Mention Hrishikesh Mukherjee and all you can think about are the classics Chupke Chupke, Anand, Gol Maal, Guddi, Abhimaan among many others. With a career spanning over four decades, Hrishi da - as he is fondly called, is considered to be one of the most prolific filmmakers of Indian cinema. While we already know a lot about Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Pinkvilla got in touch with his granddaughter Tapur Chatterji to know more about her maternal grandfather. Tapur is Hrishi da’s daughter Surashree Chatterji’s child.
Tapur says that her filmmaker-grandfather was an all-rounder. “It's not only films, that was just one aspect of him, but he had knowledge about everything. Like I remember, my friends who would come over, they were all from different professions but he would be able to hold a detailed conversation with all of them. He was a hardcore chess player, and sometimes on set to pass time would play chess with his team. He was a brilliant Sitar player, very musically inclined and had tremendous interest in stars and astrology as well,” recalls Tapur.
Abhimaan was so ahead of its time. It was on a very sensitive topic and you need maturity to understand or handle something like that.
Tapur Chatterji
Hrishikesh Mukherjee lived in Bandra, Mumbai and Tapur too had shifted to the Maximum City from Kolkata at an early age. “He was pretty much a Bombay guy if you ask me. Also, since I moved to Mumbai at an early age, I even got to spend a lot of time with him,” says Tapur, whose favourite Hrishikesh Mukherjee film is the Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan starrer Abhimaan. “That film was so ahead of its time. It was on a very sensitive topic and you need maturity to understand or handle something like that. I think it’s by far one of his greatest works.”
Tapur has even been on a few of Hrishi da’s film sets. “As kids we have pictures with Rekha aunty and many more actors. So yes we have been on many of his film sets, but he didn’t really encourage it either as he kept his work and family life separate. So it was a good balance of both,” adds Tapur, further informing that Hrishi da was also a foodie. “Well, honestly he loved everything. Right from kachoris to Bengali food. He was a foodie and a conversationalist too. He was so thorough in most topics that he could talk about everything.”
Tapur adds that Hrishi da was a very private person. “He was shy and didn’t much like to go to functions or parties, and I think we also get that trait somewhere from him. Our personal life remains very personal, and doesn’t get disturbed by all this. However, he was also an entertainer, and we would always have someone over. He had a lot of friends from outside the industry too, and I remember when we used to live in Kolkata, we used to be really excited when he would come to visit us, because he would often come with 30 other friends and all of them were so entertaining,” Tapur signs off.