Bimol Roy

Bimol Roy's first venture "Udayer Pathey" was no doubt a milestone in the history of Bengali films . The main character of "Udayer Pathey" was portrayed by Radhamohon and not A Bhattacharya as mentioned by Mr. Kader. In fact, the main role was being portrayed by Devi Mukherjee in the beginning but when the shooting was in progress, Bimol Roy changed his mind and gave the role to Radhamohan. Radhamohan played the role of "Masterda" in another film "Bhuli Nai" and many viewers of the screen will remember him as the affectionate father of "Mini" in Tapan Sinha's famous "Kabuliwala". Devi Mukherjee was another great actor of those days and became famous by casting himself in the role of "Shabyashachi" in "Pather Daabi" .

Bimol Roy found West Bengal too small for his talent and therefore flew over to Bombay where he instantly rose to high acclaim by making films like "Maa"and" "Do Bigha Zameen"."Do Bigha Jameen" was adjudged by the cine weekly "Screen" of Bombay as the best Hindi film ever made till then. In the mid-fifties of the last century Bimol Roy entertained the Indian audience with the Hindi version of "Debdas" with the legendary Dilip Kumar in the title role. I have seen all the versions of Devdas including those having Promothesh Barua, KL Saigal, Shoumitra Chatterjee,Bulbul Ahmed and Shahrukh Khan (the least we discuss about Shahrukh's Devdas, the better for all of us) in the main role and I have no hesitation to say that Dilip's performance was by far the best amongst all of them. Even a film Director of Tappan Sinha's stature admitted that he never saw a more natural performance of death as shown by Dilip Kumar in the last scene of Devdas. In the late fifties and early sixties, the Indian viewers had the privilege of witnessing Bimol Roy's remarkable courage and flawless success in films like "Sujata", "Madhumati" and "Bandini". Bimol Roy is no more, but he will live so long as the Indian film industry lives.