The Many-Splendoured Mithun

Ali Peter John

It took me quite some time to know that the politician,Shyam Sunder Tripathi in the recently released,“The Tashkent Files"and by the end of the film, I had some to many conclusions of my own, but I don't know why I was very confident that Mithun would be a forerunner for most of the geniune awards to come. Like he has been doing for the last forty years, he had put his whole life into his role, even though in some places he still showed that he couldn't get rid of his Bengali accent,“Deshdrohi"was still Desdrohi for him and it now seemed that no one could change this weak point in him, not even himself...

And as I watched Shyam Sunder Tripathi struggle with his long hair and extra-long dhoti, I thought of all the roles he had played to date and made a distinct mark as an actor. The wide variety of roles he has played can put any of the actors of God time or any other time in the shade. It is his sheer talent that has made him rise from playing a tribal youth in his very first film, Mrinal Sen's“Mrigayaa"in which his performance was so starkly real that both the film and his performance won the National Awards.

There were very high expectations about this actor who had struck gold with his very first film, but Bombay and Hindi films proved to be a very difficult ball game for him, but the strong spirit in him did not let him give up.

He was confident about his talent standing out sooner or later and that was the only reason why he did walk-on roles in films like“Do Anjaane"and“Phool Khile Hai Gulshan Gulshan"which made many of his contemporaries, rivals and critics who were following his career think that he was committing harakiri, but he kept his one man fight going in spite of all the obstacles any newcomer who had no connections in high places.

He was in a position where he had very few options and so he did a number of films as an out and out action hero in rank bad films and at one stage reached an unbeatable figure of doing hundred and ten films in ten years. Most of these films were branded as meaningless masala films, but the young man who was not being taken seriously by the big names had to work with the smaller names and his doing several films with smaller directors like Deepak Bahry and Ravikanth Nagaich was proof that he wanted to do every kind of film just to be around.

He however shot into the limelight with“Disco Dancer"and other similar films which did very well at the box-office and made him a star in his own sphere. He was now not only popular in India but in different parts of the world and in Russia, he was the only actor who could find himself being compared to the great Showman, Raj Kapoor.

It was only when he had established himself as a saleable and wanted actor that filmmaker decided to take the risk of casting him in socially relevant films like“Prem Vivah",“Pyari Behna",“Pyar Jhukta Nahi"and a film like“Jaag Utha Insaan"which put him in a league of his own. He was running on a track no other actor was daring to run on.

The other proof that he was still a very serious and sincere actor was when he did films like“Swami Vivekananda"and“Swami Paramhansa"both directed by G.V Iyer who was known as“the barefeet genius"and Mithun won the National Award for both films.

This was a time when he was called“the poor man's Amitabh Bachchan"and he was lucky to find the opportunity to be cast with Amitabh in Mukul Anand's“Agneepath"in which both Amitabh and Mithun won National Awards, Amitabh for the best actor and Mithun for the best supporting actor. This was also the time when he is reported to have married his heroine Sridevi in“Jaag Utha Insaan", but the story about their marriage remained in the realms of gossip because neither Mithun nor Sridevi were willing to come out with the truth which finally died with Mithun shifting base to Ooty with his officially married wife, Yogeeta Bali, their two sons, Mahaakshay, also known as Mimoh a name which was inspired by two of Mithun's favourites, Mohammad Ali and Michael Jackson and Namashi and Mithun even picked up a girl from the streets of Kolkata and made her a part of the family and she is now a grown up and pretty girl called Dishani who may take the world by surprise by making her debut as an actress with the complete support of her parents....

It was time for another change. Mithun was the undisputed leader of the film industry employees union and also closely associated with the Cine Artists Association and performed miracles to raise funds for both the causes he was an active part of...

Controversies never stopped dogging him and it was once such major controversy that made him take an unusual decision to build a five-star hotel in Ooty and even started living there. He for reasons still best known to him started his own parallel industry in Ooty. He was shooting three films in a day. He was making bad and very bad films with small directors from Tamil and Telugu cinema and gave breaks to more than twenty new girls from the South who lasted only till he ruled as the Monarch of Ooty.

He took Mumbai by surprise again when he came back with the intention of launching Mahaakshay but failed and stayed on to be one of the most popular character actors. He is now increasingly doing roles of the elderly characters just like his contemporary, Rishi Kapoor. In fact, the two were seen as fathers in Subhash Ghai's last film as a director,“Kaanchi".

For the last three months, there have been all kinds of nasty rumours about his death or his fighting a battle against death in various hospitals in America. But, the truth is that he is in good health even when he is nearing seventy and has offers to play roles for which the only competitors are Amitabh Bachchan, Naseruddin Shah and Rishi Kapoor who as of now is still undergoing treatment for unknown ailments in America.

The young man who once walked the roads of Mumbai is now the proud owner of properties in different parts of the country. What he will do next is a question that is being asked by his large number of followers who see in him the positive force that can take man to any heights as long as he has that fire in him and this fire in Mithun is not the kind of fire that can be doused or put off, come what may. Will his sons be capable of achieving even a little of what he has? It is very difficult because time, talent and the towering spirit of the father is difficult to beat by anyone because a Mithun Chakraborty happens only once in a way.

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Tags: Bollywood, Bollywood News, Bollywood Updates, Television, Telly News, Mithun Chakraborty