His smiling demeanor is deceptive. A straight-forward person, this multi-faceted personality has never compromised on his principles. And, for this typical trait, he has been witness to many ups and downs, in his personal and more so in his professional life.
Actor, director, advertising consultant, columnist and essayist on
theatre and cinema, Kulada Kumar Bhattacharjee has contributed a lot to the upkeep of professionalism and quality in the world of dramaturgy in Assam. He has always shied away from the limelight and was happy working behind the scenes for the broadcast of histrionics here. He is one of the main persons to usher in modern techniques for the enactment of
world classics through local artistes. In the mid-1960s, Bhattacharjee
launched Assam’s maiden acting training centre and spearheaded a national
theatre movement under the banner of Asom Jatiya Natyasala Andolan
Samiti.
Bhattacharjee had his professional training in stage, film and
television in London and Hastings in England in the 1950s. His films, serials
and advertising work have not only taken him to different parts of the
country but also enriched him with first-hand knowledge of the land and
its people.
A distinguished reciter of Assamese, Bengali and English poetry,
Bhattacharjee was born on August 18, 1933 to Kamala Devi and Kali Prasanna Bhattacharjee, a noted legal practitioner, at Panbazar in Guwahati.
He first appeared on stage “at the age of six and with seniors at the
age of twelve, in the lead role of Tagore’s Daak Ghar”. He enacted the role with such finesse and became so popular with the audience in
Guwahati that for quite sometime he was popularly called by the name of his
role, Amal. This largely influenced his decision to take up theatre and
cinema as a career.
In his college days, he was associated with the Indian People’s
Theatrical Association (IPTA) under the leadership of Hemanga Biswas. This
association offered him a rich cultural experience and inducement to
social commitment.
His first directorial venture was Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. It
was followed by Hamlet. Around the same time, he adapted and directed
in Bengali Bankim Chattopadhyay’s Kamalakanter Jabanbandi where he acted in the male lead role.
He then went abroad for training in 1958, and stayed there till
December 1960. This stay exposed him to the best of Anglo-American and
European theatre, cinema, radio, television, music, ballet, opera and visual
arts. His participation in every weekly Bengali broadcast of the BBC
and different online productions of the Hamburg Television as an
apprentice gave him firsthand knowledge of working in the western electronic
media.
During the first two years after his return, Bhattacharjee spent most
of his time in Delhi with the English language theatre. He acted
during this time in several plays like The Tender Trap, The Man of Destiny,
The Cave Dwellers and Abe Lincoln in Illinois. The last one for the
Lincoln Players, a repertory company of the USIS. His colleagues were
stage personalities including Habib Tanvir, Shibendra Sinha, Roshan Seth,
Sushma Seth, Joy Michael, Jim Tytler, Tom Noonan, Sushil Javery,
Shailendra Shankar and others.
A job with the All India Radio, Guwahati, as the producer in-charge,
Drama, brought him back to Assam in December 1962. He started writing
thought provoking essays on theatre, directed the debut productions of
Arun Sarma’s Sri Nibaran Bhattacharya, which is regarded as one of the two best plays of the 20th century in Assamese. This and his productions,
Matir Gari, Baagh Jaal, Saraguri Chapori and Parasuram created a new epoch in Assamese theatre.
As the producer in-charge of drama in AIR, he regarded radio as the
extension of his stage work. In addition to plays suitable for the
medium, he revived a number of classic Assamese stage plays and introduced a
regular forum for world classics in their stage format called the ‘Naat
Chora’. He produced the translations of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and
Sudraka’s Mrichchhakatikam in their entirety for the Guwahati station of AIR. He also introduced several new series like ‘Monologue’ and ‘Novel
Reading’.
He has made 35 documentary and short films. Under the banner of
Devjani Chaliha & Associates, he also supplied news and features to
Doordarshan for nearly two decades. He scripted and directed the first Assamese tele-film Nishi Ujagar and the first Khasi tele-film Ka Nong. His tele-serials Tejal Ghora and Trikaal topped the popularity lists.
Bhattacharjee's performances in films and TV serials have been
cherished by viewers . The films include Shakuntala, Latighati, Chikmik
Bijulee, Prabhati Pakhir Gaan and Bhagya (dubbed from Hindi to Assamese and Bengali) while the serials are Deuta, Jeevanar Batat, Aei Saharate, Papu Niku Sangbad, Tejal Ghora and Trikaal.
As an advertising consultant, Bhattacharjee specializes in rural
publicity. He undertook two large-scale rural publicity campaigns in upper
Assam and also did surveys in the Barak valley and Manipur for the United
Bank of India.
He has also been associated with the propagation of Manipuri dance for
over 30 years. He was the artistic director of Devjani Chaliha, one of
the foremost exponents and gurus of the dance in India. He, along with
Chaliha, founded the prestigious Manipuri Dance Institute in Kolkata,
the Meiteri Jagoi.
He has written scores of essays on theatre and cinema besides running
a popular column on the subject of his heart, drama and films, viz.,
'Naat Ghar Chabi Ghar'. His other popular columns on assorted topics are
'Ji Mon Jai', 'Dwitiya Mat', ‘Anya Mat' and 'Akash Patal'. Bhattacharjee
has also authored two novels on supernatural themes under the pseudonym
of Ashok.
