Synopsis
Arindam Mukherjee (Uttam Kumar), a matinee
idol of the Bengali film industry undertakes
a train journey from Calcutta to Delhi to
receive a prestigious government award.
Amongst his co-passengers that range from
awe-struck admirers to the few who are outright
indifferent (and sometime hostile) to him,
is a young female journalist Aditi Sengupta
(Sharmila Tagore) who takes this opportunity
to befriend the star and interview him for
her little magazine inside the dining car.
Through the interviews, reminiscences and
dreams, the train journey traces the life
and times of the famous actor from his struggling
theater days to his meteoric rise in Bengali
films and lays bare the loneliness and insecurities
that accompany the star. At the end of the
journey Aditi tears the notes that she has
been scribbling and decides to keep the
man’s life story in her memory, not
to be shared with her readers. And the star
finds a kindred soul in her, maybe for the
first time in his starry life, despite knowing
that they will never meet again...
The film
 A
quintessential Ray
classic, Nayak is his second original
screenplay after Kanchanjunga (1962)
and the first of the two films in which
Uttam
Kumar acted in (the other being Chidiakhana
(1967)). Comprising an excellent ensemble
cast, the story moves through small and
confident strokes as different characters
are introduced inside the train and in flashbacks
that not only bring the protagonist’s
character in sharp relief, but also depict
the aspirations and insecurities of the
individual characters through small touches
as they interact with the star or outright
ignore him or feign to be indifferent to
him. The first time Aditi approaches Arindam
Mukherjee inside the dining car for an autograph,
she makes it clear that it is for her cousin.
When Arindam lays sprawled on his berth,
dead drunk and with one of his feet dangling
and touching the floor, his co-passenger,
a star struck housewife Manorama (Bharati
Devi) carefully holds his leg and puts it
back on the berth; her teenaged daughter
Bulbul (Lali Chowdhury) who is lying sick
on the upper berth on the opposite side
does not fail to notice her mother’s
servile act and remains quiet. In an earlier
scene, Manorama’s husband Mr. Bose
(Ranjit Sen) flaunts about his foreign jaunts
and his vast knowledge of American and Japanese
film industries vis-a-vis the Bengali industry
that is more interested in quantity than
quality; the condescending dig at the star
is obvious but Arindam does not mind. He
also does not mind when he meets and pays
his regard to an elderly passenger (Hiralal)
at the beginning of the journey who hates
cinema and alcohol and carries on an agenda
to banish films through his letters to the
editor in the famous newspaper The Statesman.
But Arindam does get back at him in a drunken
state later in the film in a witty scene,
much to the old man’s chagrin and
the amusement of the audience.
The film is strewn with such wonderful
moments that make it an enriching experience
and reinstates the master’s hold over
the craft of story-telling. Amongst the
gems that layer the film, one recalls a
small scene at night in which a drunk Arindam
throws an empty whiskey bottle from the
door of the speeding train and we just hear
a faint tinkle sound as it hits the receding
tracks after a few beats. That is what one
call’s a director’s touch!
Of course, the main track of Arindam and
Aditi forms the bulk of the film. In his
interactions with the young journalist,
he talks about his early theater days and
his mentor Sankar-da (Somen Bose) who was
vehemently opposed to his entry in cinema
despite an offer to act in the period Devi
Chowdhurani; the death of Sankar-da to a
stroke and his decision to take the leap
to cinema (Arindam casually flicks the butt
of his burning cigarette into the funeral
pyre of Sankar-da that marks the symbolic
end of his tryst with Sankar-da’s
ideals); his interactions with and humiliations
under the veteran film actor Mukunda Lahiri
(Bireswar Sen) whom he always considered
a bad and a loud actor; his gradual rise
and shift to a plush apartment at Ballygunge
area; the fading of the aging Mukunda Lahiri
till he comes begging for a role to his
house one night few years later but is gently
spurned by Arindam; his friendship with
Biresh (Premangshu Bose), a leftist political
leader who tries to take advantage of his
stardom to score a brownie point with striking
workers which Arindam angrily rejects because
it could affect his star persona and gain
him adverse publicity; his immersion in
costly whiskey and a flamboyant lifestyle
that is always at stake if a film happens
to flop (his latest film is poised for a
flop when the film begins, the first such
flop in his illustrious career and he is
jittery); his courtship of beautiful girls
who are awed by his charm…
Interweaving these flashbacks are personal
reminisces of the hero like his seduction
by a beautiful aspirant Promila Chatterjee
(wonderful cameo and performance by Sumita
Sanyal). In a poignant scene set in the
corridor of his compartment, a drunken Arindam
summons Aditi and wants to confess his affair
with the married woman that ended in a brawl
with her husband at a party, but Aditi stops
him; she is not interested in such juicy
stuff anymore. Because by this time they
have hit a chord in each other’s heart,
but in absolute friendly and sympathetic
terms. She has ceased to be a journalist
at this unearthly hour and Arindam’s
brittle starry exterior sheds itself to
reveal a vulnerable and a fragile soul.
