Soumitra Chatterjee's glorious presence being missed: Mamata on his birth anniv

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday remembered veteran actor Soumitra Chatterjee on his 86th birth anniversary and said that his "glorious presence" is being missed.

"Remembering Soumitra (Da) Chattopadhyay on his birth anniversary. He was a legend, who left his mark on everything he did. We miss his glorious presence," Banerjee tweeted.

The chief minister, who had inaugurated an exhibition featuring paintings, film posters and costumes of Soumitra Chatterjee at a gallery in Kolkata, said that she was touched by the warmth of the actor's family.

The iconic actor died in November last year following an over-a-month-long battle with multiple ailments after testing positive for COVID-19.

The Dadasaheb Phalke Awardee was often referred to as legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray's 'alter ego' as well as one of the first proponents of the naturalistic style of acting in Bengali cinema.

Chatterjee had acted in 14 of Ray's films besides featuring in some other iconic movies such as Mrinal Sen's 'Akash Kusum', Tapan Sinha's 'Kshudhita Pashan', 'Jhinder Bandi' and Tarun Majumdar's 'Ganadevata'.