‘Tomorrow is a new day’

I was actively involved with the English Professional Theatre Circuit in Bengaluru. Among the plays I acted in are Madness adapted from Paulo Coelho’s Veronica Decides To Die; Manoj Mitra’s The Orchard of Banchharam; Badal Sircar’s The Other Side of History; Sunil Ganguly’s Pratidwandi – The Adversary and Lucknow 76. I wrote and directed Mindgame,an Indian adaptation of Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men in 2006. In April 2008,I wrote,directed and acted in Feluda Pherot! that was a runaway success. It was the first ever dramatisation of Satyajit Ray’s sleuth Feluda. I then shifted to Kolkata,wrote,directed and acted in Checkmate in English,an account of Byomkesh Bakshi’s last case. I was assistant director,lyricist and actor in both Anjan Dutt’s Madly Bengali and Aparna Sen’s Iti Mrinalini. In 2010,I got my big break with Autograph.

How did you manage to rope in a big production house like Venkatesh and Mantena and Bengali cinema’s top star Prosenjit for Autograph?

Nandana Sen,a close friend,was instrumental. She pushed and prodded me to write the script after I told her that I was toying with this concept. She put me through to Prosenjit Chatterjee. I eventually went to producers Madhu Mantena,Shrikant Mohta and Mahendra Soni–– the crucial people who helped realise this dream called Autograph. Other factors which helped me were my confidence in my dreams,patience,persistence and an undiluted passion for story-telling.

Why have you named the film Autograph?

Autograph signifies fame,power,success and individuality –– themes that are germane to the narrative. I found it to be a nice,catchy and smart title that elicits a lot of interest and curiosity.

There is this constant reference to Satyajit Ray’s Nayak. How have you drawn lines between Nayak and Autograph for which you have penned the story,screenplay and dialogue?

Nayak is just a reference-point as a film within a film. While Nayak deals primarily with one’s life as seen through the eyes of others and the hero’s own conscience symbolised by the female journalist,Autograph is essentially about three lives intertwining through reel and real space. Autograph both counterpoints and reinterprets Nayak at some places when we see decadence in values and ruthlessness of ambition in the hero. The film takes a more contemporary look at the persona of a superstar. But holistically speaking,Autograph is basically a triangular relationship story that looks at changing lives in urban Kolkata,and the various shades of love – set against the backdrop of the Bengali film industry. There is something distinctively different from Nayak –– both structurally and generally,in terms of plot,treatment and story.

What do you think made Prosenjit agree to work in this film?

To quote him,he found it to be a flawless script. For an under-utilised and underrated actor (owing to his larger-than-life superstar persona) who is as perpetually hungry for good roles as Prosenjit is,nothing matters more than the script. I also think he found the role very close to his heart. He has never played a superstar before. The character of Arun Chatterjee had the right mix of arrogance and humility,humour and seriousness,altruism and vindictiveness to impart a very real shade of grey to the character. I think the additional layering of playing another superstar,slightly different from Arun in the film-within-the-film,appealed to him.

Have you used archival clips from Ray’s Nayak?

No. Autograph is not a sequel to Nayak. It is not even about Nayak. It is about the filming of a remake of Nayak called Aajker Nayak by this young turk called Shubhobroto Mitra (Indraneil Sengupta),starring Arun Chatterjee,the matinee idol of Tollygunge. It is a different premise with a different setting. I felt no need to use archival clips of Nayak to tell the story of Autograph. Neither did Shubhobroto use anything from Nayak to tell the story of Aajker Nayak.

There are eight songs in the film that lend themselves to varied genres in music. Why have you used so many tracks?

I am very musically inclined. I love the idea of using music for storytelling and a specific purpose. Both storytelling and purpose are very relevant here,because I do not believe in using songs for the sake of themselves in a narrative,however beautiful they might be. They have to either take the story forward,or be an additional sub-narrative,or have the potential to replace a scene full of dialogues to bring out the emotional state of characters realistically. So I am not fond of “item” numbers or lip-sync song sequences. In Autograph,I use them as background scores. Debojyoti Mishra and Anupam Roy have together created a magical score.

Where do you see yourself five years from now?

In Kolkata,about four films old,learning from my peers and seniors and struggling to find a producer. After all,tomorrow is a new day.