On Hindustan Road, in a flat where white walls meet teal upholstery and the afternoon light falls in thick, patient sheets, filmmaker Anik Dutta has just finished lunch. The smell of mustard oil still lingers faintly in the air. On the table there had been rice, dal, a seasonal sabzi, and Bori Diye Rui Machher Jhol — the kind of meal that forms the backbone of Bengali afternoons.
“This is comfort food,” he says, smiling as he settles onto his teal couch. “This is tradition. Afternoon meals are Bengali food — rice, dal, fish, one sabzi. The evenings are different. Yesterday I had pork momos and chowmein made at home.”
He chuckles, remembering where his love for momos began. “When I was at St. Xavier’s, we went to Delhi for a couple of festivals. We were crashing with friends at St. Stephen’s hostel. They were all very proper. And we... someone in a lungi, someone in a punjabi. We asked them what’s cheap and healthy, and that’s when we discovered momos. From then, it stuck.”
The teal couch, the white walls, the paintings, and the photograph of Satyajit Ray on the wall give the room the feel of a lived-in archive —personal, cultural, and cinematic all at once.
The genesis
Dutta’s latest film Joto Kando Kolkatatei borrows its spirit from Satyajit Ray’s Feluda stories, though it is by no means a direct adaptation. “It is not only a detective story,” he explains. “There is no private detective here. The protagonist’s father’s friend had named him Topshe, just like I have done, to a friend’s son. He does stumble upon a riddle, yes, but the journey is different.” At its heart, the story follows a young woman who arrives in Calcutta in search of her roots. A letter from her great-grandfather sets her off on a trail — from one corner of the city to another — each clue drawing her deeper into its labyrinth of history and memory. “In the letter, there is a riddle, and if they can solve it, it will lead them to something… perhaps an answer, perhaps just another question.”
The idea, he says, first came to him during Satyajit Ray’s centenary year. “It was meant to be somewhat biographical, the way I had approached Aparajito. But once Aparajito was made, I didn’t want to be repetitive. Now, Feluda is Feluda — who am I to give Ray a homage? I am not that capable.” Still, Ray looms large in the imagination of every Bengali cinephile, and Dutta could not resist weaving him in, even obliquely. “We were all Topshe in our childhood,” he reflects. “That’s why I named the protagonist Topshe. Because it was easier to be Topshe than Feluda. Feluda was too perfect, too sharp. Topshe was the boy who saw, who narrated. He was us. Everyone has their own Feluda — Soumitra’s Feluda, Sabyasachi’s Feluda, Abir’s Feluda. My film is not trying to add to that pantheon. It is simply saying: let us remember the joy of it, the thrill of a puzzle, the charm of a Sunday afternoon with a book in hand.”
Casting, too, was guided by this spirit of freshness. Dutta chose Quazi Nawshaba Ahmed, a young actor from Bangladesh, to play the lead. “I wanted someone her age, someone who could carry the innocence of discovery. A fresh face. And the fact that she comes from Bangladesh only deepens the sense of someone arriving in Calcutta in search of her roots. We wanted the casting itself to feel interesting.” But making the film was far from easy. Dutta fell gravely ill. “I was very sick,” he admits quietly. The film, in that sense, became as much a test of endurance as of imagination.
Ray, the Atmosphere
For Dutta, Feluda cannot be separated from Ray. On the living room wall, a painting of Satyajit Ray watches over. Posters of Ray once filled his childhood room, and many survive even now. “I’m said to have an OCD with him,” he laughs. “I first discovered Ray from his illustrations in Sandesh. My father’s artist friends saw my own drawings and started saying, ‘Tui toh Manikda r pooro jhaira diso.’ Then I met Ray. Imagine — a tall man, larger than life, and there I was, this shy boy. Apparently, I was almost cast in one of his films once, but I was unreachable — as one of my father’s friends later told me, we had been away at our family’s tea estate at the time."
