Tathagata Banerjee (left) and Anindya Ghosh reading the script to Rudranil Ghosh and Debleena Dutt PHOTO: ALIK SARCAR

The day is set in November 1946, Calcutta, when a Muslim lady Nilofer (Debjani), is writing her diary and in particular about the previous night’s incident, during the time the Noakhali riots were taking place and her professor-husband, Wasim Ahmed (Debdoot), could not be contacted there. To cut a long story short (or why would you see the telefilm), she gives birth to a child by her Hindu childhood lover, Gautam, who had turned alcoholic after she got married to Wasim. The child is eventually accepted by Wasim, named Gautam Ahmed, and Nilofer’s grandson is Iqbal (Rudranil).

Nilofar’r Diary is director duo Tathagata Banerjee-Anindya Ghosh’s take on communal harmony, based on Rijurekha Chakravarty’s script. It was this diary that Tithi (Debleena) was reading in her boyfriend Iqbal’s house. If it sounds like a chamber drama, you bet it is. And was.

Enough drama in Dawbari near Girish Park, quite a fascinating chamber with the erratic power supply, and the silence of the tension loud enough to frustrate the stoics at work. To the outsider, it was a mite amusing to see sound recordist Nanda Kishore Ghosh waiting for the hiss of a stove downstairs to fizzle out and when ready, some yakkers getting into an animated adda or the power line getting phased out! Rudranil and Debleena were deep into ‘the intense mood’ but just when ‘Silence’ would be ordered, the yakkers would go yak-yak. Till once, a frustrated Debleena shouted out after ‘Silence’, “So, now please start speaking, you guys downstairs!”

Scheduled telecast: Tara Muzik; Dec 25, 7:30pm