’ came after this followed by ‘Kishore Kumar – The Ultimate Biography’. This year saw the release of his new book, ‘Basu Chatterji And Middle-of-the-Road Cinema’. This book is the first he has authored without a co-author. Also, this is his first on a film personality away from the world of film music in a direct way.
Anirudha is an amateur musician and an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur who lives in Kolkata. He has no direct link with films, Indian or otherwise. Professionally, he belongs to a world that is not even remotely linked to films. Yet, his love for Hindi films and film music in particular has pushed him to write four books focused on Hindi film music.
Your earlier books were on certain kinds of music and music composers in Indian cinema. What made you choose a multi-faceted filmmaker like Basu Chatterjee for this book?
My parents were film buffs, and it is courtesy their interest that pushed me to go with them to watch films as a little boy. I would tag along, often to have chanachur and ice cream. The good part is that they saw very sensible films, and I got to learn names like Satyajit Ray, Tapan Sinha, Tarun Majumdar, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, et al. By the time I was twelve, I had developed a taste for good cinema, specially from class IX through to class XII. I spent my childhood in Bihar, so naturally, my exposure was more to Hindi films. When I started writing quizzes and features on cinema and music (from mid-1986), it was mostly on Hindi cinema and music. Music comes naturally to me; I am known for my musical (especially singing) abilities. Hence my initial books were all on music.
Why Basu Chatterjee then?
Basu Chatterji is a filmmaker I admire a lot. His films Chitchor, Chhoti si Baat, Khatta Meetha, etc made me laugh out loud during my adolescence. Incidentally, I found that there was very little literature on him, while his contemporaries like Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Gulzar were the toast of the media. I thought – why don’t I write a book on Basu da? I had seen almost all his Hindi films, some of them many times.
How long did it take for you from choosing the subject till sending the final draft to your publishers?
I first met Basu da in 2014 and floated the idea of writing a book on him via his daughter Rupali. I had the habit of taking notes from newspapers and magazines (unfortunately all gone due to shifting between cities) and had in my collection a few interviews he had given. I interviewed him in 2015. During 2020-21, I managed to interview over 50-60 people who were related to Basu da or his cinema in some way or the other. The actual writing happened after I got the contract, in late 2021. It was completed by December 2021. It took approximately 5-6 months.
What do you think led Penguin Vintage to accept your proposal and then your manuscript?
The proposal was accepted maybe because my previous books, especially the R D Burman one, had done well. I am not very sure. There were hardly any changes to the manuscript that I submitted. Except for ironing out anything which could have had legal complications.
How would you, in your own words, describe Basu Chatterjee as a filmmaker, a television serial maker, and a human being?
To me, he will remain an excellent filmmaker who could have done better by making fewer films. TV serials – I think he was quite good. I Loved Rajani and Darpan. Also, his Byomkesh Bakshi carried the old-world innocence we miss today. I found him to be very unassuming and simple. He had absolutely no airs. He also had a child-like streak. I remember him crying when talking about Basu Bhattacharya and singing out loudly in memory of S D Burman.
Can you elaborate on your description of Rajani as “the female reincarnation of Amitabh Bachchan” of the 1970s. Is it because of Priya Tendulkar and the image she projected as a rebellious housewife, or was it was the very character conceived of by Chatterjee that led you to draw this conclusion?
Both. The concept was extraordinarily strong. It touched a raw nerve. And Priya looked the determined housewife with nerves of steel who would tolerate no nonsense. Basu da’s sense of casting was wonderful. There were many contenders for the role – Moushumi Chatterjee, Anita Raj, Bharti Achrekar, et al. But there was something in Priya which gave Basu Chatterji the feeling that she was the lady who would look the character he wanted to depict on the screen. Like Rajit Kapur for Byomkesh. He spoke to him for only 10 minutes… and finalised him for such a significant role.
This is perhaps the first time for you to have taken on such a voluminous work all by yourself without a co-author. May I ask why?
Actually, I started the book with my friend and frequent collaborator Balaji Vittal. After some time, he got busy with the book Pure Evil (Harper Collins, 2021). Hence, I decided to do it myself. But he did some major interviews for the book and helped in framing a few chapters.
I am shocked that there is no detailed info on his National Award-winning film Durga anywhere across the NET though it won the National Award. Can you please give some details about this film as I have not watched it at all and had not even heard of it till I read about it in your book?
Unfortunately, it is not there at NFAI (National Film Archive of India) as well. I searched for this film during my visit in 2021. The heroine Sukanya Kulkarni too is not sure if the film is there or not. I have not seen the film. She plays a maid who washes dishes for a living in the film. It is about her and how society deals with her. It was shot at location in Chattisgarh. That’s about it.
After having researched so much on Basu Chatterjee and his cinema, how would you personally rank the best five feature films and also the best five television serials he made during his lifetime.
This is a very tough question. Listing my ten favourite films, in chronological order – Sara Akash, Piya ka Ghar, Rajanigandha, Chhoti si Baat, Chitchor, Swami, Khatta Meetha, Apne Paraye, Shaukeen, Chameli ki Shaadi. Among my favourite serials I would like to choose Rajani, Darpan, Byomkesh Bakshi.
One of your chapters is titled – MIDDLE OF THE ROAD OR END OF THE ROAD. Can you elaborate why you say this?
I feel that the middle of the road cinema took a nosedive in the mid-1980s. There were no Rajanigandhas or Chitchors or Naram Garams. Except for the films by Sai, like Chasm-e-Buddor and Katha, all we had were hardcore commercial stuff (the Amitabh Bachchan / Dharmendra variety of films) or the Jeetendra-Sridevi films from the south where vulgarity / double entendre ruled. Or pure art / parallel films like Bazaar, Damul or Kamla. There was nothing in between that the middle class could identify with and smile / sing along. People were more glued to the television sets after Asiad 1982, and serials like Hum Log and Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi were huge favourites. Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Gulzar also struggled during the phase 1983-1990. They too, especially Gulzar had shifted to TV serials.
What is your take-away from this work?
Just that Basu Chatterji remains a very underrated and underappreciated filmmaker. Not even a Padma Award. Don’t you feel it is ridiculous? Thankfully, the audience remembers him. And most of us who have grown up on his cinema love him. He was also someone who appreciated his technicians and would have the best to work for him in the first 10-12 years of his film career. KK Mahajan, Narinder Singh, Bansi Chandragupta, A K Bir… all added value to the cinema of Basu Chatterji. And he understood that.
Shoma A. Chatterji is a freelance journalist, film scholar and author. She has authored 17 published titles and won the National Award for Best Writing on Cinema, twice. She won the UNFPA-Laadli Media Award, 2010 for ‘commitment to addressing and analysing gender issues’ among many awards.