Tirthankar Mitra
Opinions are divided about the wisdom of conferring Dada Saheb Phalke award on veteran actor, Mithun Chakraborty. If high brow film critics are not too happy at this prestigious award being given to Mithun, this tribe of dissenters are outnumbered by his fans whose age group cuts across the generation divide.
Yet the individuals who have torn Mithun’s performance to shreds in many of hit films and those who wolf whistled from the stalls in appreciation of the man whose gyrations on screen made him a star overnight, have one point in common. Both have immense faith in his histrionic skills.
It is this ability of the North Calcutta boy that helped him to get under the skin of any character. Small wonder, Mithun effortlessly shared screen space with Amitabh Bachchan in Ganga, Jamuna, Saraswati a potboiler showing no trace of the simplicity and anger which were part and parcel of his role in his debut film.
Such acting prowess did not go unrewarded. It catapulted him from mean streets of north Kolkata to the pinnacle of stardom in what was still called Bombay. Mithun Chakraborty undertook a long and tortuous journey to stardom.
He had started with a bang. Mrinal Sen ushered Mithun before the arc lights in Mrigaya in 1976. Essaying the role of a tribal who kills a money lender for having abducted his wife, one does not recall another actor who could have put in a better performance in his debut film.
But then Mrigaya bring an art house film, the film honchos in Bollywood did not take the tall, dark young man from Kolkata with the seriousness he deserved. After all, not many an actor trying his luck in the big film studios of the “city of dreams” have won a best actor award for his debut venture on screen in national film award ceremony.
Not one critic or biographer can say that Mithun did not have to look back post his debut film. He journeyed to Bollywood but he had to pass it’s acid test.
It was no hop, skip and jump for the man whose current living spaces are designers dreams and his fleet of cars envy of many a peer. By Mithun’s own admission, he spent nights on park benches. But it brought out a tougher man out of him. It also fine tuned his mindset to raise his screen performance to greater heights.
Having neither family connections nor godfathers in Bombay stood in Mithun’s way of bagging a hero’s role in a top notch production. But as they say one cannot keep a talent down for long.. He made history dressed in glittering pant-suit, while lip-syncing Bappi Lahiri’s “Koi yahan nacche nacche” and the rest was history. Mithun Chakraborty was the first star to be member of the 100-crore club.
What about Vijay Benedict’s runaway hit “I am a disco dancer” in B. Subhash’s Disco Dancer. This film grossed over Rs 90 crore in erstwhile Soviet Union. Henceforth, Mumbai would no longer be sticky terrain for Mithun. Disco Dancer was proof that he was here to stay.
Post Disco Dancer, Mithun chose projects that guaranteed mass appeal. His presence in them was a guarantee of box office success. One must not lose sight of the fact that it was the age of Angry
Young Man, Amitabh Bachchan. But Mithun from Bengal made his place in it as a working man’s hero. This is a manifestation of Mithun’s talent and his ability to switch from art house to pot boiler films. It makes him stand out from other male lead actors.
Here is an actor who won a national award for his role in enacting Swami Vivekananda. It was the same man who effortlessly stepped into the shoes MLA Phatakesto, a film about a goon. One readily recalls Titli when sharing screen space with Aparna Sen, Mithun reenacts his life and living as a top bracket hero who awash in the adulation of his fans is actually lonely in a crowd. Remember his performance as a former freedom fighter in Tahader Katha who has lost his mind but not his mindset.
Starting as a darling of CPI(M) leaders like late Subhash Chakraborty, becoming a Rajya Sabha member for Trinamool Congress and then joining BJP in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the veteran actor has worn many hats. But it never dipped his fan following.
Starting from a modest beginning, Mithun has scaled the peak of success. En route, “the man from literally nowhere, a nobody” as he described himself, has penned a real life story of talent and perseverance which is as thrilling as a film script. At 74. Mithun is still active both in Bengali and Hindi films. He got the information on Monday when he was in the studio in Kolkata shooting for a film. During coming puja festival also, one of his films will be released in Kolkata. That will give added satisfaction to the thespian who despite his luxurious lifestyle in Mumbai, has a nostalgia for his struggling days in this city of joy and sorrow. (IPA)
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