It is rare to see two single-screen superstars of one industry share screen space. And it is even rarer to see them do so for an OTT project (one can point towards Netflix’s Rana Naidu, which has got Telugu stars Venkatesh and Rana Daggubati as the lead cast but then they are family and not really rivals at the box office). So, when Jeet Madnani and Prosenjit Chatterjee—two of the biggest commercial stars of Bengali cinema—announced that they will be joining forces, it sent the fan clubs, who for over two decades (since the rise of Jeet) have fought tooth and nail to establish the supremacy of their matinee idol, into a collective tizzy. And they were in for a delicious treat.
Neeraj Pandey’s Khakee: The Bengal Chapter, which dropped on Netflix earlier this year, saw these two not only share screen space for the first time but also lock horns. For those unversed with the Bengali film industry, Prosenjit, fondly known as ‘Bumbada’, has had the longest stint as a leading man in Bengali cinema having 350 films to his credit in a career spanning four decades. Having won a National award as an actor (for Rituparno Ghosh for Dosar ) and one as a producer (Goutam Ghose’s Shankhachil), like Srijit Mukherji’s metatheatrical Autograph—a tribute to Satyajit Ray’s Nayak and Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries—he played Arun Chatterjee, a role he made iconic, he can justifiably claim: “Ami Industry” (I am the industry).
Once the go-to star for out-and-out massy commercial Bengali movies, he has over the years freed himself from the shackles of his own star persona, replete with mannerisms and the quintessential ‘hero’s swag’. And devoid of the frills, he has over the years emerged as a formidable and ever-evolving actor who is so confident in his craft that he has no qualms in playing an understated character or letting another actor take the centre stage; just as he has done in Khakee: The Bengal Chapter. While he plays a cold-blooded, conniving businessman-politician Barun Roy in this police vs the underworld crime drama, he graciously lets Jeet—the superstar who has always stuck to hardcore mass entertainers replete with over-the-top dialoguebaazi and logic-defying fight sequences—take up the role of the no-nonsense IPS Arjun Maitra, the villain-slaying hero. This is Jeet’s first Hindi outing as well as OTT debut, and he is in familiar territory and brings the required aura and screen presence. While Jeet brings in the swag, Prosenjit excels with the nuanced layering of his character—together they are fire and ice, a delight to watch. But what made them finally agree on sharing screen space after working in the same industry for over two decades? “I had done Jubilee and Scoop last year, so the OTT space is not new to me. Moreover, Khakee is an already established show—Khakee: The Bihar Chapter was pretty huge. When Neeraj came to me with the Bengal chapter, I was excited. I have been a part of Neeraj’s work since his television days. And then when I heard the story, had a proper understanding of the project, the people involved and my role, I knew I had to be a part of it. It is a show set in Bengal, about Bengal, and showcasing the talent of Bengali film industry. It is a great time and moment to have so many great actors from Bengal be part of a Netflix show, which has a global audience. And of course, the Bengali audience across the world will be excited about watching Jeet and me together on screen for the first time,” explains Prosenjit while adding that his character in the series is "unlike anything I have done so far, and I wanted to try something different with it and give it a different shade.”
Born into cinema (he is the son of Biswajit Chatterjee, the charming leading man of the ’60s) and having made his debut as a child artiste in 1968 with Chotto Jigyasa, the veteran actor has over time become almost like the prudent and protective patriarch of the Bengali film industry pioneering its every momentous change for the past 4 decades. In fact, in the series when in a scene the radio belts out one of his most popular songs from his first box office hit movie Amar Sangee: “Chirodini tumi je amar juge juge ami tomari” [Forever you are mine, for ages I am yours]—it aptly sums up the actor’s lifelong dedication towards the Bengali film industry.
Jeet credits destiny for finally bringing him and Prosenjit together for this project. Although the two have earlier collaborated (Prosenjit has acted in a 2022 movie that was produced by Jeet, and the two were part of an anthology titled Bagh Bandi Khela in 2018), and are known to be fond of each other, it is the first time they were seen sharing a frame. “It is something both his and my fans have been demanding for years. They even write scripts for movies starring both of us and share them on social media,” quips the veteran star. However, he adds that both have certain responsibilities towards not only their fans but also towards the Bengali film industry, and hence it had to be the right project. “And this was the right one for it is focussed on Bengal and reaches out to an audience beyond Bengal. So, as individual actors and as part of the Bengali film industry it was important for us to be part of this...but now that we have worked together as actors, I think you will see us sharing screen space again soon,” Jeet adds enthusiastically. This is my first interview with the charming Sindhi superstar of the Bengali film industry, fondly called Tollywood, and I find it endearing the way he keeps switching to Bengali which he speaks with the comfort and ease of a mother tongue.
Apart from Prosenjit and Jeet, the series, directed by Tushar Kanti Ray and Debatma Mandal, also has multiple members of its cast and crew hailing from the Bengali film industry—including actors like Parambrata Chatterjee, who was last seen in Aranyak and Saswata Chatterjee aka Kahaani’s iconic Bob Biswas—making it a sort of a showreel of the talents of contemporary Bengali film industry and establishing its pan-Indian potentials. “I strongly believe that we have the best technicians, and this project is a testament of that as well. I am hoping this will get more people to collaborate with the Bengali film industry. We have huge market and a very professional one,” says Prosenjit. “Bengal has given us Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mirnal Sen and the likes. We have a great heritage and legacy of filmmaking here,” adds Jeet.
