Prosenjit Chatterjee achieved a new milestone in his illustrious career as he was conferred with the Padma Shri award by the Government of India on Sunday. Having had a career of over four decades which started in the Bengali film industry but then expanded across other languages, the actor calls it an honour that he dears close.
On receiving this honour, Prosenjit Chatterjee says, “I am grateful and thankful of the Indian government and I will not call it an award, but a kind of achievement. This is a very important recognition for anybody. I have been working for the last 40 plus years as an actor mostly in Bengali language, but I am doing Indian cinema. I have been serving my audience, my directors and producers, so I am really grateful and thankful and I am really happy.”
He adds, “As everyone know that my father (actor Biswajit Chatterjee) was also a star in the ’60s and it’s like this kind of love and respect coming to the family. It’s not just me, but also my director, producers, co-actors, scriptwriters, music directors, and everybody who has contributed to this win. I am a student of cinema, I still want to learn a lot of things. So, while I am grateful and it makes me very happy, at the same time if you receive this kind of an acknowledgement, your responsibility goes more high. So, I will try my best to give something better in the future.”
Talking about reinventing himself in recent years with his work, Prosenjit says, “I’ve started working in other languages also and I’ve been doing some very good work. For the last few years, the way I have handled my career and the kind of characters I have played are very different. I used to really do mainstream cinema but I came out from that zone and I’m trying hard to do some interesting, different kind of a cinema at the same time.”
Ask him what does this recognition mean for Bengali cinema and he says, “It’s true that I represent Bengali cinema in a very big way. My contribution is just not doing cinema. I believe that my entire team has contributed and of course, with this acknowledgement people are talking about it and I’m happy. Bengali cinema has always contributed to Indian cinema, whether it is Satyajit Ray or Mrinal Sen or Rituparno Ghosh. We always have come up with some interesting films, which are out of the box and they have been recognised always. But yes, today it’s my time to give back to my industry. This acknowledgement is really good towards that and it makes a lot of sense. When I did Khakee The Bengal Chapter, it was mostly shot in Kolkata with our technicians, with our creative team and our actors. It was a huge mainstream show which opened nationally. I play more of the role of an elder brother to my industry and I look forward that my Bengali industry also gets more exposure. But it’s just not for this acknowledgement. I always fought for this and I will be fighting for this.”
In this time of joy, Prosenjit dedicates his award to his late mother Ratna Chatterjee. “This is a great honour and I want to dedicate it first to my mom. She’s no more but she had really stood beside me when I was struggling. This is of course for her, my son, and my father. My father was also a ’60s star so he was very happy hearing this and it was an emotional moment.”
He also has one more special person to thank: “I would talk about my friend, who of course was a great director and did a lot of work with me, around six to seven films, but at the same time he made me understand there is something else as an actor, as a creative person inside me. And that’s late Rituparno Ghosh. I’m really missing him because today whatever kind of cinema I’m doing with all new-age directors, he had given me that strength, and that mind to do these different kind of characters and how to handle them. I’m really missing him and this award also is dedicated to my friend.”
Reflecting on his journey in showbiz, Prosenjit states, “It has been a long journey working in 45 years in cinema. There were so many changes I went through from the exhibition to technology and language of cinema. I would say that you have to be a student of cinema forever. The language of cinema is changing, people are getting exposed to international films more because of OTT platforms. So you have to keep yourself totally updated, and I think that’s my strength. I always learned it from Mr. Yash Chopra because irrespective of his age at any time, that man had directed films that were always very contemporary and modern. So people never really bothered with what his age was. It’s just about upgrading and updating yourself and that’s the only thing that I do.”
The actor began his career in the ’60s as a child artiste with the film Chhotto Jigyasha. He then went on to make his leading debut in the ’80s, and entered in Hindi films with Aandhiyan. Prosenjit went on to become one of the biggest names in the Bengali film industry with films like Chokher Bali, Dosar, Shob Charitro Kalponik, Moner Maanush, Jaatishwar,National Film Award winning dramas Mayurakshi and Jyeshthoputro, and Autograph to name a few, to his credit. In recent years, he became known for his work in Hindi with web series like Jubilee and Khakee: The Bengal Chapter.
Prosenjit has earlier received a National Film Award – Special Jury Award / Special Mention (Feature Film) for the film Dosar in 2007. He also got National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Bengali for Shankhachil in 2016, along with several other honours to his name in his career.
