Reel life and real life-Preity Zinta & P.C.Barua
There are 2 persons I remember in Indian film industry whose real lives were modulated by their reel lives. One is Preity Zinta and another is Pramathesh Chandra Barua.
Recently media was abuzz with breakup of Preity Zinta and Ness Wadia. Apparently if gossip columns are to be believed, Ness wanted to marry Preity and turn her into a domesticated housewife or trophy wife (in Page 3 parlance). But Preity being a feisty lady resisted and called it quits. Immediately my mind goes back to one of her films, Lakshya (released in 2004, directed by Farhan Akhtar) where Preity played the role of a TV journalist and similarly said ‘No’ to her screen-boyfriend’s marital advance. That screen-boyfriend was also a corporate Czar and courted Preity and wanted her to leave her profession once she got married (in the reel life). Ness Wadia, a scion of Bombay Dyeing in real life supposedly wished so with Preity. And Preity chucked both advances-in reel as well as real life. How close is the resemblance!
Another man Pramathesh Barua was inseparable from his Devdas image. In fact he belonged to a princely family of Assam and his life dissolved in tragedy and alcoholism like Devdas. Only difference was this….Pramathesh did not die ruing unfulfilled romantic interest, Devdas did. But Pramatesh’s circumstances during and before death matched so much with Devdas that Ashish Nundy, the psychoanalyst and social commentator, wrote famously “Barua did not create Devdas, he was Devdas.” Pramathesh Barua had a troubled relation with his father who wanted him to take charge of Gouripur estate. But Pramathesh thought otherwise and started Barua film unit. Apradhi, Nishir dak , Bengal 1983 were made under his banner. But commercial losses of Bengal 1983 compelled him to sell his film company and join New Theatres. Barua made several hit movies like Rooplekha,Adhikar,Grihadaha,Mukti and Rajat Jayanti with New theatres, Devdas being his best. Apart from the masses, his Devdas was appreciated by none other than Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, the creator of Devdas. Before Uttam Kumar, Pramathesh was the crowning prince of Bengali movies. Many say he introduced a genre of acting free from theatrical excesses. But after a brief stint he left New Theatres. He made several movies outside the banner of New Theatres. But nothing matched the success of Devdas.
Pramathesh took to alcohol after he suffered losses in his film-producing ventures. He died at an early age of 48 in 1951. When the news of his demise came to B.N.Sircar’s residence( B.N.Sircar , son of viceregal counsel Sir Nripendra Nath Sircar, established New Theatres) in Elgin Road, Calcutta Mr.Sircar became grief-stricken. It was Pramathesh Barua’s last wish that his cortege should pass through Elgin Road so that Mr.Sircar could see and pay the last respect to the screen-hero he made. Barua used to stay nearby in Mullen Street in Chakraberia of Calcutta. (He had another house in Ballygunge Circular Road called Gouripur house ; hence Ballygunge Circular Road has been renamed P.C.Barua Sarani in his memory). And Barua made this strange request because he already knew Mr.Sircar had severe illness and had to be confined in his house for treatment. So keeping in mind the influential presence of Sircar in Barua’s life the Barua household decided to act according to Pramathesh’s last wish. Dilip Sircar, son of Mr.B.N.Sircar describes this scene poignantly. “In keeping with his last wish, the hearse carrying Barua’s body arrived in front of our residence. The streets were bursting with crowds gathered to pay their last respects. But I was watching my father, an old man, trying to hold his balance with the bars of a huge window, trembling and sick, waiting to pay his last respects to the man who once was apart of his favorite family-New Theatres.”(Reference: P.C.Barua, author: Shoma. A. Chatterji, Publisher: Wisdom Tree, Year: 2008). How heart-rending, isn’t it?
So I recollect 2 such examples where reel life has overridden real life. If the readers know of more such cases, please inform.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Biswa Prasun Chatterji, what’re you doing?
what is this garbage you’re reproduced supposed to be – your insight?
in this erroneous sweep of yours, with what reads like a lazily-worded obituary pulled out from 1951, you’ve brought-up PC Barua & Ashis Nandy you had no business bringing up.
when you have nothing to SAY, don’t bother.
i definitely don’t get your reminiscing series, unless when reminisced to you, which clearly isn’t the case, no?
why bother reproducing when the source themselves are excellent records?
This is what you had written once…
“…that these days Bengal has nothing to give to this country or world in the field of art and culture”.
I did not believe you then…
Now I do believe you thanks to this garbage of a post.
What a waste of space. What are you trying to tell Bishwa? Plus, you yourself arent sure about your belief in grapevine, over to that you form opinions and hurl it down the readers throat.
I guess PFC needs posts like these sometimes to show there is another duniya!!!
What was that chaterji???
What a waste of space and my office time.
Waste of time, energy and space……………………
Def not worth publishing