Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, alternatively spelt as Sarat Chandra Chatterjee, was a Bengali novelist and short story writer of the early 20th century. Most of his works deal with the lifestyle, tragedy and struggle of the village people and the contemporary social practices that prevailed in Bengal. He remains the most popular, translated, adapted, and plagiarized Indian author of all time.
Biography
Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay was born on 15 September 1876, in Debanandapur, a small village in Hooghly, West Bengal. , Hooghly Sarat Chandra was a daring, adventure-loving boy. His education began at Pyari Pandit's pathshala, an informal village school and later he joined Hooghly Branch High School. He was a good student and got a double promotion that enabled him to skip a grade. He passed his Entrance Examination but could not take his F.A. examination or attend college due to lack of funds.
After returning from Burma, Chattopadhyay stayed for 11 years in Baje Shibpur, Howrah. Then he made a house in the village of Samta, in 1923, where he spent the later twelve years of his life as a novelist. His house is known as Sarat Chandra Kuthi. The two-storied Burmese style house was also home to Sarat Chandra's brother, Swami Vedananda, who was a disciple at Belur Math. His and his brother's samadhi are within the house's compound. Trees like bamboo and guava planted by the renowned author still stand tall in the gardens of the house.
Appreciation
The phenomenal popularity of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay has been attested by some of the most prominent writers as well as literary critics across India in their writings. Most of the authors in Assam and Odisha, at least before the Independence, read him admiringly in original Bengali; rest of India read him in translations in varying quality. Publishers were never tired of reprinting his works; he remains the most translated, the most adapted and the most plagiarized author. His novels also reached a number of people through the medium of film and he is still an important force in Indian cinema. O. N. V. Kurup writes "...Sarat Chandra's name is cherished as dearly as the names of eminent Malayalam novelists. His name has been a household word". Dr Mirajkar informs "the translations of Sarat Chandra created a stir amongst the readers and writers all over Maharashtra. He has become a known literary personality in Maharashtra in the rank of any popular Marathi writers including H. N. Apte, V. S. Khandekar, N. S. Phadke and G. T. Madkholkar". Jainendra Kumar, who considers that his contribution towards the creation and preservation of cultural India is second, perhaps, only to that of Gandhi, asks a rhetorical question summing up Sarat Chandra's position and presumably the role of translation and inter-literary relationship: "Sarat Chandra was a writer in Bengali; but where is that Indian language in which he did not become the most popular when he reached it?"
Films
His works have been made into around fifty films in many Indian languages. Particularly, his novel Devdas has been made into sixteen versions, from Bengali, Hindi to Telugu. Parineeta has also been made twice. In 1957 Bardidi was made by director Ajoy Kar. Rajlakshmi O Srikanta and Indranath Srikanta O Annadadidi by Haridas Bhattacharya in 1958 and 1959 respectively, Majhli Didi by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Swami, for which he was awarded the Filmfare Award for Best Story, are other adaptations. Another famous film Chhoti Bahu is based on his novel Bindur Chhele. His novel 'Datta' was adapted into a Bengali film as Datta in 1951 directed by Saumyen Mukhopadhyay starring Sunanda Banerjee and Manoranjan Bhattacharyya in the lead roles with Ahindra Choudhury as Rashbehari, and again in 1976 starring Suchitra Sen and Soumitra Chatterjee in the lead roles. The film Sabyasachi was released in 1977 based on his work Pather Dabi. The other movies based on his novel were Nishkriti, and Apne Paraye by Basu Chatterjee, starring Amol Palekar. The Telugu film Thodi Kodallu is also based on this novel. Gulzar's 1975 film, Khushboo is majorly inspired by his work Pandit Mashay. The 1961 Telugu film Vagdanam by Acharya Atreya is loosely based on his novel Datta. Also the 2011 film Aalo Chhaya is based on his short story, Aalo O Chhaya.
