This year’s Dada Saheb Phalke Award, India’s highest award in the field of cinema has been conferred on Mithun Chakraborty for his contribution to Indian cinema. Indeed, Mithun’s contribution couldn’t be more diverse – from winning three national awards including one for his debut to becoming a dancing superstar in mainstream Bollywood to owning the record for the highest number of releases in a calendar year during his prolific run in 90s. This article talks about his origins which included a stint as a Naxalite:
“Growing up in the “narrow galis” of Jorabagan in North Kolkata in the 1960s, which can barely accommodate two people walking side by side, Chakraborty embodied a generation of Bengali men. Restless, angry and full of swag. It was probably that restlessness that made him participate in the Naxal movement. An uprising that ignited a fire in the hearts of both the urban youth and the rural masses in the 1960s. It was a movement that appealed to the urban youth, particularly students, because it exemplified the precise way in which the establishment could be challenged. Chakraborty was quickly “rehabilitated” after the death of his brother in a freak accident. This rehabilitation involved a film course in FTII Pune. And the rest is history.”
But brings out Mithun’s wide spectrum as well:
“Even as video cassettes of Dance Dance (1987) and Kasam Paida Karne Wale Ki (1986) flew off shelves of video libraries, your teachers chided you for your “Mithun cut” hairstyle. His songs were definitely kosher for school and Durga Puja functions. Decent boys and girls didn’t gyrate to “Zubi Zubi” (Dance Dance) on stage. They were reserved for late night drunk dancing of para rowakbaajs.
But Mithun, time and again, tried to woo this very bhodrolok audience with films like Tahader Katha (1992). In this arthouse Buddhadeb Dasgupta film, he played an ageing freedom fighter who doesn’t know what to do with his life after being a political prisoner for decades. Chakraborty won his third National Award for the film. He had won a Filmfare Award for Agneepath (1990) just a year earlier. Tahader Katha won him laurels but Mithun da was still Mithun da. A year later, in 1993, he was gyrating to “Gutur Gutur” from the 1993 film Dalal. A song that had the dubious distinction of being termed the most “vulgar” Bollywood number of the year, in the same year that had “Choli ke peeche kya hai” (Khalnayak) and “Sarkai lo khatiya” (Raja Babu). A few years later, Mithun played the revered spiritual guru, Swami Paramahansa in the 1998 film Swami Vivekananda. He won his third National Award for the film. That very year, his cult hit Gunda released to empty halls. The dialogues of the film still inspire memes galore.”
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