Actor, poet, songwriter and maverick Harindranath Chattopadhyay was born on this day.
Born in an illustrious family in Hyderabad — his elder sibling was Sarojini Naidu, leading figure in the independence movement — Chattopadhyay is remembered for his stunning appearances as the magician Barfi in Satyajit Ray’s Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, Sidhujyatha of the encyclopaedic mind in Ray’s Sonar Kella or the ill-tempered patriarch in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Bawarchi. He was a prolific poet, known for poems such as Noon and Shaper Shaped. The Rail Gaddi song sung by Ashok Kumar in the film Aashirwad was written by him, as well as the song My Heart is Beating in the film Julie.
In college in England, Chattopadhyay had begun work on the poet William Blake. His wife Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay is regarded as a pioneer of the revival of handicrafts in India.
In 1951, Chattopadhyay won the Lok Sabha elections from Vijayawada. He received the Padma Bhushan.
When he was in his eighties, he had explained he communicated with the young so well because he could become the same age as a child.
