The call...
In the midst of a busy workday, I get The Call. “Hi, tomorrow we’ll be shooting at Swissotel. Will you be able to come at 7am please? It’s a daylong shoot. Bring a pair of black shoes please. We will take care of the rest.” I realise that finally I am going to be acting in a film! “Sure. I will be there at 7am,” says a beaming me.
... and the call time!
Call time: Okay, I admit I am not a morning person. Result: I wake up late and reach Swissotel at 9.30am! And what do I find? Some 10-odd people sitting lazily in a conference room. Lesson learnt: Call time on sets is always given factoring in latecomers like me!
Food bond for first-timers
Breakfast comprising kochuri, aloor torkari and mishti arrives and we bond over the food plus our collective cluelessness about what’s going to happen over the next few hours. I get to learn that many in this team are also first-time actors and most are actually students of different hospitality schools, trained in culinary skills. I remember the Maggi I made the day before.
The name is Priyam
Costumes arrive and with it a flurry of activity! The man in charge patiently takes our measurements and assigns the costumes — chef’s apron and hat. I get mine, with a nameplate that reads ‘Priyam’. I look at the mirror, quickly take a selfie and share the picture with the t2 gang on one of our many WhatsApp groups. For the next few hours, I am chef Priyam from Swissotel. #actinglife #excited
Set the scene
We assemble in the cafe and a team of happy people briefs us about the scene. Suddenly I catch a glimpse of a familiar face — Ritwick Chakraborty. It sinks in... I am actually acting in a film. And my debut co-star is one of my favourite actors in Tollywood. Butterflies in the tummy. But where’s the director?!
The flashback
It’s my first week at The Telegraph seven years ago. I have just received my office ID for the in-house messenger system. I select all the names I can see in the recipient list and send an all-user message introducing myself. The first reply I get? “Welcome to the madness!” The sender’s name is Pratim D. Gupta.
Cut to the present at Café Swiss, Swissotel. I spot my colleague, Pratim D. Gupta. Only to realise he is not my colleague. Gone is the casual air of a movie reviewer. I see a man engrossed over a monitor, sharing an occasional word with the assistant director and the cinematographer. Calm and composed… focused… in the zone maybe?
Action and cut
Shoot begins. With our respective positions fixed, scene explained, dialogues given, a voice says: “Rolling… action!”And almost immediately a voice cries out, “Cut”. Someone in the frame has looked into the camera. That is not planned. So we roll again. And cut again. This time our movement is not in sync. Action, once more. Cut! Okay, this time it is a technical problem. Some light source is flickering. Ok, roll again. And cut once more! Now what? Not sure… the director must be unhappy with something. I hope the next roll is the final one for this shot. But it goes on. And I start to see why people say film shoots are a test of patience. Many ‘takes’ later, my first scene is over!
A plane in the sky
Next up there is this scene to be shot on the Swissotel rooftop. And every time an airplane flies by (remember, the airport is so close), the shoot has to pause. What all one has to face while shooting! I resolve never to watch a film just as a film, ever again. For lunch, the entire crew bonds over a feast of dal, bhaat, bhaja, torkari and, of course, maachher jhol!
Cooking... water!
I have been waiting for this scene since morning. It requires me to cook in front of the camera! Guess what I cooked? Water. With a few red chillies thrown in. Think I have lost it?! It’s called the “cheat shot”. It’s all in the trick of the camera and post-production, so that even when I am vigorously ladling just some water in a jumbo steamer, the final shot will make you, the audience, believe that I was cooking Pineapple Chicken with Fried Rice! #KhayaliPulao
Cooking up a storm
I want to ‘get into character’. Hence I get hold of a bowl of minced carrots, gather several boxes of spice around me. I even find a sieve. And I behave busy. A kind hotel staff shows me the way one wields the ladle while cooking rice. After a number of attempts, I get the hand movement right. The camera rolls and we cook up a storm!
Champ of cheat shots
A cooking scene in the Swissotel kitchen starts around 6pm and goes on and on… a long wait for that perfect shot. Pratim is a perfectionist and so is his team. No wonder the same scene has to be shot from different angles, for different perspectives. Each one of us has a specific action to repeat in each take.
And the final shot has our celebrity chef Dev D (Ritwick) walking over to each one of us, checking out what we’ve cooked and even tasting the food! By now we are used to the fact that he would taste non-existent food, all thanks to ‘cheat shots’! We joke, laugh and hush back into silence each time the director shouts “action”. Finally, around 9pm, we hear those two final words: “Pack up!”
Fame time
Cut to the t2 office. Another working day when I get a call. A cousin from Bangalore is on the line. “Arreyy tui toh celebrity hoye gechhish re! Just spotted you in the Maacher Jhol trailer (the scene where we, ‘Swissotel chefs’, stand in a row and greet our idol Dev D for the first time by taking off our chef’s hats). “Treat dichchish kobe?” “Anytime,” I say, “but this time it will be gorom, gorom maachher jhol cooked by me.” Done!
Sibendu Das
They had teamed up after eight years for Bhalobashar Bari. And now the Tarun Majumdar film starring Rituparna Sengupta is going places before its India release (post-Puja). First stop was Los Angeles, with San Francisco, New Jersey, Dallas and Atlanta coming up. This is Rituparna’s third act with the veteran director, following Alo in 2003 and Chander Bari in 2007. “Screening this film in the US marks a great endeavour by Dreams Unlimited (that has organised it),” said Rituparna.
“Bhalobashar Bari is a very sweet family drama where the values are highlighted like in all his films. You can learn a lot from his films about Bengali culture. I play a woman who looks beyond marriage and relationships… she is the sole bread earner of the family with a whole lot of responsibilities. She is a rebel.... Tarun Majumdar, in his mid-80s, has made a romantic, musical film with a strong social message. His simplicity speaks volumes in the film and his handling of the simplest of emotions is masterful,” she smiled.
