In addition to being a loud and funny man, Bhanu, the ace comedian of Bengali films, also carried in his persona a political message – one that made his comedy the common man’s comedy, recounts SHARMISTHA GOOPTU on the comedian’s birth centenary.
Samyomoy Bandyopadhyay, whose stage name was Bhanu Bandopadhyay, was born on August 26, 1920 in Dacca, Bangladesh. Some of his most memorable comic roles were in Bengali films like Jomaloye Jibonto Manush, Sare Chuyattor, Bhanu Goyenda Jahar Assistant, Asite Asiona (above still from this movie), Bhanu Pelo Lottery and Miss Priyambada
In this piece, I examine the screen persona of Bengali comedian Bhanu Banerjee and the genre of film comedy which made Bhanu a star of the Bengali cinema. In the 1950s, Bhanu emerged as the top Bengali comedian, with the ability to carry a film, and remained a popular figure into the 1960s and 1970s. As noted later by a contemporary producer ‘Bhanuda was the only comedian of the time around whom scripts would be written’.
Bhanu arrived at a point in the history of Bengali cinema which is often referred to as a ‘golden age’, best known for the emergence of the star phenomena of Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen. As I have argued in the previous chapter, it was principally through the success of the star duo of Uttam-Suchitra that the Bengal film industry was able to clinch a niche market in the 1950s and balance its loss of the ‘all-India’ market, where its presence was virtually edged out by the dominance of Bombay. The Uttam-Suchitra films presented what may be called a ‘sophisticated Bengaliness’ – a Hollywood-inflected vision of Bengali modernity vis-à-vis the romantic couple, which captured the imagination of an entire generation of Bengali youth and created a niche audience for the Bengal industry.
While Uttam-Suchitra cannot be overrated in any study of the 1950s Bengali cinema, this overwhelming star phenomenon has in effect served to underplay other key signifiers in contemporary Bengali film culture, which may likewise be related to the industry’s ability to offer a niche product, thereby countering the predominance of Bombay. Second only to Uttam-Suchitra, ‘Bhanu’ was perhaps the most important of these signifies – the witty bangal – the man from East Bengal, who produced an instant identification among Bengali filmgoers.
This story examines the Bhanu factor and tries to understand Bhanu’s currency among Bengali audiences of his time. What indeed did a figure like Bhanu Banerjee signify to his audiences? Did his popularity grow from the fact that he was simply funnier than other comedians of his time? Was it essentially to do with a purported quaint lingo – the East Bengali style of speaking – which he popularized through his films, radio dramas and gramophone records? Or was it, more importantly, about a particular political position which his comedy encapsulated? Through a socio-historical analysis, I make the case here that in addition to being a loud and funny man, Bhanu, the ace comedian of Bengali films, also carried in his persona a political message – one that made his comedy the common man’s comedy.
Bhanu’s Comedy
By the phrase ‘common man’s comedy’ I mean here a brand of comedy, which though often loud and boisterous also had an element of the tragi-comic – one that was linked to its ability to tap into the everyday life of the bhadralok (gentleman) middle classes. This was a life made up of disappointments and deprivation, yet also one that was able to produce its own sense of humour – a humour that was able to mock and turn on its head the tribulations of the everyday. And in that Bhanu excelled. His oeuvre was often political without being overtly so, and through it he was able to set himself up as the common man par excellence.
A study of Bhanu assumes significance in view of comedy’s relatively under-valued position in Indian cinema studies. The body of work on Indian popular cinema has been overall broadly focused, yet comedy remains one genre that is relatively underexplored in the ongoing study of Indian films. One reason for this, perhaps, is that, for the large part, comedy has been integrated within the body of the all-encompassing film entertainer. At the same time, there have been some very important comedy films which deserve their own treatment, but scholars have thus far not paid a great deal of attention to them.
However, a comedian like Bhanu, who created his own distinctive oeuvre and produced important social critique, begs us to turn our attention to the genre of film comedy. Bhanu evolved his brand of satire and social critique near contemporaneously with the growth of a leftist movement for ‘political’ cinema in Bengal, which attained fruition in the 1960s and 1970s, and which has been a subject of academic analysis. I make the larger case here that Bhanu needs to be seen as a part of the same movement, even though he largely operated as a part of the mainstream cinema. Indeed, in its earlier phases, the leftist avant-garde had significant links with the mainstream industry.
Bhanu was known for his leftist sympathies, and some of his earliest work in films and theatre was in the school of the IPTA. As he moved into comedy, he built for himself a brand that produced critiques of the contemporary political system and social injustices. As a successful comedian he made people laugh, but Bhanu was also known to be one who always spoke his mind – a no-nonsense man who often took to task people in high places for the sake of those who were often unable to speak up. In that, he was not remarkably different from those who produced the avant-garde cinema of the time, only he worked in a different style.
The idea here is not, however, to try to impute some kind of respectability to a much undervalued popular persona through associating him with the better considered avant-garde cinema of his time. Rather, the idea is to understand the dynamism of what often gets dismissed as lighthearted and lightweight and to more fully comprehend why a comedian became one of the more popular public personas of his day.
Movie: Jomaloye Jibonto Manush
SHARMISTHA GOOPTU is a film scholar. She was awarded the Century Fellowship in 2002 at the University of Chicago to do a Ph.D. on the history of Bengali cinema. She completed her doctorate in 2009 and the thesis was published by Routledge in London and New York as the monograph Bengali Cinema: An Other Nation, and in India by Roli Books in 2010. She is a founding editor of the Routledge journal South Asian History and Culture and the South Asian History and Culture books series. She is also a founding trustee of the South Asia Research Foundation and editor of the South Asia Archive. She can be reached at sharmisthag@yahoo.com
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