Familial Intimacies in Nonfamilial Spaces: Uttam Kumar as Dādā

The elder brother– Dādā –has gained a distinctive life in the political and public domains over the long twentieth century in Bengali society. The kinship form of address is implemented to negotiate with a Hindu Bengali man so abundantly that it cuts through identities of age, class, and profession in its everyday usage. As mentors during anticolonial struggle, popular literary figures, or seniors in educational institutions – the Dādā has come to be imagined in multifarious roles and has established himself as a figure imbued with knowledge and leadership qualities. The present paper focuses on Bengali cinema to study the location of the Dādā in postcolonial Calcutta and the manner in which he helps create homosocial spaces on screen, projecting instances of male bonding.

The paper unpacks the star text of arguably the most famous matinee idol of Bengali film industry–Uttam Kumar. An emerging body of film scholarship has addressed the appeal of Uttam Kumar as an actor with remarkable contribution in melodramas. I claim that the extent of Uttam Kumar’s legacy across generations of audience could not be appreciated without also acknowledging his turns as an elder brother. Uttam Kumar has played prominent Dādā characters throughout his three-decade long career. For this paper, I will analyse two such films– Jadubangsha [Clan of the Yadus, 1974] and Brajabuli [The Tales of Braja, 1979]. Homosociality between elderly office going men is produced in Brajabuli as Uttam Kumar consolidates middle-class stereotypes on contemporary Bengali youth vis-à-vis the depraved influences of a ‘hippie culture’. Jadubangsha exposes the consequences of intergenerational conflict and the dire effects of failed intimacies between a Dādā and his younger compatriots. The paper thus works at the intersection of cinema, perceptions on the youth, and non-familial kinships to explore aspects of friendship and masculinity generated through the elder brother.