Chapal Bhaduri: Body of art

"Excuse me, I need to use the toilet first,” he wipes his brow, shifting clumsily in a discoloured plastic chair that tilts precariously to the left. I nod as he drags his feet and moves towards a door marked for ‘purush’ (male). The word is jarring, as is the moment.

We are at a special screening of Chena Kintu Ajana – Known Strangers, a documentary that captures the lives of 15 female impersonators representing the final generation of such actors in Bengal’s rich jatra (mobile theatre) lineage. Directed by debutant Debojit Majumdar, who claims to have invested his life’s savings in the film, it is part of a cultural programme for a media school that I’ve been invited to by Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee, a prominent queer artist in Kolkata.

“Chapal Bhaduri, at 77, is perhaps the last living female impersonator in Indian folk theatre. He is the last torchbearer of a near-extinct tradition,” says Chatterjee, as the man in question limps back in our direction.

“In those days, women led cloistered lives, so there was no question of them acting on stage…” Bhaduri says, his voice short of a quiver. “My voice was always soft and effeminate, but today the ENT tells me my vocal chords are permanently damaged and I have to stay quiet for a year at least.”

Born to jatra actress Prova Devi, Bhaduri’s initiation into the medium was at age seven. His mother passed away three years later. Soon after, Bhaduri, and his elder sister, Ketaki Dutta, a theatre actress of repute, were shown the door by their brothers. “Life took an ugly turn when she (mother Prova) expired. I was 10,” Bhaduri says. “Ketaki and I shifted to a small room near Biswaroopa Theatre in north Kolkata. In 1958, I joined Natto Company, a jatra group. They gave me a stage name, Chapal Rani, and a salary of ₹100 and ₹1 for food.”

I try and slip in the next question, when he points at my left hand, “Is that a real solitaire?” he asks.

I smile in agreement.

“My ring is a zircon. Why don’t you come home? We can’t really hear each other here…” he says before I can shoot another question.

“I held a job at the Sealdah Railway Division — a day job that paid me ₹2.50 daily for 28 days in a month. I hadn’t even finished school, so when I quit my job after three years, where else could I go but the stage?” Bhaduri meets my eye, stretching out on a single cot in the nondescript government quarter in north Kolkata he shares with his sister’s son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter. His tiny room, recently painted he mentions in passing, has dozens of calendar images of Maa Kali and Ramakrishna Paramhansa.

He continues: “I had no earlier experience, and lacked the support of my colleagues. I was asked to play Marjina in Ali Baba. Marjina made me famous after which I was flooded with female roles.” Bhaduri was one of the highest paid jatra actresses in the ’60s, earning ₹8,000 a month. “I performed every night in villages and small towns in Bengal. Young men fought for a glimpse of their darling Chapal Rani through the green room window. Those were the days,” he says with a sigh.

Bhaduri recalls meeting matinee idol Uttam Kumar at one of his performances. “While watching a play on the life of poet Michael Madhusudan Dutta, which ran for four years, Uttam Kumar was moved by my performance in the role of Jahnvi, the poet’s mother. He asked to meet the actress essaying the role. When the organisers brought me in, the man was shocked. He then hugged me. It’s perhaps the best tribute I’ve received.”

By the end of the ’60s, the arrival of women performers altered the script of Chapal Rani’s successful run onstage. “My problem was more complex. I was closet gay and my employers asked me to leave when they found out. My late sister Ketaki was the only one who accepted me for who I was,” says Bhaduri.

The artiste found a new lease of life at Kamala Opera, a group that paid ₹100 a show for a part in Durgeshnandini. “I often did three shows in a day to make ends meet but when Petromax lighting was replaced by the new, dazzling lights, the difference between the ‘imitation’ woman and the ‘real’ woman became glaring,” he says.

Away from the spotlight, Bhaduri’s personal life also took several dramatic turns. A cloistered relationship that lasted 30 years — one with a married family friend with children — ended when the actor was asked to sign off bank deposits held jointly. “When I asked him about my future, he replied ‘It’s not my concern’… I think he was attracted to another woman. I loved him. Deeply,” he says.

Today, Bhaduri’s contribution to theatre is immortalised through three acclaimed films: Performing the Goddess – The Chapal Bhaduri Story, Ushno Taar Jonne, a telefilm in which he plays a cameo as himself, and Arekti Premer Goppo (Just Another Love Story) in which Rituparno Ghosh is young Bhaduri. But the veteran is cynical about the future of jatra — the form that made him the subject of both adulation and censure. “The heritage is dead, even though there is more money in it today.”

As we wrap up the conversation, Bhaduri tells me about an incident he still can’t reconcile with. “A co-actor asked me to not embrace him. He said my fake breasts dug into his chest. Those words still ring in my ears. The stage is a temple, it’s the only way I know to live,” he says.

Sreemoyee Piu Kundu is an author based in Delhi

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