He is a maestro of an actor, giving hit after hit. Monpura, Aynabaji, Debi, Taqdeer, and more recently, Hawa and Karagar, are some of the exemplary works where Chanchal Chowdhury’s roles have been highly praised, taking us all by storm.

“Doesn’t stardom or pride go to your head? How do you remain so down-to-earth?” I awkwardly asked him. The question was perhaps too direct to throw at the celebrated actor in the middle of the night, over the phone for a brief interview while he was wrapping up his work for the day, and attending a meeting.

But I had to ask, given his height of success and fame!

Chanchal Chowdhury replied, “Hawa got released this year on 29 July. I was with Hawa till 30 July.”

After that, when the movie was creating hype all around, its craze sweeping over the country, the actor was away — “working on other projects, say, for example, at a dingy room sweating and struggling and acting.”

Chanchal Chowdhury is someone who doesn’t like to lengthen his sense of achievement. He’d rather move on. “I always try to forget about my success. It will be problematic for me if I retain in my mind the level of buzz Hawa or Karagar has created, for example, or the love the audience has shown me,” he explained. “Hawa is over. Karagar is over. My concern now is whether the performances I am going to present to the audience next is of that quality or not.”

That’s quite a responsibility, though. “It’s a challenge. It’s a struggle,” he admits. Since the previous projects created a lot of buzz, I now have to do something which should be of that standard or even better. If I fall from this point, I will be lost. It is a pressure that I have to overcome.”

And he does overcome, every time! Arguably, it all begins with choosing the right roles. Chanchal looks for a number of things: story and script, director, co-artist, budget, and technical soundness. Before saying yes to a major project, he keeps these elements in mind. “Let’s say, the director is good, but the script is not; or that the story is good but the budget is not. Then it’ll not work. Only when I see that all these factors are satisfactory will I embark upon a big project,” he explained.

And then, once on board, he really gives his all.

Just see his electrifying performance in Karagar, the mysterious prisoner who suddenly appears in an abandoned cell one day. Chanchal’s character apparently cannot speak. And yet, with sign language, facial expressions, and his eyes, he delivers an awe-inspiring performance. “If you throw someone in deep sea unaided, he will grab on to whatever he finds in order to survive. Such was my case in Karagar, since I practically had no dialogue,” he said.

Be it the enigmatic prisoner in Karagar, or a boatman in Hawa, or a driver of a freezer van carrying dead bodies in Taqdeer, Chanchal Chowdhury dives deep into his characters.

By applying observation, imagination, and of course, the director’s vision of the character, he creates magic on screen. “There are of course professional technicalities to the craft of acting. Perhaps, the general audience does not even need to know that. At the end of the day, what matters is whether my performance is convincing enough to the audience or not,” Chanchal explained, when asked how he prepares for a role.

His stellar performance in Taqdeer shows just how magnificent he can be in convincing the audience about his character. The result is a thoroughly gripping web series on the OTT platform, Hoichoi. This performance earned him the Best Actor (male) award in the popular category, in the Blender’s Choice-The Daily Star OTT & Digital Content Awards 2021 .

Congratulations to him, although, Chanchal Chowdhury probably by now has sailed past Taqdeer’s achievements too!

By M H Haider