Bollywood’s OG disco dancer conferred the Dadasaheb Phalke Award

Mithun Chakraborty, a Bollywood icon for nearly 50 years, receives the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, reflecting on his rags-to-riches journey in cinema.

In a career spanning nearly five decades, Mithun Chakraborty has delineated many roles – from a partially clothed tribal to an action hero to a dancing star. He stepped into Bollywood at a time when Amitabh Bachchan was the face of the action hero (‘Zanjeer’, 1973) and Jeetendra the dancing star, popularly known as Jumping Jack.

New Delhi, Sep 30 (ANI): (File Photo) President Droupadi Murmu congratulates actor Mithun Chakraborty on being conferred with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for his remarkable contribution to Indian cinema, on Monday. (ANI Photo) (ANI)

Chakraborty straddled both worlds effortlessly to become a matinee idol; and the 1982 dance-action film ‘Disco Dancer’ sealed his celebrity. The film was a big hit and the actor’s popularity extended across Asia, the Soviet Union, eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Back at home, ‘I am a disco dancer’, the film’s title track remained on play lists at birthday parties and weddings for many years.

On Monday morning after I&B minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced on X that the Dadasaheb Phalke Selection Jury had decided to confer the Dadasaheb Phalke Award (2022), on the 74-year-old veteran actor, the latter responded saying, “I am dumbfounded. I cannot laugh or cry. This is truly an overwhelming moment and I am still taking it all in.”

Despite working in over 350 films in various Indian languages that include Bengali, Odia, Hindi, Bhojpuri, Kannada, Tamil and Punjabi, the veteran actor wears his rags-to-riches tale on his sleeve. A three-time National Award winner, he received the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award, in January this year.

Regaining his composure, while on a film shoot in Kolkata, he told HT on a phone call: “I guess it has all been worth it.”

Mithun Chakraborty stepped into cinema from a small by lane in Kolkata in the early ’70s and later moved to Mumbai with dreams in his eyes – this slice of his life was reproduced in late filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh’s film ‘Titli’.

Like an archetypal newcomer in the Bombay film industry, he roughed it out and went without food and shelter for many days. A bench in Dadar’s Five Gardens became his sleep pod for many nights. “Nothing came easy to me. Now, looking back, it all seems like a dream,” he said. “I dedicate this award to my family – parents, who have passed away, and my sister and wife (Yogita Bali) – and fans who have stood by me through thick and thin.”

At one time, while judging a talent show for children, he had spoken about how he was shunned by the industry given his dark skin. It was however his lean swarthiness which made him a perfect fit for his debut role of a tribal in Mrinal Sen’s ‘Mrigayaa’ (1976) that won him a National Award. The period action-drama in Hindi was based on a short story titled ‘Shikar’ by Odia writer Bhagabati Charan Panigrahi.

While the actor’s career has seen many highs and lows, several successes like Ravikant Nagaich’s ‘Surakksha’ (1979), Vijay Sadanah’s ‘Pyar Jhukta Nahin’ (1985), apart from B Subhash’s ‘Disco Dancer’, stood out among a swamp of flops.

“At the end of the day, when I look around me, I see my well brought up children and a healthy family; everything I went through counted for something,” he said.

After he managed to carve a niche for himself amid reigning stars of the time, the ‘disco dancer’ tag helped him ride the crest. As producer-distributor N R Pachisia said: “In the ’80s and ’90s, Mithun was on top of his game, giving a run to superstars and star sons at the time. Films like ‘Pyar Jhukta Nahin’ sent cash registers singing. He would sometimes shoot four films in a day.”

The diligent worker eventually shifted his operations to Ooty where he ran a “parallel film industry” after buying a hotel, Monarch. He shot nearly 100 films in the ’90s, many of which were duds. He eventually made a big Bollywood comeback in movies such as Rohit Shetty’s ‘Golmaal-3’ (2010) and Vivek Agnihotri’s ‘The Tashkent Files’ (2019) and ‘The Kashmir Files’ (2022).

His stint in politics has however been patchy.

Enamoured by the fiery Naxal leader Charu Mazumdar, Chakraborty joined the movement in the ’70s, but cut away following a death in the family. “The tag of being a Naxalite stuck – whether it was at FTII, Pune, or the film industry itself,” he once told a veteran film journalist.

The film star joined the Mamata Bannerjee-led Trinamool Congress and was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 2014 but resigned in 2016, citing health issues. His stint was marked by a poor show in the Parliament – he is known to have attended the sessions only thrice and never participated in any debate.

He joined the BJP in 2021, ahead of the West Bengal Assembly elections that year. “I am a BJP worker. I am grateful to our prime minister Narendra Modi-ji. He has shown much care for me,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Chakrabortys have deferred celebrating the Phalke honour, as his wife is away in Los Angeles with their two children, while their elder son Mimoh is shooting in Mumbai.

Mimoh looks upon his father as a “crusader, a champion of causes and a man of the masses, as a chairperson of the Film Studios Setting & Allied Mazdoor Union (FSSAMU) for three decades”.

“He has also been actively involved with CINTAA (Cine & TV Artistes Association), and has stood by the film industry. Not only has he bettered his own craft, he has also tried to safeguard the lives of film workers,” said Mimoh.

“He is a genuine guy,” said Gulshan Grover, who has essayed many villainous roles and has known the actor for five decades. “I remember girls thronging outside our hotel in Uzbekistan in the ’80s, crying ‘Jimmy, Jimmy, I love you’ (Chakraborty’s screen name in ‘Disco Dancer’). He remained quite humble despite the fanfare.”