For ages, I had heard of a certain actor Nutan who owned a part of the sprawling greenery spread on the hills I saw from my window. Our household wasn’t one of those where we had internet, nor was I enlightened enough to understand the value of Retro films. Eventually, I began exploring the world of retro Bollywood cinema and found gems like Basu Chatterjee’s Rajanigandha and Bimal Roy’s Sujata which starred Nutan. I finally had a face to the name I’d heard all these years and boy, was I enamoured!
Nutan Samarth Bahl—she was a force to reckon with. Had the actor been with us, she’d be celebrating her 86th birthday today.
Born to parents—filmmaker Kumarsen Samarth and actor Shobana—the Padma Shri recipient was known for her unfazed manner and the unconventional characters she chose to essay.
Writer ML Dhawan rightly noted in his article for The Tribune, “Nutan learnt the art of portraying a character not so much in words as through her body language and expressions. A thinking actress, Nutan did not need accessories to transmit the working of the mind of the character she played. She was equally concerned with the projections of emotions as well as their veracity.”
Nutan was nine years old when she first faced the camera in her father’s film Nal Damyanti. However, she debuted as a lead actor in 1950 with her mother’s film Hamari Beti which started her nearly four-decade-long tryst with the world of cinema.
Hamari Beti (Our Daughter) is a social comedy film that follows the lives of a daughter and widowed mother who were separated in an accident and the tragic event that follows their life. The film, also starred Nutan’s sister, famous Bollywood actor Tanuja as a child artiste.
The film when it was first released was met with negative criticism and dismissed but in retrospect when one understands the plots, the finer lines and the comedy elicited through human errs does one realise the sarcasm masked in the script. Nutan’s character in the film engages in premarital sex which in the 50s, especially for women, was a huge deal. It was the first streak of her rebellion which later painted the entire silver screen and the tinsel town.
Following that she appeared in films like Hum Log, Seema, Sujata and Bandini which cemented her position as one of the best actors in Bollywood.
Nutan effortlessly projected the emotions of a tuberculosis patient in her 1951 film Hum Log; while her stint as a rebellious juvenile girl, in Amiya Chakravarty’s Seema, fighting to salvage her dignity in a correction home took her to greater heights.
As Sujata in the Bimal Roy directorial, Nutan with her dramatics left a lasting impact on the viewers. With her bewildered expressions conveying the burden of trials and tribulations of an orphan Dalit girl; she asks her foster mother, “Agar hawa mujhe choo sakti hai to insaan kyun nahin,” as poses a question about the caste system and untouchability.
Over the 41 years of her career, Nutan always played a character who either had an equal footing as the male protagonist or was a woman-centric film as we label it now. In a time when women were seen as mere accessories, she carried these films on her back and delivered a rare feminist phenomenon.
Nutan’s subtlety, myriad of expressions and evocative voice were her hallmark which partly reflects in her son, actor Mohnish Bahl’s performances as well. The actor championed the depiction of women, particularly tormented women on screen.
She wanted to challenge people’s perspectives on women and their place in society.
Although she has a great filmography, one of her performances that remains etched in my mind is her character Kalyani in Roy’s Bandini. My liking for grey characters coupled with the simple fervour she exuded as Kalyani floored me.
Without any over-the-top theatrics, Nutan appears as a quiet woman with intense emotions raging within her which leads her to administer poison to the nagging wife of her long-lost lover. The eerily silent demeanour sends chills down one’s spine.
Additionally, Bandini focuses on the journey of Nutan’s Kalyani from thinking of herself as the prisoner of fate to realising that she has the power to change the course of her fate struck a chord with me.
As we move towards a time in cinema which is becoming more misogynistic, two-dimensional and cliched than ever ; we see many promising women’s talents remain largely unused in unintelligent films lacking depth and understanding.
No actor today would ever be able to come close to the charisma and grace the late actor embodied. There are not many women actors like Nutan today who’d dare to question the system with the same adah as she did. Her excellence shall always remain unparalleled.
Views expressed are the author's own
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