Legendary Sabitri Chatterjee shares memories of acting journey at FE Block event
Telegraph | 10 October 2025Residents chatted with Chatterjee as she waited in the community hall for the monk to arrive. Asked how she started acting, she spoke of her first stage appearance in a play called Natun Ihudi, after being spotted as a schoolgirl by actor Bhanu Banerjee. “It was a play on refugees from East Bengal, which we too were. I gained a big name from it. Everyone started asking: ‘Who is this girl?’,” she recalled.
Her first film, Pasher Bari, a comedy, was a hit, so was her second, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Subhoda, she said.
“I was asked to watch Hollywood films. I did so, without understanding much. I think I learnt acting by myself,” she said, when asked about acting influences.
The conversation veered towards her long innings on screen and stage with the mahanayak Uttam Kumar. So formidable an actress was Sabitri that Uttam Kumar reportedly admitted to being nervous if he had to share the frame with her. “Uttamda chokher dike takaley part bhule jeto. Bolto, ‘Amar chokher dike takash na’. Ami boltam: ‘Ami apnake bhalobashi, du din pore amader biye hobe. Apnar mukher na takiye ki pet-er dike takabo?’” she recalled, on being asked about his high regard for her.
Born in Comilla, in erstwhile East Bengal, the daughter of a railway station master had come to Calcutta after Partition. “I was visiting an elder sister, thinking it would be a trip for seven days. I could never go back,” she reflected.
At 88, she walks with help but is still active in front of the camera in TV serials. Her last big screen release was Aamar Boss earlier this year, with another veteran actress Rakhee. “I had never worked with her earlier.”
She later watched the film at the press show. Does she do so with the same mindset when she would watch her own work in the theatres in her hey days? She nods in agreement. “Khali mone hoy arektu bhalo korle bhalo hoto. Obhinoyer songe karur ba kichhur tulona hoy na,” she told The Telegraph Salt Lake reflectively, as the call came to take her to the stage.
Which is your favourite Sabitri Chatterjee film? Write to saltlake@abp.in
