Every film begins with a craving. After the noir rush of Shaheb Bibi Golaam, when everyone expected me to chase another thriller, I found myself standing over a kitchen stove instead. Maacher Jhol was born from that impulse — a filmmaker trying to replace gunshots with the sound of frying katla.
Years later, after making Chaalchitro — another plunge into the dark corridors of crime — I felt that same hunger again. Maybe I was tired of blood. Maybe I just missed the smell of mustard oil. Either way, I wanted to return to a world where knives chopped onions, not throats.
Around that time, a school friend called from Riyadh. He spoke about his daughter — how she was growing up too fast, how every visit to Calcutta made her seem more like a stranger. That stayed with me like a lump in the throat. The image of an absent father watching his child grow up through video calls felt both modern and ancient — a universal ache.
And then I wondered: what if the mother wasn’t around either? What happens when the house loses its centre? Could food — that most domestic of acts — become a bridge between the living and the lost? That’s where Ranna Baati started cooking.
Marinating the Idea
In Maacher Jhol, I explored the irony of a Michelin-starred chef who could conquer Paris but not his own kitchen. This time, I wanted to come home — to the kind of Bengali kitchen where fathers hover like unwanted guests. A space ruled by mothers, where men are expected to “go earn,” not “go stir.” But what happens when one morning, life flips the script?
That was my entry point — Shantanu, a father, clumsy with ladles, desperate to reconnect with his daughter Mohor, who had turned monosyllabic, angry, unreachable. A girl who punched classmates while swallowing her pain. Somewhere in that silence between them, I found the story’s heartbeat.
I wanted to use food not as backdrop but as prism — to refract love, loss, laughter, and fear all at once. Food as bridge between two strangers under the same roof. Food as memory — the smell of a mother who isn’t there anymore. Food as nostalgia — a way of tasting childhood again.
The Main Ingredient
Every filmmaker has that one ingredient they reach for too often — mine is Ritwick Chakraborty. Ranna Baati is our fifth outing together, and by now, it’s less collaboration and more codependence. Even when I try not to write for him, the dialogues somehow walk, talk, and sigh like him.
There would be no Ranna Baati without Ritwick, just as there would be no fish curry without the fish. Only a man who once played a masterchef in Maacher Jhol could now become someone who doesn’t even know how to light a gas stove.
But this time, the challenge wasn’t to cook. It was to feel. Ritwick had to step into the shoes of a father who’s lost the recipe for love — a man stumbling through guilt, trying to fix a bond that’s falling apart with every passing day.
Here’s the thing about working with Ritwick: I can fail him, but he will never fail me. He has this rare alchemy — to make the ordinary profound, the silly serious, the quiet unforgettable. When Ritwick is on set, I breathe easier. Because when he looks at a scene, he doesn’t perform it — he lets it simmer, stir, and finally serve something you can taste long after the credits roll.
Adding the Spice
Every recipe needs its spices — the secret sparks that wake up the dish. After Ritwick, it was time to find the right flavours to balance his simmering melancholy. That’s where Sohini Sarkar and Solanki Roy walked into the kitchen.
For Rita Ray, the cooking coach who teaches Shantanu not just how to measure salt but also how to measure sorrow, I needed an actress who could laugh like mustard seeds crackling in hot oil — sharp, alive, irresistible — yet carry the ache of old burns beneath her skin. Rita hides her wounds behind aroma and artifice, heals others while pretending she’s fine. Sohini has that beautiful contradiction — vivacious yet breakable, flamboyant yet fragile.
And then there was Supriya, the mother who exists more as a fragrance — a haunting memory that fills the house like steam from a covered pot. For her, I wanted a presence that wasn’t loud or earthy, but ethereal — a beauty so pristine it almost hurts to look at. Solanki Roy became my Madhubala — all light and longing, a goddess framed in nostalgia.
And then came Mohor — the daughter, the spark, the storm. I cast Ida because she carried defiance in her eyes — that silent rebellion that feels like her generation’s default setting. We worked together on her stares, her pauses, her perfectly timed silences. Ida didn’t play Mohor; she was Mohor — the awkward teenager of 2025 who treats her father like the villain of her private TV show.
The Secret Sauce
Ranna Baati releases in cinemas today, and if you find yourself in need of a little soul food, I hope you’ll join us at the table. It’s a story about burnt recipes and broken people, about the messiness of parenting and the miracle of second chances. Sometimes, resurrection doesn’t come with divine light — it comes with a pressure cooker whistle, a splash of oil, a chaotic cook-off. Because sometimes, the only way to heal a wound is to feed it.