Redefining Tagore

Shyama revolves around the life of a court dancer who wants to achieve all the good things in life without any sacrifice. She falls in love with a merchant who gets caught for stealing. In her obsession for the man,Shyama forces a young love struck man to sacrifice his life to secure her love. To capture Tagore’s work in its authentic colours,the film was shit entirely in a theatre and not in a outdoor location. “Although this basically meant filming against a black background,it brought out the colours that are integral to any of Tagore’s dance dramas. And of course,this is also a tribute to Debanshu Majumder’s lighting design,” says Chatterjee.

“We wanted to create an authentic reference work for future generations and to make Shyama accessible to people all over the world,not just Bengali-speakers,” says Chatterjee. While trying to come up with English subtitles,Kaberi and Chatterjee discovered that an English translation of Shyama was not available yet. So,they had to take up the job of subtitling themselves. “My father Jayanta Chatterjee did the initial English translation to help me prepare for the shoot. When we were in post-production,with Kaberi’s help,I revised the translation to make sure that the subtitles matched the on-screen movements of the dancers. All translations of literary works are a compromise but we tried to be as honest as possible to the original,” says Chatterjee. The translated text,was released in the form of a book in the film’s first public screening at Stratford-upon-Avon.

Chatterjee,however,with the help from friends has facilitated translations of the work in eight languages – French,Spanish,German,Portuguese,Italian and Hungarian. “Other language versions are in the pipeline,” adds Chatterjee.