Mahanayak to rock small screen

It was no surprise that the entire Tollywood industry converged at a city hotel’s ball room on Friday night for the launch of TV series Mahanayak. After all, the series promises to chart the life of Uttam Kumar, the biggest superstar Tollywood has ever seen — a life fraught with career highs and personal turbulences. Mahanayak stars Prosenjit Chatterjee as Arun Kumar, a character derived from Uttam Kumar.Paoli plays Sucharita Sen and Tonushree Chakraborty plays Priya, based on Suchitra Sen and Supriya Devi respectively.
Of the lead cast, Paoli was the first to arrive, literally lighting up the room with her incandescent avatar. “I cannot describe in words how scared I was to play this role. And to come back to the small screen after so long, with such a glorious character was nerve-wracking. But what I love most about this character are the dialogues — grandiose and verbose,” she gushed. The series is a 99-episode one, of which almost 80 episodes have already been shot. The score, by Indraadip Das Gupta, is reminiscent of the era the series tries to capture and also uses the original songs of Uttam Kumar films in the episodes.
“We have deliberately used a cinematic canvas to score the music,” informed Indraadip. Birsa Dasgupta, the director, walked in with wife Bidipta Chakraborty. Prosenjit, looking dapper in a grey suit, said, “Gautamda (Ghose) had done a TV series, Kaalbela. Then he thought, let me edit this and present it as a film. And Kaalbela made Paoli and Parambrata. So, you don’t know, maybe after five years, we take this to the big screen,” said Prosenjit.
On being asked how he would rate this character compared to his entire oeuvre, he said that it was too weighty. “I am representing an era. So we all have a huge responsibility. At the same time, it’s important to understand that the audience has also seen me for 30 years, as an actor. So my portrayal needs to be a blend of today’s star and the era star. It’s not that I am trying to copy someone. I think it’s a different version of Arun Chatterjee, of Autograph,” he added.