DARJEELING UNLIMITED

Ranbir Kapoor and the Barfee crew may have found the love that they received in the hills a bit too overwhelming. They had to pack and leave because the crowds were unmanageable. But it seems that Darjeeling is back in the good books of film crews. Back in the 1960s and 1970s,the likes of Rajesh Khanna,Zeenat Aman,Sharmila Tagore would regularly camp at Darjeeling to shoot song sequences. In fact,there was a time when it was told that you couldn’t visit the hill station without bumping into a yodelling Rajesh Khanna (remember Mere Sapnon ki Rani?) or a simpering Sharmila. This had a whole chunk of Indian middle class,dreaming of saving enough money to visit the place,for their honeymoons or for their family vacations,owing to films like Aradhana and Anurodh. The idea of visiting a hill station,and more so Darjelling,became a middle-class aspiration. Before Yash Chopra discovered Switzerland and introduced us to the snow-capped Alps and the idea of romance there,with actresses dancing in pastel chiffon saris,Darjeeling’s tea gardens were the hot favourites. The last Bollywood biggies to shoot a film here were Shah Rukh Khan,who shot portions of his home production Main Hoon Na at the famous St Paul’s School in 2003 and Saif Ali Khan,who shot a song sequence for Parineeta. But then the hills became a little hostile and a little out-of-reach owing to the Gorkhaland movement. Now,thanks to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee signing an agreement with the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha to resolve the age-old Gorkhaland issue,the Queen of Hills seems to be back in action with a series of films,after being abandoned by the industry for quite some time. As for Tollywood,the industry has had a more consistent relationship with the hill station. In the 1969 film Kanchanjunga,the hill station was almost used as a character. In the Aparna Sen-Soumitra Chattrejee film Baksha Badal too,the hill station played a prominent part in the unfolding of the story. A few years ago,Anjan Dutt based his relationship thriller Chowrasta,in Darjeeling,using the scenic beauty of the place as a foil to narrate a story about love and deprivation. Tollywood is back to romance its favourite hill station,and how. The music launch of Anjan Dutt’s latest,Ranjana Ami aar Ashbo Na,was held there a fortnight ago. Portions of Kaushik Ganguly’s Laptop were shot there too. “I have a personal relationship with the city. I spent my formative years here,so its natural that I keep coming back to shoot films here,” says Anjan Dutt. Dutt’s enduring love affair with the hill station notwithstanding,there have been other filmmakers,who are keen to shoot their films here. Most prominently Anurag Basu,who is keen to shoot his Ranbir Kapoor-Priyanka Chopra starrer Barfee here. “There was some minor misunderstanding during the first schedule,which is why we decided to wrap up. We will be back in September. The script demands that the film be shot here,” says Basu. However,shooting in the hill station does come with some logistical problems,crowd management being one of them. “There is a lack of infrastructure. But that can be easily sorted out. There are a wealth of locations in and around Darjeeling which a filmmaker should explore,” says Ganguly.