On July 5, Parambrata Chattopadhyay went back to the address where he spent his mornings as a child — Dolna Day School. The reason? To hold a special screening of his fourth directorial film, Shonar Pahar, for the teachers and students. 

The students of Class II watched the film with the young star of the film, Shrijato Banerjee, who also studies in the same school. Parambrata interacted with the little ones, soaked up the love of his former teachers and talked to t2 about his happiest memories from his days in the school that was his second home.  

What kind of a student were you?

I was a pretty decent student. I always sucked in maths. Apart from that, I was pretty good! And I used to be involved in a lot of different activities, like music and art. There was a group of about three or four of us who were favourites of the teachers in my class... I was one of them!

Who was your favourite teacher?

Arindrajit Saha, who taught us English literature and history. He left Dolna around the same time that I did. He had a great influence on me. 

What is your favourite memory at Dolna? Messing around with friends? Being involved in some project or function, perhaps? 

Well, I was very mischievous as a kid but I looked so innocent and baby-faced that no one believed that I could commit mischief! So I would do a lot of stuff... I used to be the mastermind, but I always had this strange sense of being able to tell when the teachers were coming. By the time they arrived at the place of the miscreation, I would be sitting far away, innocently looking out of the window. I would never get caught and my friends used to get very annoyed with me.

Are you in touch with your teachers? 

I saw Susmitadi (Susmita Chowdhury, Bengali teacher) and also Gargidi (Gargi Roy, Bengali and geography teacher) today. I left this school in 1994, so it has been 24 long years. 

Is this the first time you saw them since you left? 

No, I’ve been back several times, for Christmas fetes and other occasions. But this homecoming is very special. 

Why did you decide to do a screening here?

Mainly because of Shrijato’s enthusiasm! He’s a student here.

Is that a coincidence?

Oh yes, purely. I was very happy to hear it afterwards, but his background as a student of Dolna did not come into play in choosing him.

Now that you’ve seen the reactions of the kids, did it make you see the movie in a new light?

How do you mean?

Well, you mentioned that they laughed at the bits that you didn’t expect them to find as funny as other parts...
Oh, but this is not only a kid’s film! It is a movie in which a kid plays a very important role, but it is not a movie for kids, per se. It is a film mostly for adults, but everybody takes a slice of their own. Wherever the kid is being a menace, the other kids found that funny!

On that note, what was the experience of directing a kid like? 

I have directed children before but not as extensively as this. In this movie, he is everything, the lynchpin. Working with someone like Shrijato is unique because it opens up vistas of your vision as well. The way in which he sees things is  very instructive. 

I have always felt that you get on well with kids by treating them as equals. That’s the way I went about it with Shrijato as well. By the second day, I had taught him quite a lot about lenses and so on. He became quite active on set. We, as adults, tend to forget the need to ask questions. Shrijato’s indomitable hunger for knowledge, expressed through his repeated questions, is something we should be enriching ourselves with, too. 

So what are the changes that you see in school now? And what has remained the same?

I think the core spirit of the school has remained unchanged. Even now, the kids from Class I and II can sing an entire Rabindrasangeet from memory with just as clear pronunciation as they sing folk songs or English songs. It’s still essentially a very Bengali school, not in the sense of a Bengali-medium school  but a truly Bengali international school. 

So a uniquely global sensibility?

Correct, a very, very global sensibility, whereas in most schools, especially the newer ones, I find it slightly lopsided.

 

Text: Rushati Mukherjee
Pictures: Pabitra Das