Soumitra Chatterjee's contribution is unparalleled

Soumitra Chatterjee has won many awards - the Padma Shree, the Padma Bhushan and the National Award for Best Actor. Recently, he was honoured with India's highest award in cinema given annually by the Government of India for lifetime contribution to Indian cinema - the Dadasaheb Phalke Award. And so, members of the Mumbai Bengali Cultural Association got together to organise a felicitation ceremony for the veteran actor.
Meenoo Chatterjee, the founder of the association says, "We are very thankful to Mumbaiites for attending the ceremony of the legendary actor Soumitra Chatterjee. Our organisation will continue to bring the best of Bengal to Mumbai and vice versa."
Founder member Anjan Chatterjee says, "We realised that Bengalis in Mumbai get together only during the Durga Puja and we felt the need for cultural activity throughout the year. A continuous cross-cultural activity is what we are looking at now. Meenoo came up with the idea that we should begin by felicitating Soumitra Chatterjee. We contacted the star and he finally found time to come down here, a few days back."
Another active member Harshita, armed with a degree from FTII and a Film Communication course from London, feels the need to take Marathi theatre and movies to West Bengal. "We are going to screen Kaksprash with subtitles in Kolkata soon. We recently facilitated the screening of Bhuter Bhabishyat here," says Anjan.
The members believe that there is a lot in common among the people of West Bengal and Maharashtra. Singer Mitali Bhupinder Singh, another active member says, "Theatre and art is very popular here as well as in Bengal."
Anjan believes that there is a huge cultural similarity between Maharashtrians and Bengalis. "And I am not saying this because my daughter Harshita recently got married to a Maharashtrian boy, Aditya Deshpande," he says with a laugh.