Making of a mahanayak | Uttam Kumar centenary @ Kolkata Centre for Creativity

There are two people Bengal will forgive everything for, no matter the crime,” asserted Sanjoy Mukhopadhyay, a film studies scholar, at a talk for the exhibition GURU—Uttam Kumar at 100: The Making of Bengal’s Eternal Star. “One of them is a fictional character, Devdas; the other is actor Uttam Kumar.” Interestingly, the titular role of Devdas in the 1979 film was played by Kumar’s ‘rival’, actor Soumitra Chattopadhyay. Chattopadhyay’s daughter, thespian Poulomi Bose, also alludes to the rivalry. “People loved pitting my father Soumitra against Uttam Kumar. But at home, Uttam jethu (uncle) was a revered figure,” she says.