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| Ranjit Chowdhry - 19.9.1955 to 15.4.2020 |
Ranjit Chowdhury
as the youngest brother
kept us together as family
His sister paid a
fitting tribute by posting an old photograph of his; a black and white
photograph on instagram. In a footnote, which she wrote on the bottom left of
the photograph; Raell Padamsee wrote about her brother – 19.9.1955 to 15.4.2020;
actor, writer, maverick; we will miss you. Below the photograph, she wrote a
description; as simple as the actor looked or his personality was. She wrote
and I quote – For all those who knew Ranjit, the funeral will be held tomorrow
and a gathering to celebrate his life and share his stories on May 5.
With love, Raell.
I personally
learnt about his death from one of the posts of my favorite author Bishwanath
Ghosh’s post on facebook. He shared his fondness for the song – Uthe sabke
kadam dekho rum pum pum from the movie Baaton Baaton Mein. He described Ranjit
as that guy who played the violin in the song is no more. I was a bit taken
aback. I googled about his sudden demise and learnt about his demise on April
15.
Ranjit to be
specific was a star of the family movies, we grew up watching during the
seventies. Thankfully these movies were relayed repeatedly on the Doordarshan
and now they are doing the rounds of ‘retro watch’ on some OTT platforms. He
was one of those rebellious guys in the movie, who would always step out to do
the oddest thing in the movie. As Deepa Mehta put it in an interesting way in
one of her interviews with Sanjay Jha, a film critic. Deepa Mehta described
Ranjit fondly as eternally rebellious. She added, “His wicked sense of humour,
his disdain for convention, his compassion and irascible nature will be hard to
replace.”
The movies, I
loved him watching were – Baaton Baaton Mein, Khatta Meetha, Khoobsurat, Kama
Sutra, Fire. The first three movies were sugarcoated. Kama Sutra showed him in
a different light. But it was his role in Fire, which still remains memorable
for me. I remember, Fire being banned and people raising slogans against the
movie focusing on a lesbian relationship. I cared for none. Two fine actresses
were shown falling in love; Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das. They belonged to a
dysfunctional family and were married off to the two men in the family;
Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Javed Jaffrey. But the third man in the family; the servant
played to aching detail by Ranjit Chowdhry was the kind of character, which
lingered in my mind. Right in the drawing room, he would sit watching porn. The
oldest woman of the house; the so called Daadi (granny) or Ammaji (if I am not getting it wrong) would be asleep and she
would keep screaming. Ranjit would do the unthinkable and shower the choicest
of abuses to silence her resistance. Post Fire and many years later, in short
films on many OTT platforms and YouTube, I’ve come across many characters like
him. The closest to his character was the servant form the Tisca Chopra short
film Chutney. Yet, he couldn’t beat what Ranjit Chowdhry had shown to the world,
which stood resistant to Fire.
In today’s era,
when a certain star from Indian film industry makes his way to Hollywood
cinema, it becomes news. Ranjit Chowdhry along with the likes of Om Puri,
Roshan Seth, Saeed Jaffrey, Anupam Kher, Irrfan Khan had already made it to
Hollywood long back. If you don’t believe my words, try watching Denzel Washington’s
Mississippi Masala. You will realize, the kind of actor that Ranjit Chowdhry
was.
On a concluding
note, you might wonder, why am I writing about an actor; I am not even related
to. Nope, I am definitely related to him through my love for cinema, which kept
us together as family. Ranjit Chowdhry as the youngest brother or the littlest
brother in these cinemas was the ever extended olive branch. His characters
made us believe – Rebels have a world of their own.
In his memoirs, A
Double Life: My Exciting Years in Theatre and Advertising, Alyque writes fondly
of his foster son, “Ranjit . . . has always been a delightful spirit of a human
being. An impish character, both in size and personality, he’s quick-witted and
charming.”
- Virtuous
Vociferous | April 18 | April Blog-1 | What If | 2020
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