You become an internationally acclaimed star with your very first film outing and then decide to become a “cinema-recluse”, refusing later roles outright. Slowly, but absolutely calculatedly, the actor moves into the realms of anonymity. And yet, when the actor passes away the world feels the loss of an immortal artist. A great story fit for cinema but is something like that possible in real life?
Yes, indeed that is possible as the life and death of Uma Dasgupta (Sen) has shown us.One must also add that it is possible if the role portrayed by the actor on the silver screen was that of the older Durga in Satyajit Ray’s all-time classic Pather Panchali.
Uma Dasgupta (Sen post marriage) passed away after a long fight with cancer in Kolkata on November 18. The Durga of Pather Panchali will remain alive but the mortal remains of the actor who gave life to the character have been reduced to ashes. She was 84.
I watched Pather Panchali many times over the years, each time carrying away with me a different reading of the film. As thousands of film aficionados across the globe would vouchsafe Ray as a filmmaker had the supreme ability to transcend the limits of literature while turning a novel into a film. His way of creating dialogue was just like we spoke in our normal lives – nothing decorative, not pedantic, not arrogant or even dramatic in any way. And his discovery of actors as if out of thin air was once again underscored in the selection of child actors for Pather Panchali ; Uma Dasgupta and Subir Banerjee who played Durga and Apu respectively.
Not only did Uma Dasgupta, the Durga of Pather Panchali, never step into the studio floors again, but she also avoided any discussion on her only film later on. She went on to pursue a different career as a teacher after finishing her Masters Degree followed with a B.Ed. She took up teaching as a profession for many years and enjoyed it thoroughly.
Uma was the daughter of Poltu Dasgupta, a famous footballer of Mohan Bagan,a conservative, middle-class Bengali who, even in his wildest dreams, would have not thought of a film career for his daughter Uma. He stood firm in refusing Ray his daughter’s entry into films. No one knew who Satyajit Ray was as this was his first, full-length feature film.
Then, an elder sister of Uma came to the rescue. She argued that this film was based on a famous classic by Bibhuti Bhushan Bandopadhyay whose wife, after many failed attempts by other filmmakers, agreed to part with the original only for Satyajit Ray. Then began the hunt for new actors to feature in the film. The sister did not forget to add that Ray was the son of the famous Sukumar Ray.
While Bijoya Ray, Satyajit Ray’s wife, accidentally discovered little Subir to play Apu, Uma was discovered by Ray’s assistant Ashish Burman who found this 12-year-old girl with large, expressive eyes. He brought her directly to Ray’s residence and asked him to take a look. She was wearing a green frock and a pearl chain around her neck. Ray smiled and told her to take off the pear chain. Legend has it that he told her, “Durga is a very poor Brahmin’s daughter. She cannot wear that chain.” And Durga was in.
Shooting began in 1952 and by then, Uma has learnt to drape her sari without a blouse till her knees, to tie her hair up in a bun in preparation for the photo shoots Ray clicked on his own still-camera. Ray had also checked how she would look when the rains lashed her face by wetting her face and clicking her, even clicking her with her tongue sticking out in an easy, childish banter which she had to realise in the shoot.
Uma was a natural when it came to acting and this has been stated by Ray himself. She would grasp not only the character she was portraying but also the emotional variations and the changes in body language the character demanded. She beautifully expresses her deep affection for her little brother Apu as she wakes him up from sleep in the morning, combs his hair and wipes his mouth stained with milk.
Pather Panchali has depicted many incidents related to food. The little Durga hides a guava she has stolen from the Mukherjees’ garden inside an earthen pot under a bunch of bananas. When Apu attends the village school in the grocer’s shop, we find him drinking milk from a big bowl and as he finishes it, some milk trails down the corners of his mouth. We never see Durga drinking milk.
In the shop laden with different items of raw and ready-to-eat food, a little girl arrives to ask for a paisa worth of puffed rice. A visitor arrives at the shop and after some small talk, manages to steal a small bottle of cooking oil from the grocer for free. Just before the famous train sequence, we find Durga chewing on a stick of sugarcane. She hands a piece to Apu later on as they walk through the kash fields towards the sound of the approaching train.
There are some scenes marked by subtlety and Uma excels in them. In many of these scenes we see Durga as a character fond of snatching whatever item she can, especially food. She listens neither to the warnings of the Mukherjees nor to her mother’s threats and keeps stealing guavas and raw mangoes from their garden. She makes a pickle-like mix and shares it with Apu on the sly, warning him not to tell their mother. With her friends, she organises a festive ‘picnic’ near their house during which the children cook a real grovel made of rice and dal over a wooden fire, after a spat over who was to bring the salt and the cooking oil.
In one scene, Sarbojaya asks Durga to fetch molasses for two paisa because she wants to make payesh (a sweet dish) for Apu. Durga knows it is only for her brother but the preference given to her little brother is accepted by her. She loves him very much.
The famous scene where she eggs Apu on to follow the sweet vendor who has a treasure trove right to the home of her affluent friend is another example of her craving for food. The children enjoy the fragrance of the sweets and follow the vendor in the hope that wherever he goes, they might get to sample some. A stray dog follows them and we see their shadows in the pond running beside the muddy road. Does this mean that Durga is a glutton? No, it is clear that she craves food all the time because she is deprived of basic food. Sneaking into the neighbour’s garden fills her hunger and simultaneously brings some adventure into her bleak life.
The story goes that much after Pather Panchali became internationally famous, Uma’s school, the Beltala Girls School on Beltala Road, declared a holiday for the entire school so that the the students could go to watch the film!
Uma Dasgupta taught English and Maths at the Jadavpur Vidyapeeth School for around two decades or more. This was after she graduated from Asutosh College followed by her Masters. But her affection for children was so deep that she would often come to school even after she had retired.
Her peers in the school, most of whom must have retired by now, speak of her fondly in remembrance. She is said to have refused to be interviewed for a special issue on Ray after his demise which focused on the child actors in his films. She said that she preferred to be remembered as Durga and also refused to be photographed. Clearly she wooed anonymity.
But who can stop the stirrings of creative history !! Uma has passed away. But Durga is immortal.
