| | 4 | Bengali and Hindi director born in Purnea, Bihar. Commerce graduate from Bidyasagar College, Calcutta (1941). Worked on the railways and in a bank. Participant in amateur theatre as student. With friends set up National Progressive Pics (1948) and produced Hemen Gupta’s Bhuli Naai in Bengali. Early films contextualised by post-Partition Bengal, addressing the fragmentation of the traditional middle class (e.g. Bhor Hoye Elo) under different social and political pressures, e.g. the schoolboy movie Paribartan. Combined realism with comedy, esp. Barjatri, which was praised by S. Ray for its typically Bengali spirit, humorous dialogue and spontaneous acting style. Moved to Bombay late in 1953 to make Parichay. Then worked mainly with the brothers Kishore, Anoop and Ashok Kumar in the sadly comic Bandi and the one slapstick classic of Hindi cinema, Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi. Also directed Nargis’s last film, Raat Aur Din. |