PICTURE TALK
Both Amol Palekar and Uttam Kumar looked grumpy and unsatisfied that day. There were takes and retakes happening on the set and both actors looked terribly unhappy with their performance.
Uttam Kumar was sitting in one corner, smoking one cigarette after the other, while Amol Palekar was in another corner, brooding.
The situation was tense, and I could feel it in the air. I knew that some of the most important scenes of the film (read the climax) were being filmed that day, and the tension was palpable.
They were both hovering around, wearing similar-looking but different-colored gowns. I wasn’t interested in clicking Amol, as I had met him several times before. My only photo-target was Uttam Kumar, who seemed to be in an awful mood. When I pointed my camera at him, Uttam didn’t even smile, he just looked at the camera. It was clear that his mind was preoccupied with what was happening on the sets.
Now, you may call it whatever you like, but I call this an example of extreme concentration. When you are doing something very intense, your mind and body are completely focused on that. That alone.
I have rarely seen actors more serious and more intensely preoccupied with their work than Uttam Kumar. That was the only time I met him.
Watch Plot No. 5 and you’ll realise why the film was sticking out like a sore thumb when romantic films saturated with song and dance sequences had become de rigueur in Bollywood.
Uttam, who was born in 1926, passed away in the year 1980, at a fairly young age, albeit leaving a deep imprint of his art and legacy.
The views expressed here are the author’s own and The News Porter bears no responsibility for the same.
