P.B. Chaki setting up the scene and (top) Subrata Sen at centre rehearsing Subrata Dutta and Tannishtha Chatterjee. PHOTOS: ANIL GROVER

“Sex,” said Subrata Sen with that rakish grin of his, “has got me into trouble before. So, don’t worry, I’m keeping the censors in mind.” He was reassuring producer Varsha Bansal, who looked a happy producer, with just a hint of anxiety about her. The set at Technician’s Studio was quite crowded with the crew of Bibor, and a whole gang of Subrata’s friends and gazers. Subrata had promised us a pataaka of an exclusive shoot, and reassured us that although it would be a closed set (where all production people and technicians and gapers are made to leave the actual floor after things have been set up, except for the artistes, director and cinematographer), the heroine of his forthcoming Bengali feature film, Tannishtha Chatterjee, is “very cool”, as she, the daughter of an IFS officer, has lived abroad and she has also done a German film. Giving her company, so to say, would be Subrata Dutta, who played the magician in Sen’s earlier film, Swapner Pheriwala. In the first scene we got to see, he flings her down on the floor, coldly slapping her, whispering dark threats in her ear. Evidently, S&M kind of character, and as with Sen, the unmistakable veneer of a foreign film.

The next scene, with Dutta, Tannistha and pistol in bed, had us waiting for a few hours more. First, there was lunch break, then cinematographer P.B. Chaki setting up a full circle trolley and lighting up the whole floor so that he could take the series of shots to follow in one long sequence, from different angles rapidly. The whole set was also cordoned off with black cloth, with just a gap for the camera to peer in. But that’s when the “very cool” bird chickened out. And requested the director to request us not to shoot; so we could only join the (house full) mob surrounding the monitor nearby and ogling (male and female gaze, you bet!). That was the Indian coy act, we mused. Hope she won’t be asking the audience in the hall to close their eyes or to go out for a smoke when the scene is flickering on the screen...