The "Shaukeen" of middle-of-the-road cinema, the veteran filmmaker who used to spin a yarn to tell the aam aadmi story died in his sleep on Thursday. As if, in real life too, he had completed all action! Basu Chatterjee finally "packed up" at 90.
Chatterjee emerged during the Seventies. A time of churning. A time of huge change. Young India was starry-eyed with the concept of feminism and hippie movement. Pop and rock music had also fizzed in then. It was time for double income families to make both ends meet. Hoardes of women had logged onto the employment exchange like never before.
Chatterjee carried on the legacy of Bimal Roy's school of cinema formula. He along with Gulzar and Hrishikesh Mukherjee ruled Hindi film scenario for two decades, but they will be remembered forever. Unlike till in the Sixties, his protagonists were mainly women blended in the traditional and professional mould. They, in advance, managed to portray women who were at ease at home and in the office yet they necessarily were not in a state of unrest and fiery (unnecessarily like in today's film) but CERTAINLY had the quintessential charm. This was the USP of films like Rajnigandha, Chitchor.
His films depicted intense relationship of man-woman and his scripts gave them (women) the liberty to take major life-shaping decisions... films like Chitchor and Chameli ki Shaadi. They usually wore the normal mill-spun sarees and created the charm.
He made some great comedies with "people" from different communities in Mumbai and caught the fancy of the common man. Films like Baton Baton Mein (Catholic community) and Khatta Meetha (Parsi families) were remarkable.
He was such a Bombay person. His heroes always travelled in buses and trains. This was revealed several times in his flicks and Piya Ka Ghar in 1972 was a hall mark in this regard where he showed that there's more space in the hearts of Mumbaikars than in their kholis... . In Baton Baton Mein, he shot extensively in trains an integral part and the lifeline of the city. Piya Ka ghar has a song Yeh Jeevan Hai which was shot in a local train.
His films had some great music and despite RD Phenomena, he also teamed up with Rajesh Roshan, Salil Chowdhury and Jaidev to create magic. He was never given a Dada Saheb Phalke nor a Padma Shri, though he got two national awards... but that "ruka hua faisla" never dampend him to tell his stories of the office-goer with whom a couple of generations identified with ease.
