Birthday Special: Jaya Bhaduri, the ‘Dhanni Meye’ of Bengali cinema

While the world calls her as Jaya Bachchan, for Bengalis she will nostalgically remain as the ‘Dhanni Meye’ Jaya Bhaduri. No one can deny that since she started acting from the age of 15, she has been a scintillating gem of an artist. Who can forget the petite girl with dark long hair who won hearts wherever she acted?

Jaya Bhaduri still remains as one of the finest acting talents till date. Give her any role – mainstream or out of the box – she always turned it into a classic. She has been honoured by the Padma Shri and winner of numerous awards in her journey. But it is another beautiful aspect of this super successful actress that she has always maintained a balanced lifestyle personally and professionally.

While her good films are twenty to the dozen, we decided to go through those golden days of Bengali cinema. The black and white films have a charm one cannot ignore. Here is her few but magical black and white Bengali films.

We know that Satyajit Ray had picked some of the finest jewels of cinema. Jaya Bhaduri is one of them. She made her debut in 1963 in this classic Satyajit Ray directed film. Jaya Bhaduri was only fifteen years old when she played as Bani.

After her role in Mahanagar, Jaya took up acting on a more serious note. She joined Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune to train on acting skills. As expected, she passed with a gold medal.

In the 1970s, a short film Suman was made by the students of FTII. Jaya Bhaduri performed the role of the protagonist, a free spirited village girl making her way into maturity.

This was one of the earliest films of Jaya Bhaduri. Janani was directed by Shyamal Mitra and released in 1971. Jaya Bhaduri was in the cast along with Samit Bhanja, Kali Banerjee, Sulata Choudhury, Chinmoy Roy, Tarun Kumar, Satya Banerjee, Lily Chakraborty and Ajit Chattopadhyay.

Dhanni meye remains a class apart till date. It is a fantastic film of the madly football fanatic Bengali and so much more. Hilarious and deep, this is a must movie to watch for all film lovers. While stars like Uttam Kumar, Sabitri Chatterjee, Jahar Roy and Rabi Ghosh are enough to get all attention; it was Jaya Bhaduri who stole the show.

How remarkable she looks with her long dark hair, running barefoot and free spirited among the fields and trees. The way she talked to birds and climbed the trees, we wonder if anyone else on earth was better suited for this role! Then her evolution from a carefree girl to a responsible wife is truly an act of excellence.