Cinema's Renaissance Man

SANGHAMITRA CHAKRABORTY'S DEEPLY RESEARCHED BIOGRAPHY EXPLORES THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF SOUMITRA CHATTERJEE

- Karishma Upadhyay

Since his death in 2020, there has been a spate of biographies attempting to chronicle the life and work of Soumitra Chatterjee. Not surprising, given he was an inseparable part of Bengali culture over a career spanning 60 years. His oeuvre included critically acclaimed films like Apur Sansar (1959) and Ghare-Baire (1984) to hits like Teen Bhubaner Pare (1969) and Bela Seshe (2015). Chatterjee's contributions, though, went far beyond films. A true polymath, Chatterjee also excelled as a playwright, poet, painter and essayist. Apart from editing the reputed literary magazine Ekshan, the actor also had a collection of his plays published in three volumes and had over a dozen poetry titles to his credit. It's not easy for a biographer to do justice to such a prolific subject, but author and journalist Sanghamitra Chakraborty manages just that, to give us the definitive account of his extraordinary life in her mammoth Soumitra Chatterjee and His World.