Love is an agent

Kolkata-based filmmaker Buddhadeb Dasguptas next Hindi film, Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa is a detective story with a humorous twist.

Growing up in West Bengals Purulia district,a young Buddhadeb Dasgupta would be intrigued by his aunts gramophone. Besides playing old Bengali records,his aunt would fetch old coins and other small items from within its wooden frame. Things that were lost in the house,would emerge mysteriously from the box, says Dasgupta,veteran Bengali auteur whose latest film,Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa (Sniffer),is inspired by such childhood memories. The gramophone and his aunt are referenced to in the plot of the film at various parts. It premiered at the London Film festival in October and is expected to release in theatres this month.

Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa is a humorous take on the life of a clumsy detective called Anwar (played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui),who works in a village in West Bengal. With only his dog for company,the drunk detective,popularly known as Sniffer,meddles in peoples affairs until he finds himself confronting his own issues of lost love. This is a detectives story. A detectives job is to follow other peoples lives but what happens when they follow their own lives? What magic is revealed then? says Dasgupta. As a child,he would regularly buy a collection of 100 detective stories for Rs 1,written by Bengali author Swapan Kumar. I would also scan newspaper columns about missing people and advertisements about people looking for a suitable match in the Anand Bazaar Patrika. I had a curiosity to know about the unknown till I was 22, he says.

He wrote the script for Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa over a year ago. It is the 68-year-old filmmakers latest Hindi film,24 years after his National Award-winning Bagh Bahadur,which was based on the village life of West Bengal. I have wanted to make a Hindi film for a long time. Having lived in the Hindi belt for a few years,I am comfortable with the language. I always got proposals to make Bengali films and the kind of money needed for a Hindi film was hard to come by, says the filmmaker,whose other Hindi films include Andhi Gali (1984) and Woh (2011),which was based on Tagores short story,Shey. But Dasgupta maintains that he prefers writing his own stories. Sometimes you cannot satisfy the authors. They feel that whatever they have written cannot be replicated in a film. My films shake up reality and enter the world of magic, he says.

Story continues below this ad

Besides Siddiqui,the cast of Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa includes Pankaj Tripathi and Ananya Chatterjee. Dasgupta was keen on Siddiqui for many reasons. Anwar is from a small town,and he get this job in a remote village in West Bengal. He is not very happy living in the city,and I found that look in Nawaz. He (Nawaz) does not look like someone you can imagine dancing or making love with great passion on celluloid. He is an actor, says Dasgupta.

In his 34-year career,Dasgupta has made only 16 films. I go into hibernation after every film. I am like a vessel; once emptied,I take time to fill up, he says. Most of his films have won awards nationally and internationally though the filmmaker says he never takes awards seriously. I keep the money in my pocket and forget about the awards. I dont even know where my Silver Lion (for the 2000 film Uttara) from the Venice Film Festival is kept,

says Dasgupta. Now that Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa is done,Dasgupta may go into hibernation again. Except that the filmmaker is also a prolific Bengali poet who published his first collection of poems at 17. He has 13 collections and his next will be out within six months,he promises.

Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram

Love is an agent

Kolkata-based filmmaker Buddhadeb Dasguptas next Hindi film, Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa is a detective story with a humorous twist.

Kolkata-based filmmaker Buddhadeb Dasguptas next Hindi film, Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa is a detective story with a humorous twist.