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What’s special about Crossroads?
It’s a very important film for me. Crossroads will be shot entirely in Darjeeling, even the indoors. There are four stories which culminate and cross each other... hence Crossroads. There are different kinds of stories — a youth story, an old man’s story, a story of the middle-aged. The film is about how this quaint town makes the characters come to terms with life. I called the film Chowrasta but my producer, Sudhir D. Ahuja of Unilux Films, felt the Bengali word was a bit constricting in reaching a wider audience. He renamed it Crossroads.
You have been planning a film on Darjeeling for long...
I have a long association with Darjeeling. It’s a part of my being; it’s where I grew up. I need to make a film on Darjeeling just as I needed to do a film on Anglo-Indians. Bow Barracks Forever had given me that platform.
Satyajit Ray’s Kanchenjungha has haunted me for years. But it’s a different Darjeeling that Crossroads With Love will show. A Darjeeling that’s overcrowded with its potholed roads, water crisis and political chaos. There won’t be beautiful mists because the film is not just about Kanchenjungha. I want to catch the cosmopolitan, confused and chaotic place that Darjeeling is.... We will shoot in the heart of Darjeeling. The Mall, the bars, Joey’s Pub, INOX, the lower bazaar, the meandering roads, St Paul’s School, Mayfair, New Elgin, Glenary’s, Keventer’s... Almost everything.
The casting seems curious...
There are lots of characters in Crossroads. I love making ensemble films and I managed to pull off a very good cast. I wrote a role for Victor (Banerjee) and I had to give him something better than Peter (in Bow Barracks Forever). He plays an old tea planter here; it’s one of the best roles I have written.
There’s Atul Kulkarni. Atul looks a bit funny. I find him a very interesting actor, after Irrfan and Kay Kay. I wanted to work with Roopa (Ganguly) again. She had played a small role of a Bangali bou in Bow Barracks and I had to give her a good part. Then there’s Naved Aslam, who was in Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd and did a bit role in BBD. Saswata (Chatterjee), who I think is an extremely powerful but underrated actor, Aparajita Ghosh Das and Arijit Dutta. And I have two wonderful Nepali actors.
What about Chalo Let’s Go and BBD?
Chalo Let’s Go is almost over. It should be ready for release by the end of May. BBD is much larger in scale and so I don’t want to rush it. It’s in the post-production stage.
But aren’t you rushing from one film to another?
No, it’s not as if I am churning out one script after another. I had written all these stories long ago — during the eight years between Bada Din and Bow Barracks. Besides, apart from BBD, rest are all films that can be completed in one schedule. I am finishing one film and only then getting into another. I believe in six months of solid work and the film is out. You move on to the next. The fact that we are a team and we are in tune helps a lot. Together we decide on the treatment and from what perspective to look at a film, so that each one is different from the other.
The Bong Connection has proved to be your crucial crossroads...
Yes. When Mr Ahuja told me he wanted to make a sensible Indian film in English, I thought of Crossroads. He said he didn’t want any unnecessary songs, ridiculous costumes or violence and unreal situations. It’s such a relief for a film-maker to hear something like this from a producer. Can you believe that all these things have been put down in my contract?
So, is there a change in the air?
Personally, I feel there’s a change. Hindi cinema is not my forte because I am not used to the language. I want to make very exciting, dynamic, contemporary Bangla cinema, not the dated intellectual type. There’s a huge probashi Bangali audience out there in Delhi, Pune, Chennai and Bangalore that we should tap.
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