But while Satyajit Ray’s cinema is international, and Ritwik Ghatak, Mirnal Sen, Goutam Ghose, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Rituparno Ghosh are filmmakers whose cinema was pan-Indian before ‘pan-Indian’ cinema became a genre, Bengali commercial cinema has never become a talking point beyond the state borders. Contemporary Bengali cinema or the mass entertainers are seldom spoken about. We ask Jeet, who has made his entire career doing massy commercial cinema and has blockbusters like Nater Guru, Sathi, Jor, Wanted, Dui Prithibi, and Boss: Born To Rule (one of the highest grossing Bengali films) to his credit, for his take on this, especially since he mentions the legacy of Ray and Ghatak. “They are the pioneers. It is unfortunate that a lot of people do not think beyond Ray and Ghatak and arthouse cinema while talking about Bengali cinema. But things evolve with time. We have had actors like Prosenjit, Chiranjeet, Taposh Pal and the likes who are brands in themselves and they created that brand by doing a certain kind of cinema—those were quintessential massy entertainers. Bumbada for example has given us blockbusters like Sasurbari Zindabad, Pratibad, Amar Sangee…those are the movie that make an actor a star, an icon. You reach out to the masses living in the towns and villages and everyone recognises you and worships you as their ‘hero’. Our stars are the proof that we have been churning out those kinds of mainstream commercial movies as well. Unfortunately, that's not being promoted,” Jeet says, pointing out the even Rituparno Ghosh, who is known for his content-driven arthouse cinema, had stated that he can make the kind of movies he wants because there are filmmakers like Swapan Saha and Haranath Chakraborty who are churning out massy commercial entertainers that keeps the box office rolling. “We only mention the few filmmakers who have done or are doing urban/parallel cinema—although those have their own audience it can't be compared to the reach of mainstream commercial Bengali cinema.”
Indeed, as Jeet points out, the roots of Prosenjit’s stardom is in the massy commercial Bengali cinema. But he then shifted to content-driven cinema with his collaborations with Rituparno Ghosh and became the poster boy of the multiplex revolution. His take on mainstream cinema is a tad different. “Be it cinema or literature, we have been always telling stories in a very different way, and we have been doing it for years. If you talk about national awards, if you talk about international platforms, we have been doing it wonderfully. Bengali cinema has a very different kind of a respect throughout the world. If we talk about mainstream cinema, according to me, Pather Panchali was one of its biggest examples and it was a commercial success. But today when we think of mainstream cinema, we only think of a certain kind of cinema, something which is replete with action sequences and tropes. Here, we have not been consciously not doing that kind of work. But Khaaki is an out-and-out mainstream show made with our actors and technicians, and I am hoping it will play a significant role to get us into that so called ‘mainstream’ space. This show has given our industry a much-needed exposure. But I personally believe that a movie must work with the audience. If it does, it is definitely mainstream,” opines Prosenjit.
When it comes to Prosenjit’s mainstream cinema career, there’s an urban legend that he once turned down Maine Pyar Kiya. I had to ask: what kept him away from Bollywood for so long? Was he simply averse to its mainstream sensibilities? And now, with OTT platforms breaking away from typical Bollywood tropes, is he finally opening up to Hindi-language projects?
“It is not that I had rejected Maine Pyar Kiya, it just didn’t work out. For me, over the last few years, especially after Autograph, the focus is on playing interesting characters. I want to now explore my range as an actor and pick up projects that I feel good being a part of—it can be in Bengali, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, or Hindi, it can be in any language. I have past that phase where I need to have hits or play the ‘hero’. I am not competing with anyone anymore. I am experimenting and I am enjoying the craft now,” says Prosenjit, whose only competition left today seems to be with himself. What drives him is a good challenge and an opportunity to sharpen his craft. And Khakee was another attempt at that where he has excelled. It is not about opening up to Hindi projects or to put dibs on the coveted pan-Indian actor tag. “The language of cinema is changing; the kind of work is changing and along with it the style of acting, the acting language is also evolving. If you look at the way I used to act 20 years back, it is very different from how I act today. If I would be acting the way I did when I started my career, with all those mannerisms, the audience will not relate to me. I try to be contemporary. I am from a different era. My fight is to be called not a ‘pan-Indian star’ but a ’today’s actor’,” explains the 62-year young artiste.
In fact, Prosenjit finds today’s rise of ‘pan-Indian cinema’ is more of a marketing strategy. “Movies like Roja or Chokher Bali or a Siva were made for a regional audience, but it organically made way to the hearts of the pan-Indian audience. These were not planned as pan-India movies but became so. Post-Baahubali, we are seeing this surge of movies that are made as ‘pan-Indian’ movies,” he points out.
But Jeet on the other hand, whose career span is half as long as that of Prosenjit’s, is at that phase in his career where he wants to reach out to the Hindi-speaking audience. He had earlier tested his pan-India aspirations by ensuring a nationwide release of the Bengali and Hindi-dubbed versions of Chengiz, in 2023 and giving the Bengali industry its first ‘Pan Indian’ movie. “For the longest time, I was looking for opportunities to reach out to a wider audience…Hindi and beyond. But this project was not part of some plan. I usually take things as they come. I have known Neeraj even before he made his directorial debut with A Wednesday!. I knew that he was making the Bengal Chapter, but I was not expecting it to come to me. I think it was just destiny,” quips Jeet.
While for Jeet Khakee: The Bengal Chapter is a huge step towards positioning himself as a pan-Indian star, for Prosenjit it is an attempt at remaining a ‘contemporary actor’. But even he agrees that a project like Khakee: The Bengal Chapter is a good opportunity to jump on the bandwagon of pan-Indian content.
With the Netflix show spotlighting both the stars and technicians of Tollywood, one hopes that soon contemporary Bengali commercial cinema will also emerge as a pan-Indian force to reckon with. It will be interesting to see if the pan-Indian cinema assimilates some bits of the “Intelligent cinema” of Bengal or the Bengali cinema gets sucked into the brain rot.
