Tapan Sinha (English: Tapan Sinha, born: October 2, 1924 – death: January 15, 2009) was a famous director of Bengali and Hindi films. He also received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2006. Apart from India, Tapan Sinha’s films were also appreciated in international film festivals like Berlin, Venice, London, Moscow.
Born on 2 October 1924 in Calcutta (now Kolkata), Tapan Sinha was educated in Bihar. There his family owned huge land and property. Tapan Sinha, a science graduate from Calcutta University in 1945, started his career as a sound engineer in ‘New Theatre’. While living there, he seriously observed and learned the working style of Bimal Roy and Nitin Bose. After designing the sound of filmmaker Satyen Bose’s film ‘Paribartan’, Tapan Da Sinha was invited by Pinewood Studios of London.
Tapan Sinha always made low budget films. His films with social concern always succeeded in providing healthy entertainment to the audience. This is the reason why he received national awards nineteen times. Apart from social, comedy and children films, he paid more attention to making literature based films. ‘Kabuliwala’ and ‘Kshudhit Pashan’ are his famous films based on the works of Rabindranath Tagore. He made the film ‘Ankush’ on Narayan Ganguly’s story Sainik. Shailajanand Mukherjee’s film ‘Uphaar’ on Krishna has been a popular film. Tapan Sinha’s literature based films were successful in attracting the audience with their cinematic quality rather than being cumbersome. Apart from Bengali, he also gave successful films in Hindi. Sometimes Tapan da made Bengal’s most expensive star Uttam Kumar or Ashok Kumar in Hindi the hero of his films. He underlined in more depth the Naxalism and women oppression that originated in Bengal. ‘Aadmi Aur Aurat’ starring Amol Palekar became very popular.[1]
Tapan Sinha, a fan of American directors William Wyler and John Ford, entered the film world as a technician. A total of 41 films are recorded in his film journey, out of which 19 won national awards and also received much appreciation in international film festivals held in London, Venice, Moscow and Berlin. India’s first Life Time Achievement Award was given to Tapan Sinha. On June 20, 2008, West Bengal Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi visited his house in New Alipore and gave him this award. Life Time Achievement category was included in the National Awards for the first time. And it was launched on the sixtieth anniversary of India’s independence (2008). Apart from this, Tapan Sinha was also honored with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the highest honor of Indian cinema, in 2006.
Tapan Sinha, awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke, the biggest award of the Indian film industry, died on 15 January 2009 in Kolkata after a long illness. 84 year old Tapan Sinha was suffering from pneumonia. He was admitted to CMRI in December 2008. His actress wife Arundhati Devi died in 1990.
