Opinion Tarun Majumdar’s films drew deep from the well of Bengali life and literature

Filmmaker Tarun Majumdar, who died in Kolkata on Tuesday at the age of 92, was beloved by the average Bengali moviegoer for the “middle-of-the-road” cinema that was, in a different part of the country and in another language, identified with Basu Chatterjee and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. His films, such as Balika Badhu (1967), Shriman Prithviraj (1973) and Dadar Kirti (1980), bridged the gulf between arthouse and commercial films, drawing droves to the theatres with their gently-told tales, while also charming critics with their literary sensibility and deft direction.

Majumdar began his filmmaking career as part of a directorial collective called Yatrik, which he formed with Dilip and Sachin Mukherjee. Yatrik had a hit with its very first film, Chaowa Pawa (1959), while its last, Palatak (1963), was produced by the redoubtable V Shantaram. As Majumdar developed his own filmmaking approach, he eventually struck his own path with Alor Pipasa (1965). Majumdar’s post-Yatrik career was hugely successful, flitting from theme to theme and genre to genre with enviable ease — if he helped redefine romance with Bhalobasha Bhalobasha (1985), in Ganadevata (1978), he explored the effects of mob mentality in a village. A four-time National Award winner, he also had an eye for talent, and was credited with the discovery of some of Bengali cinema’s most celebrated actors, such as Moushumi Chatterjee, Tapas Paul and Mahua Roychoudhury.

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Although he made brief forays into Hindi cinema with remakes — Balika Badhu (1976) and Rahgir (1969, based on Palatak) — Majumdar’s large, influential corpus is mostly unknown outside Bengal. This could be put down to what is described by critics as the essential “Bengaliness” of his films, which was not easily rendered in other languages and cultures. While the holy triad of Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen continues to dominate how the world views Bengali cinema, that untranslatable quality, which draws from the well of Bengali life and literature, has ensured Majumdar’s own place in the pantheon.

This editorial first appeared in the print edition on July 6, 2022, under the title, ‘Gentle storyteller’.