Manoj Mitra (1938-2024): Banchharam’s garden loses its creator, and Bengal a doyen of stage and screen

His most enduring legacy is perhaps his role in Banchharamer Bagaan, considered one of the greatest performances in Bengali cinema.

Manoj Mitra was equally at home writing a hundred plays, teaching philosophy at university, performing in folk theatre or acting with his expressive eyes for Satyajit Ray and Tapan Sinha | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement

When Banchharamer Bagaan (The Garden of Banchharam), Tapan Sinha’s dark-comic masterpiece, was released in 1980, Manoj Mitra, the actor who played Banchharam, was only 42 years old. Over the course of the movie, as Banchharam ages, Mitra magically transforms from a robust middle-aged man to a feeble ancient in the throes of decrepitude; his body stiff and bent with age, his voice barely a squeak, stubbornly refusing to die. It is considered one of the greatest performances in Bengali cinema: and that one performance alone established Mitra as an immortal of the silver screen.

With the passing away of Mitra on November 12, West Bengal has lost one of its most versatile and gifted actors to ever grace the stage and the screen. He was one of the great playwrights of the modern era, who penned over a 100 plays including Sajano Bagan, which was later adapted for the screen as Banchharamer Bagan. He was equally famous for his outstanding ability to take on diverse roles for theatre, cinema, and television.

Known for his work in the films of directors such as Satyajit Ray, Tapan Sinha, Buddhadev Dasgupta, Tarun Majumdar, Basu Chatterjee and Goutam Ghose, Mitra was also universally hailed as one of the giants of Bengali theatre. He was 85 when he died.

Acting with his eyes

According to National Award-winning actor of screen and stage, Sohini Sengupta, one unique aspect of Mitra was that even though he came from a theatre background, he had no qualms about acting in films, something many theatre personalities have a problem with. “Everyone knows him for Banchharamer Bagan, but he worked in various genres of the performing arts; tried his hand at various mediums, including jatra (folk theatre of Bengal) and television, and excelled in all of them.

An actor’s constant endeavour is to connect with everyone; and the greatest aspect of Manoj Mitra’s craft was the easy manner in which he could communicate and connect with the audience. He was one actor who used his eyes a lot in his acting. His eyes were always alive to the scene,” Sengupta told Frontline.

Another unique aspect of his craft that she pointed out was the seamless manner in which he traversed between the world of academics (he was a student of philosophy and had retired as the Sisirkumar Bhaduri professor of drama from Rabindra Bharati University) and that of performing arts. “I knew him very well, and was always in awe of the ease with which he would switch from his studies to playing a villain in a television series,” said Sengupta.

Internationally acclaimed filmmaker Goutam Ghose, who had directed Mitra in a short film, The Law in 1985, remembers how brilliant Mitra was. “The main character was played by Manoj da. It was such a wonderful performance, that after watching it on television Manik da (Satyajit Ray) called to congratulate me, and said ‘what a performance by Manoj babu’,” Ghose told Frontline.

He had earlier shared the screen with Mitra in Buddhadev Dasgupta’s Grihajuddha (1982). “Manoj da acted in many films, but his main passion was theatre. He was a very serious person with a subtle sense of humour. It is such a coincidence that two days ago (November 11) we were planning to ask Manoj da to be a speaker in one of the discussions for the Tapan Sinha retrospective that is being planned for the upcoming Kolkata International Film Festival, this being Tapan Sinha’s centenary year. I was told he was recovering from an illness, but then we got the unfortunate news [of him passing] the next morning,” said Ghose.

Born on December 22, 1938 in Khulna (now in Bangladesh), Mitra was drawn to the stage from an early age when jatras would be performed during Durga Puja in the premises where he used to live. His family moved to India after the Partition, and in 1958, Mitra graduated with honours in Philosophy from Scottish Church College. It was while in college that he got deeply involved with theatre, and along with Partha Pratim Chowdhury, who would later become one of Bengal’s great film directors, began a theatre group, Sundaram in 1957. Sundaram went on to stage more than 700 plays in India and abroad. Besides writing plays and performing, Mitra was a serious academic, who had also started working on a PhD in philosophy, but did not complete it. It was theatre that took up most of his time.

Doors to movies

Though he started working in films quite late in his life (in his early 40s), he nevertheless soon established himself as a much sought-after character actor. His work in theatre had already opened doors for him, as some of the biggest names in the industry, including Ray, Tapan Sinha, and Buddhadev Dasgupta used him regularly in their projects. Just as he worked in films such as Ray’s Ghare-Baire (1984), Ganashatru (1989); Tapan Sinha’s Banchharamer Bagan, Adalat o Ekti Meye (1982), Antardhaan (1991), Wheelchair (1995); Dasgupta’s Grihajuddha, and Charachar (1994); and Basu Chatterjee’s Hothat Brishti (1998), he also acted in mainstream potboilers such as Shatru (1984), Jiban Niye Khela (1999), Adhikar (2004) and Dui Prithibi (2010).

He could carry out comedy and drama with equal mastery. He was too old to have ever become a leading man in films when he joined the industry, but he was such a consummate artiste, that just his presence—however brief—in a film, could lift the movie from mediocrity, at least for as long as he was in the scene.