Chetana to dedicate birth anniversary show to Soumitra Chatterjee

Legends such as Soumitra Chatterjee live on. And so does their passion for performances. Thespian Arun Mukhopadhyay’s theatre group Chetana, which will celebrate its 48^th year on November 22, will stage double plays at the Academy. “It’s a special evening and we have decided to dedicate it to Soumitra Chatterjee. In fact, in 2018, he inaugurated Chetana’s 46^th birth anniversary show. When we approached him, he readily agreed to do it.We had a long association with him,” said actor Sujan Mukhopadhyay, the younger son of Arun Mukhopadhyay.

Sujan, who completed shooting for Parambrata Chattopadhyay’s film Abhijan based on Soumitra Chatterjee’s life, is extremely saddened by the actor’s demise. “We just have the dubbing left. As always, it was a great learning experience shooting with Soumitra Chatterjee. I have had the good fortune of sharing screen space with him in the ’90s quite a few times. One was in Wheelchair in 1992. Then we did a detective series on television by Tapan Sinha. I also got to work with him in other television series,” said Sujan.
Sujan remembers the late veteran actor fondly for his honesty to his work and a certain amount of unbelievable modesty coming from a person of his stature. “He loved to talk and share his experiences with everyone on the sets. We used to be eager to hear his stories. He had a habit of asking his co-actors ‘thik shot dilam toh?’ after enacting a scene. He even asked me once. And the best part is it was a genuine query from him. But what can one say to such legends,” Sujan recalled.

Sujan shares the same passion for acting, whether on screen or on stage, as Soumitra Chatterjee. It’s been eight long months of struggle with the pandemic and the lockdown in between before Sujan could bring his group to perform a couple of new plays. And what better occasion than to stage them on Chetana’s birth anniversary this year? “The situation is tough for theatre artistes these days. Still, I thought of this plan but I am not sure why and how far will we be able to recover the losses. It’s probably just to lift the spirit of the group. We will stage a double act with two new plays, Kusum Kusum – an adaptation of Girish Karnad’s English play, Flower, and Girgiti taken from a story by Anton Chekhov. I am acting in one and directing the other. There are 730 seats at the Academy and we are allowed to fill only 273. So, keeping our fingers crossed,” said Sujan.