Mithun, Mrinal & Manmohan Mahapatra:Odisha connection

Bhubaneswar:30/9/24: Moments after Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw shared on X that veteran Bollywood actor Mithun Chakraborty (74) would be honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the Odia film fraternity was elated. The actor, who hails from Bengal, has also worked in Odia movies and is known to be close to quite a few veterans from Ollywood.

Mithun, Mrinal & Manmohan

Mrinal Sen made films in several languages including Bengali, Hindi, Telugu, and Odia.  He made Matira Manisha (1966) in Odia. Based on the novel by Kalindi Charan Panigrahi, the film contrasts traditional and modern values as exemplified by the different attitudes of two brothers towards their inherited family land. The plot explores human relationships using a wide range of themes, including Gandhian and Marxist ideologies, postwar social conditions, agrarian culture, rustic life, and traditional family values.

Ten years later he made another film titled Mrigaya in Hindi based on Odia’s short story ‘Shikar’ by Bhagbati Charan Panigrahi.  ‘Mrigayaa’ (The Royal Hunt) was Sen’s first film made in color and deploys the lessons of his experiments with complex and stylistically diverse cinematic idioms.
It also marked the debut of the lead actors Mithun Chakraborty and Mamata Shankar. ‘Mrigayaa’, with the reigning motif of hunting, revolves around the lives of tribals in a village in the 1930s, juxtaposed with the events of the Santhal rebellion of 1855-56.
Have you marked that there are far too many ‘M’s here? Let me introduce another ‘M’- Manmohan Mahapatra, who was indirectly responsible for these.

Manmohan Mahapatra, himself a National award-winning filmmaker was close to Mrinal Sen. He suggested making a film based on the story Shikar. A believer in numerology he suggested changing the title to Mrigaya. It was Manmohan Mahapatra, who suggested Gouranga Chakravorty, his classmate at FTII change his name to ‘Mithun’. The heroine of the film was Mamata Shankar. All four ‘M’s made the film one of the most memorable films in this genre. The film went on to receive the National Award for Best Feature Film in 1976 and Chakraborty was awarded the National Award for Best Actor.

 Odia films

The actor, fondly referred to as Mithun Chakraborty  had also played roles in two Odia films—‘Sahara Jaluchi’ and ‘Ae Jugara Krushna Sudama.’ In the 1998 film, ‘Sahara Jaluchi’ directed by Sudhanshu Sahu, he was cast alongside actors Uttam Mohanty, Siddhanta Mahapatra, Jyoti Misra, Mihir Das, and Aparajita Mohanty. This was his first Odia film, where he played a special appearance role. The name of his character is ‘Biju.’ The film was known for its popular songs. The music was composed by Radhakrushna Bhanja.

He played a major role in ‘Ae Jugara Krushna Sudama’, a 2003 Odia film directed by Hara Patnaik. He shared the screen with Uttam Mohanty, Anita Das, Jyoti Mishra and Usashi Mishra. It is a remake of Hindi film ‘Khudgarz’, which itself is based on Jeffrey Archer’s 1979 novel Kane and Abel. He plays the character of a poor person in the film. Apart from these, several of his Bengali films like Coolie, Barood, Pratigya, Raja (the Bengali film is titled as ‘Guru’), Mauda Mani (‘Bangali Babu’ in Bengali), among others.