Autumn Sonata

At 83, the only regret Bengali thespian Soumitra Chatterjee has is not having made enough money. Raghuvendra Singh reveals the heart-breaking reason.

Power duo Nandita Roy and Shiboprasad Mukherjee are shooting their next, Belashuru, in the pristine environs of Shantiniketan. The movie takes off with the same cast of their 2015 film, Belaseshe (in the autumn of life), one of the highest grossing Bengali films ever. Soumitra Chatterjee and Swatilekha Sengupta are the main leads yet again. There’s a key difference in the narratives though. While Belaseshe showcased the husband wanting to split with his aging wife of 49 years, here the story does a reversal. “Belashuru implies the beginning at the end of their life. The husband, who in Belaseshe, declared that he was opting for divorce, is now taking care of his wife suffering from Alzheimer’s disease,” reveals veteran Soumitra Chatterjee.

Soumitra is passing through a similarly uncanny phase in his life too. The actor, who at 83, should have been revelling in the afterglow of a brilliant career, finds himself under the harsh glare of reality. A tragic bike accident left his actor/musician grandson, Ronodeep Bose, seriously injured in March 2017. Having suffered head injuries, Ronodeep’s has been an excruciating recovery. At the ‘autumn of his life’, the once-not- money-minded Soumitra is doing film after film, to foot his grandson’s medical bills. If seen from a different perspective, this could well be Soumitra’s belashuru… that beginning at the end of life where hope, love, care… shine the brightest. Reproducing his reflections in his words…

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