Saswata Chatterjee and Nandini Ghosal

Double sizzle, single take

If you don’t believe us, you must go to the place somewhere in Garia, off the ongoing construction of the Metro Rail extension, where Shyamal Sengupta was shooting for his telefilm, Ekti Kharap Na Bashar Golpo. You will notice a signboard of a nationalised bank beyond the massive pillars on the other side of the road reading, “Fartobad Branch”. For a moment, we got a geographical identity crisis, but even if this was an ETV telefilm, this wasn’t Hyderabad. And when we greeted Shyamal at the house where he was shooting, he was amused. “I can assure you I’m not that bad; anyway, baad dao,” he grinned. And wanting to be good, he showed us on the monitor some “sensuous dance sequences” they had shot earlier with danseuse-actress Nandini Ghosal. Saswata Chatterjee meanwhile kept phewing in his vest. “Phew! Am I in heat!” he grinned. He was referring to the temperature and humidity, even early evening. “And we’ve just finished with a cooool scene, bare shoulders and bedsheet, you know,” not looking unhappily humid at all. How many takes did he engineer, we winked. “Today, not even 500 nude women would manage to get me divorced. Just dying to get away to the cool of my home.”

Meanwhile, associate director Pallavi Biswas, who has also scripted the telefilm from Pradipkanti Pal’s story, was cracking the whip and getting things moving. The rather bold story is told through a parallel narrative of talk show episodes, “the first time such an element has been incorporated in a telefilm in this fashion,” as Shyamal explained. “The dance sequences are also “a refreshing change from the usual telefilm fare.” And then there are the sizzling scenes which Shyamal felt “only Nandini could have executed so stylishly”.

Also in the cast are Soma Chakraborty, Arijit Guha. And Kushal Chakraborty who plays the boyfriend of the divorced woman who chances upon her divorced husband after a few years and rekindles that flame simultaneously. As Saswata would say, phew!

Scheduled telecast: ETV Bangla;
June 5; 9:30 pm

Dolon Roy, Santwana Bose, Kunal Mitra and Joy Mukharji

Action, Action! Cut, Cut!

A telefilm within a telefilm is what Joy Mukharji’s Ele Obelai is. Society girl (Santwana Bose) introduces friend (Dolon Roy), who is married, has a daughter and a very busy businessman-husband, to a famous film director (Kunal Mitra). Naturally, the lady falls in love with her director, falls into his couch too, and then wakes up to reality: she is just one of his flings, and realises that she shouldn’t have fallen for it. By that time, she has also fallen between two stools because her husband refuses to accept her back, and she commits suicide. Of course, the twist in the Som Theke Shoni tale follows. But why should we tell you?

Scheduled telecast: Aakaash Bangla;
June 6-11; 9 pm