Middling Perfection

If Basu Chatterjee had a middle name, it would be simplicity. One of the pioneers of middle-of-the-road cinema, he passed away after a protracted illness at 90 in Mumbai on June 4. His movies neither looked like hardcore masala ventures of the likes of Manmohan Desai nor the art house cinema championed by Shyam Benegal and others. Instead, he chose to be the Buddha among the storytellers of his time, choosing the middle path traversed by only a few in the film industry.

A veritable institution in the art of simplified filmmaking, he churned out an array of wholesome family entertainers, from Saara Akash (1969) and Rajnigandha (1974) to Chitchor (1976) and Baton Baton Mein (1979) without leaning on any superstar. In fact, his films with some of the big stars of the time—Priyatama (1977) with Jeetendra, Chakravyuh (1979) with Rajesh Khanna, Manzil (1979) with Amitabh Bachchan, Dillagi (1978) with Dharmendra and Manpasand (1980) with Dev Anand—failed to click at the box office. It was his collaboration with everyman actors such as Amol Palekar, who played the quintessential middle-class hero in eight of his films, that elevated his status as an auteur extraordinaire with a refined sensibility.

Basu da, as his colleagues affectionately called him, excelled in telling stories of common people and their struggles with dollops of subtle wit and humour. The USP of his films was that he did not present any of his heroes as a superman with a traffic-stopping eye candy in his arms, capable of demolishing an army of 40 armed goons at one go without batting an eyelid. Instead, his protagonist was invariably a middle-class youth with follies and foibles, who was at times upstaged by a smarter adversary. His actors were anything but larger-than-life or over-the-top and looked no different from the man-next-door, someone the audience could instantly relate to. It was the sheer simplicity of his movies that made Basu da’s repertoire stand out.

He began his career as an illustrator-cartoonist in the now-defunct Blitz tabloid in Bombay before he moved to cinema to work as an assistant to director Basu Bhattacharya on Teesri Kasam (1966). In 1969, he began his innings as an independent director with Saara Akash, based on a novel of the same name by litterateur Rajendra Yadav. It was the year when Mrinal Sen released his iconic Bhuvan Shome and Khwaja Ahamad Abbas introduced a new actor called Amitabh Bachchan in Saat Hindustani. Moreover, a new sensation called Rajesh Khanna had taken the industry by storm with Aradhana and yet, Basu da’s ‘small’ movie received rave reviews and set the template for his signature style of cinema—no tropes or frills of masala movies that Hindi cinema was notorious for in those days.

Basu da went on to make Piya Ka Ghar (1972), Us Paar (1974), Chhoti Si Baat (1976), Safed Jhooth (1977), Priyatama (1977), Swami (1977), Khatta Meetha (1978), Apne Paraye (1980), Shaukeen (1982), Kirayadar (1986), Chameli Ki Shaadi (1986) and a slew of other movies. He also ventured out of his comfort zone by making experimental films such as Ek Ruka Hua Faisla (1986) and Kamla Ki Maut (1989), which underlined his versatility and control over his craft.

There was hardly any filmmaker of his generation as prolific as him in his heyday. During his illustrious career, he directed 40 feature films, including five Bengali movies. Trishanku (2011) was his swan song. He also found time to direct a handful of successful television serials, such as the iconic Rajani (1985), Darpan (1985), Kakaji Kahin (1988) and Byomkesh Bakshi (1993) for Doordarshan.

It is to his credit that his heavy workload could never bog him down nor diminish his passion for quality cinema. Considering that the Hindi film industry was under the sway of action-packed multi-starrers, it is remarkable he dared to make such films. For nearly two decades, Basu da arguably remained the only successful filmmaker alongside Hrishikesh Mukherjee to buck the trend and make self-deprecatory movies about middle-class society.

Basu da’s style of filmmaking went on to inspire generations of filmmakers in the decades to come. One could say that Bollywood began to follow his filmmaking template 30 years too late by acknowledging the fact that no star is bigger than the character he plays onscreen. It is a greater tribute to him than all the awards and laurels he deserved, but did not get in his lifetime.