Bengali actor cuts duet elocution-song album on Tagore, D L Roy

Told about stepping into the shoes of thespian Soumitra Chatterjee, a visibly embarrassed Biswajit tells IBNS, “I am nowhere near him. Also I have hesitation in right pronunciations of certain words and how they ringed to the others. But I got immersed into the words nevertheless.”

Biswajit, a favourite of film makers from Anjan Dutta to Sandip Ray, will refer the works of the three luminaries as confluences.

“If Tagore is the sea, the other two are major tributaries (river branches) having met into the sea mouth, In my first attempt Kshoniker Dekha with singer  Nandini Bhattacharya, we had never tinkered with the expressions and stuck to the traditional, the way they had been rendered for years. But needless to say I enjoyed it immensely,” he adds.

Pointing out Dwijendralal and Atulprasad did not get the popularity they deserved during their life time and even for posterity, he says, “It can be for various reasons. Perhaps the Himalayas towered above other peaks.”

“But one thing is sure. Tagore had experimented a lot with his music blending the western strands effortlessly and that made his works timeless.”

Former Doordarshan top functionary and elocutionist-anchor-culture personality Pankaj Kumar Saha says while Tagore works had always occupied a different space in Bengali’s mindscape, it remains a fact that the other two poets' works got lost with the tide of time.

“We must start with the more popular works of Atulprasad and D.L.Roy and more popular actors like Biswajit-da should come forward as they can connect with the masses,” Saha says.