Manas Ranjan Mahapatra
Gouraprasad Ghosh and Sarat Pujari were the first Super Heroes of Odia Cinema. Sarat Pujari was a great actor and also a family friend. My uncle was in Odisha Civil Service and did his probation at Sambalpur way back in 1959. Sarat Pujari and my cousin Kshetrapal Mishra were co-actors in many films and contemporaries. My cousin was a contemporary of my uncle and was in the Odisha Finance Service.
My uncle was fond of acting on stage and his batchmates staged a play at Sambalpur which was graced by both my cousin and Sarat Pujari and that made him a family friend for years.
I have heard a funny story concerning the friendship between my cousin Khetrapal Mishra and Sarat Pujari. My cousin was to act in a film and he fell ill. He requested the Director to try Sarat Pujari in his place. That film clicked. Sarat Pujari was to act in a film and he fell ill. He suggested the producer – Director to try Khetrapal Mishra on his place and that film clicked too.The professional competition was in the form of professional cooperation those days. Those films were Nuabou and Bhai Bhauja, super hit Odia movies in the early years of Modern Odia Cinema.
I saw the first movie in which Sarat Pujari acted as a lead actor in 1976. Dharitri was released in a few cinema halls of Odisha including Puri. I did not have the privilege of viewing the earlier films of this great actor.It was so rush that I could get a late evening show ticket for viewing Dharitri in the third week of its release. So much of craze people had that time to view the films in which Sarat Pujari acted.
I went all the way to see Sarat Pujari at Larambha where he was a College Principal in 1985 while I was in a project in NCERT. Purnananda Dani,famous Odia author was also in that college.My friend and brother Aswini Kumar Mishra was BDO at the nearby block Attabira that time and he accompanied me. So elated was Sarat Pujari that he declared a holiday for the students in the college for the rest part of that afternoon .
Our next meeting was at Bhubaneswar when Sarat Pujari was Principal of the Utkal Sangeet Mahavidyalaya..I was doing the first ever National Book Fair at Bhubaneswar in 1992.There was a proposal to hold a musical evening on that occasion at the exhibition Ground.He not only agreed to the proposal but promised to oversee the preparation and deputed one of his faculty members Ramahari Das to conduct and compere it.
But Ramahari fell ill.’You can do it’, Sarat Pujari told me. Finally,he himself did it.
Sarat Pujari and I met on some occasions or the other for next few years.Our last meeting was a bit accidental.My wife’s Sailabala’s anthology of poetry ‘Adha Adha Swapna Jete ‘ brought out by Lark Books Was to be released in a function at Bhubaneswar Book Fair in 2007.Suddenly,I discovered Sarat Pujari in the audience.’Ah,I heard that you are coming and so,I am here’, he lightly said.
That night Mahendra Mishra ,the publisher hosted a cocktail dinner for us.I asked Sarat Pujari ,’ Dada,why didn’t you go to Bollywood when offers were coming in the 1960s ? I have heard that you were in demand.’
‘Then Dilip Saab would have lost his bread..’he jokingly said.We laughed.
