Parambrata Chattopadhyay is on his toes at home these days! The reason? His three-month-old Labrador Aapel is chewing on anything and everything. “Aapel’s chewed my shoes, belts, chairs.... He is my bundle of joy, no doubt, but he’s a menace!” laughed the Kadambari actor in the favourite room of his Kalikapur flat while chatting over Makha Mihidana...

Being single and managing a pet must be tough?
Well, I don’t live all alone in my house. After my mother passed away the biggest challenge was to make the home still feel like a home. Mashi was Ma’s 24-hour help and after Ma’s demise she said she won’t leave me and go away. You know, when someone so dear is taken away you always get something in return. Our cook is a single mother with a daughter who had no place to stay after her husband refused to take her in. She too lives with us. I take care of her daughter’s education. That is how I’ve made a family of my own.

As far as the pet is concerned, it was a childhood desire to get a pet home but because we never had 24-hour help I couldn’t. Aapel will never be without company. The other reason is I love children. I love animals and I can’t have children right now because I am not married (laughs) so let’s have a pet! And mind you he is not Apple, he is Aapel! 

Bringing Aapel home must have changed you as a person...
(Aapel saunters in after gorging on a rosogolla and Param dotingly calls him ‘Hengluram’) Yes, I have one more reason to come back home. I look forward to coming back home, for this bundle of joy. I don’t feel like going out in the evenings because of him. Since I will be away for a month for a Bangladeshi film and then I will be vacationing in Europe, so the time that I am here I want to be with him. The only thing I don’t like about him is that he wakes up at 4am and wants me to play with him. In fact I was talking about Aapel to Ike (girlfriend, based in The Netherlands) and she said ‘nice, when we will have babies you will be super-trained!’ In a way he is sort of preparing me to become a father. I can easily clean his poop. I am always alert and worried that he doesn’t hurt himself. My sense of responsibility has increased. Actually you have to care for them more than a human baby. He has a doctor, he has someone who comes thrice a week to bathe him, brush his teeth. His vaccination is there, regular de-worming, multi-vitamins....

What’s your favourite two-gether time?
I cuddle him. And he desperately wants to get into my bed! It sounds ridiculous, I know, and that’s because that’s one thing I don’t allow him to do. And the other thing he likes is while he is lying down on the floor I also lie down beside him face to face. The first day he was scared because he must have felt this man is so tall how did he come down to my level! Now he enjoys it.  

Having Aapel around must have eased the pain of the failure of Lorai... 
Yes, and I am also very thankful that I had a lot of work post-Lorai. When a film like Lorai doesn’t work it’s very upsetting, it heavily upset me. Fortunately I started shooting for Neel Mukhopadhyay’s Chocolate and Babar Naam Gandhiji which I thoroughly enjoyed doing. These two films happened right when I was thinking of taking a break for two months before Chocolate because Lorai didn’t work and I was depressed. The failure of Lorai did teach me a lot of things like maybe one shouldn’t be overconfident. 

What went wrong with Lorai?
Many things. Maybe we didn’t put in the right ingredients that the present audience wanted. Also the timing, I don’t think was right. But to be honest with you and to be honest with myself, I think we shouldn’t blame the time. Surely we must have lacked in many ways. But I had to move on and so I bought this flat. But I wasn’t really in a state of mind to do the shifting... to get up, pack things, call the packers. You need a lot of energy and enthusiasm for all that and I wasn’t ready. Thank god Ike was here, otherwise I wouldn’t have pulled it off. I shifted here in January.

Moving out of my last house (in Kasba) was an emotional affair because Ma spent her last few months there.... It was quite a tough phase. But moving to this house really helped. It’s a very bright house, lots of natural light and lots of positive energy. I started sorting myself out slowly... Ike went back, I started writing again without any plan of when to make my next film. I am writing just for the fun of it.I will not make another film in a hurry. Post-Lorai I have become an inward-bound person because I have realised I have to give myself time.

Ike is your support system...
A hell of a lot. I don’t know what I would do without Ike. I have fought with her, screamed at her at times. But she has always been by my side. She is a very positive influence in my life.  

It’s the longest relationship you’ve had...
Absolutely, without a doubt. Five years. 

When do you plan to tie the knot?
I don’t know! (Smiles)

Kushali Nag
Picture: Rashbehari Das

Describe your relationship with your pet in 50 words or less and tell t2@abp.in