The author and his friends shoot for Rahasya Galpo in Rohini;

Rahasya Galpo was directed by a team of four — Chitravanu Basu, Joydeep Majumdar, Rana Paul and myself. It ran for two years. We did about 107 episodes and later others took over.

The series was a thriller in the whodunnit format. It had different types of stories and budget constraints forced us to always shoot in town. But we got bored after a point and decided to head out. North Bengal was our chosen spot.

We decided to explore Rohini and shot portions of three stories for four days. We were the first ones to shoot there. Now, Rohini sees a steady stream of TV and film crew. Recently, Riingo shot Neel Rajar Deshe there.

Rohini is on the way to Pankhabari. We met the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council and sought their permission to shoot. They were more than eager.

The first episode to take off was the story of a medical college student who gets lost in the hills. His friends come looking for him and soon they crack the murky story behind it. We camped in Siliguri and would go into the forests everyday. We got some really striking visuals.

The author with Abhijit, Anasuya, Kanchana and Saurabh at a script-reading session in Shankarpur

Shooting took me to Shankarpur one more time, two years ago. It was for the telefilm Saamne Samudra, directed by Saurabh Sarangi. Apart from me, the cast included Anasuya Majumdar, Kanchana Maitra and Abhijit Bose. Anasuyadi played my wife, while Kanchana was a colleague with whom I go to Shankarpur on a weekend trip. Abhijit played a waiter in the hotel where we put up.

Saamne Samudra was a beautifully-handled telefilm, but the four-day shoot had been a painstaking effort because Saurabh is a perfectionist. He made me do one of the most difficult things in my life — lie on the sandy beach and recite lines from Jibanananda Das. I was supposed to be high on vodka.

You can’t imagine what a pain it was! It was very hot and as I lay on the beach, the wind blew the blistering sand on my face. It felt like a sandblast. My nose, ears and eyes started burning, but I went on reciting. It was very tough, also because I get very nervous reciting poetry.

We woke up the next day to find an overcast sky. But Saurabh made the most of it. We shot in the rain — there was a scene involving me and Kanchana getting wet — while the crew ducked under umbrellas with the camera.