Chheley Kaar! (1954) Cast: Bikash Roy, Master Tilak, Chhabi Biswas, Arundhati Devi, Bhanu Banerjee, Tulsi Chakraborty, Nabadwip Haldar Director: Chitta Basu The most common description of Chheley Kaar! (literally, ‘whose son?’, but the exclamation mark is important) online is that it is a romantic comedy. Which is utter
Ganga (1960) Cast: Gyanesh Mukherjee, Sandhya Roy, Ruma Guha Thakurta, Moni Srimani, Niranjan Ray, Sita Mukhopadhyay Director: Rajen Tarafdar Watching it today, it seems almost incredible that Ganga was only the second film for director-screenplay writer-actor Rajen Tarafdar, a highly underrated filmmaker whose brief body of work ought
Shankher korat Those familiar with Bengali proverbs will know all about a ‘shankher korat’, the nearest English equivalent probably being ‘between a rock and a hard place’. The proverbial ‘korat’ is a fearsome circular cutter used to carve bangles out of conch shells, and what has
Stree (1972) Cast: Uttam Kumar, Soumitra Chatterjee, Arati Bhattacharya, Bhanu Bandyopadhyay, Jahor Roy, Tarun Kumar, Subrata Chattopadhyay Director: Salil Dutta By the time Salil Dutta (1931-2004) got around to directing ‘Stree’, he already had quite an impressive body of work behind him as a filmmaker, including Surya Sikha
What is your idea of a ramp walk? Or catwalk, if you like. Slim, good-looking models walking gracefully down a ramp at a fashion show? Arms and hips swaying, shoulders straight, one foot perfectly in front of another? We suggest you readjust that visual. Because on
In February this year, Penguin Random House released Queen of Pop: The Autobiography of Usha Uthup by Srishti Jha (originally published in Hindi as Ullas Ki Naav by Vikas Jha). Few readers in Kolkata, one suspects, will need to buy the book. It is unlikely
Madhumati (1958) Cast: Dilip Kumar, Vyjayanthimala, Pran, Johnny Walker Director: Bimal Roy Rs 81 lakh was a great deal of money in 1957-58. But that was what it took to make Madhumati, Bimal Roy’s magnum opus which overshot its production schedule by months owing to several logistical disasters.
Many of you may be familiar with the Bengali term ‘mutsuddi’, or know someone whose last name is Mutsuddi. The word comes from the Persian ‘mutasaddi’, meaning scribe or secretary, and was used to describe the local commercial agents of the British East India Company
36 Chowringhee Lane (1981) Cast: Jennifer Kendal, Debashree Roy, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Geoffrey Kendal, Soni Razdan, Sanjana Kapoor, Karan Kapoor, Ruma Guha Thakurta Director: Aparna Sen Everything about 36 Chowringhee Lane was wrong for its time. The protagonist Violet Stoneham (Jennifer and Sanjana at different ages) was an elderly,
June 4, 1855. Sambad Prabhakar, a widely circulated Bengali publication of the day run by Ishwar Gupta, published a report which, loosely translated, read: “The pious Rani Rashmoni of Janbazar has established an idol of the goddess on the occasion of purnima in the month