Return of the Legend

As Sharmila Tagore makes her comeback to Bengali cinema with Puratawn, there is more to celebrate with her iconic film Mausam completing 50 glorious years

- SHANTANU RAY CHAUDHURI

It is rather fitting that Sharmila Tagore returns to Bengali cinema with Puratawn after a hiatus of over two decades, in 2025, a year that marks the 50th year of Mausam (1975), one of her finest performance in Hindi cinema. It is interesting to look at an actor at the top of her game at 80, as she is in Puratawn and compare that with what she brought to the table 50 years ago.

What Sharmila Tagore delivers in Puratawn is arguably among her finest, a performance at par with her earliest ones in Satyajit Ray's Apur Sansar and Devi. A performance that in its silences and pauses is a world removed from the abrasive and foul-mouthed Kajli in Mausam. Yet over the span of 50 years that separates the two films, one can see similarities between them, not least in the actor's craft.

The past looms over both Puratawn and Mausam. If in Mausam the actor had a dual role, that of mother and daughter, Puratawn too is at the core a mother-daughter tale which, in the way director Suman Ghosh conceives of Sharmila's character, has her essay what in essence are three different roles.