From illustrations, he moved to the Feluda books, and then to films. “I watched Kanchenjunga at Jadavpur University’s Gandhi Bhavan. I had watched a lot of Eisenstein there too. Then Ray’s non-fiction, his essays. He formed a big part of my universe.”
Ray remains a shadow he cannot and does not want to escape. “He is not just a filmmaker. He is an atmosphere. You breathe him in Calcutta. His influence paralyses you sometimes — you think, what’s the point, Ray has already done it. But the answer is not to compete, but to continue the conversation he began.”
Growing Up South, Dreaming North
Anik Dutta grew up in a joint family home in Jodhpur Park. “South Calcutta, proper south,” he says. “But North Calcutta is a recurring theme in my films. I love old buildings, old architecture. I always had that hang-up. I never liked too much change. Even if not the decrepit houses of the north, I lived in an art deco house in the south. Not like today’s matchbox flats. I don’t absolutely shun modernity, but I need a connection to the past.” The city’s architecture, its stubborn refusal to erase its past, shaped him as much as any classroom.
Childhood memories stretch beyond the city too. His Mamabari was in Barrackpore, inside a jute mill quarter. “Colonial lawns, red brick houses, Barrackpore Club. In the Sixties, they had everything — from yachting to motorboat racing. I grew up in that atmosphere, too.”
Thirteen years and counting
This year marks 13 years since his debut feature Bhooter Bhabishyat, the cult satire that gave Bengali cinema a new vocabulary of humour and nostalgia. “When it was released, I was scared,” he admits. “Kaushik Ganguly called and said, ‘This is probably how history is made.’ I thought — history? Already, with my first film? Arrogance is dangerous. Your achievements are fickle. The same people who put you up will pull you down if you don’t perform.” His career has been shaped less by ambition and more by instinct. “I’m lazy and laid-back,” he says frankly. “After Bhooter Bhabishyat, I got 40 offers for Bombay remakes. Luckily, I didn’t take them.”
The lessons he carries are threefold. “First, don’t be too vocal. I still am a loose cannon, but one must be careful. Second, stay grounded. Third, be true to yourself, and humble — not just outside, but within yourself. Only pursue happiness, though it is always elusive. I know my privilege — I wasn’t born into penury. My father threw me out because I refused to join the family business. I started from scratch. That makes you aware.”
Films — Past and present Dutta’s cinematic influences are eclectic. “I grew up seeing the Brahma, Vishnu, and Maheshwar of Bengali films (Ray, Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak). But the last film that touched me before I entered feature filmmaking was 36 Chowringhee Lane. I don’t watch filmmakers’ entire body of work, except Ray’s. I watch films. Sholay had a huge impact on me, though I wasn’t allowed Hindi films at home. That was the Calcutta standard. My father was strict. I was allowed films like Haathi Mere Saathi, nothing else. Even commercial Uttam-Suchitra films were frowned upon.” Among recent Bengali films, he mentions Mayanagar by Aditya Vikram Sengupta, Dear Maa and Manik Babur Megh with quiet admiration.
A Cult Following
Dutta’s films are often described as having a cult following, appealing to niche audiences. He shrugs. “I am told that. Sometimes on the street, in a club, even abroad, someone says: ‘We don’t watch many Bengali films, but we watch yours.’ I think what they mean is not that they don’t watch films in a particular language, but that they don’t find what they want in current Bengali cinema. That isn’t true for me. I think there’s variety. But yes, maybe I offer something different.”
Life, City and Continuity
For Dutta, the city is always the protagonist — Calcutta, not backdrop but bloodstream. Once a shy, tongue-tied boy who could never say hello, he is now more at ease yet still wary of authority. “I never liked authority. Maybe that’s why satire comes naturally to me.” Outside, Hindustan Road hums with Puja shoppers. “Only happiness is worth pursuing,” he muses. “Elusive, yes — but what else is there? Films, food, family, friends, the absurdities of this city. Isn’t that enough?”
And as the afternoon softened into evening, one could almost glimpse the boy still in love with Ray, wandering through memory yet steady in the sharp self-awareness of the present.