The interviews and reminisces through flashbacks
are set off against a few dream sequences.
The one in which Arindam wanders around
through mounds of currency notes and then
gradually sinks in the money as he tries
to reach out to the ghostly hand of a smiling
Sankar-da who pulls away his hand as telephones
hanging from skeletal hands keep ringing
all around is too literal though; but the
one in which he walks through a deserted
landscape at night which is lit up by film
lights as if in a set and he enters an ornate
doorframe in the middle of nowhere to find
himself in a garden full of party goers
and he calls out the name of Promila till
a man who claims to be her husband confronts
him and Arindam punches him on the face
is brilliantly recreated.
Secondary characters and subplots are weaved
in unobtrusively that act as solid subtexts
to the protagonist’s story and underline
his predicament and reveal the double standards
of society. Most of the passengers seem
to be more interested in the drunken brawl
that the star has been engaged in (as reported
in the day’s paper) and other salacious
gossips, but are blissfully unaware of the
adman Pritish Sarkar’s (Kamu Mukherjee)
sordid efforts to pimp his good looking
wife Molly (Sushmita Mukherjee) to the 'big
fish' Mr. Bose to get his company’s
account. But when Molly in turn proposes
a deal to her husband that she will comply
with his requests if he agreed to talk to
Arindam Mukherjee about her acting aspirations,
the brazen adman is shocked and promptly
refuses; as a result he loses the account
of the 'big fish.' But what the adman has
been unaware of throughout the journey is
another potential account in the form of
the portly godman (Satya Banerjee) who has
been occupying the berth opposite him: the
godman who runs an organization called WWWW
– World Wide Will Workers offers him
a lucrative account and the adman is zapped
out of his senses; this is literally not
what he had bargained for. This marriage
of adman to the godman in an unforeseen
but profitable business deal through just
one funny scene is a brilliant touch and
a happy ending to the adman’s goal.
Damn the 'big fish' and the film star (whom
he anyway never acknowledged because he
had nothing to gain from him); he has met
his target!
The masterly screenplay shuttles seamlessly
between flashbacks and dreams and the actual
journey, which is punctuated by shots of
the train from outside as it blazes through
the Indian landscape. The sound designing
wonderfully recreates the passage of time
inside the compartments as the train moves
through different time frames – from
late afternoon through evening to night
till next day morning when it reaches Delhi.
The casting is sure shot and the acting
and mannerisms rightly represent the slice
of the affluent Bengali society inside the
train and the varied characters and faces
from different social strata in the flashbacks.
Ray did not have much faith in Uttam
Kumar as an actor and he always wondered
if he understood the finer nuances of the
characterization; but he was more than satisfied
with the star’s performance at the
end of the day. Maybe, since Uttam Kumar
was a reigning star, he did not have to
put too much of an effort into the role
and blended easily. This is amongst Uttam
Kumar’s most understated and brilliant
performances in his memorable career. And
of course, Sharmila Tagore with her cotton
printed saris and specs once again plays
the role of moral touchstone with unassuming
aplomb as she does later in Ray’s
Aranyer
Din Ratri (1969) and Seemabaddha
(1971). In fact in one scene, the character
of Uttam Kumar does tell her that she could
play the role of bibek (moral) in Bengali
films!
No discussion of the film would be complete
without the mention of the interiors of
the Rajdhani Express recreated to absolute
perfection by Ray’s old time companion
Bansi
Chandragupta. Coupled with rear projection
the film, even after so many years, continues
to baffle its viewers in terms of its acute
realistic representation; with all our updated
film appreciation and education we are still
kept wondering if the interiors of the compartments
and the receding sceneries glanced through
the train windows are staged or are for
real or a combination of both. Apart from
the sheer brevity of the screenplay that
actually packs in so much characters, information
and layers, the film excels in sheer technical
craftsmanship and marks out Ray as the pioneer
of Indian cinema and a brilliant craftsman
who made the best of given resources and
made amazingly sophisticated films within
budgetary constraints and technical limitations.
Nayak continues to enthrall its
viewers even aftermore than 40 years since
it was made and does not fail to surprise
us every time we see it.
Ranjan Das is an alumnus of the
Film and Television Institute of India (FTII),
Pune with specialization in Film Editing
1992. Having edited various documentaries
and directed different programmes for Bengali
Television, he has also written for the
popular TV serials Sidhhant, Crime
Patrol and Rihayee.
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