It’s a sunny Saturday, and Adil Hussain has just finished a hearty lunch. He flashed a happy smile, having wrapped up the dubbing for the June 22 film Ahare Mon, directed by Pratim D. Gupta, also starring Paoli Dam, Parno Mittra, Anjan Dutt, Ritwick Chakraborty, Chitrangada Chakraborty and Mamata Shankar. “Any kind of Bengali lunch is a feast... I had biryani, jhuri aloo bhaja, palang shaak, the mutton jhol. I had two pieces of mutton from the biryani,” said Adil between bites. Lunch over, Adil settled down for a chat with t2... 

Do you go to the gym?

I can’t handle the situation there… I just find it too funny to build muscle unless it is required for a role. If a role requires a muscular body, then I don’t mind spending some time and sort of tone up. I am a lazy actor in terms of going to the fitness club. But I do my yoga. 

Do you cook?

I cook every day. My son Kabir is eight years old and he orders me around. He likes to have dosa. So I had to crack the dosa from scratch. I buy the dal and rice, and then I call up the mothers of my South Indian friends and ask them for tips. I make all sorts of food… Kashmiri, Bengali, Assamese, Malayali, Western dishes. I am really good at making Kashmiri Pandit Mutton, Begun Bharta, Ilish Maachh, Shorshe Maachh, Chochchori, Mochar Ghonto… I make good Aloo Posto. I have been cooking for 35 years. I love cooking. I love the idea of seeing that smile and the feeling of well-being when people eat it. Cooking starts from the intention. The more time you spend with the ingredients that you are cooking the better it is. 

How did Ahare Mon happen?

I had been on a sabbatical. Once the film came to me, I said I’ll do it if it is not more than four to five days. I just want to be home with my son. I had been away since he was born. I liked the story. I have never played such a role before. I loved the idea of the immigration officer who has never travelled. And he sends everyone abroad. He has never married. He sits there and sees everyone going abroad. I thought it was an interesting role to play. The whole idea of him being in love with an international traveller (Ramona, played by Paoli Dam).  

Your Bengali film connection is getting stronger...

I have been coming to Calcutta since 1975 as a schoolboy. I grew up on Tagore, Bankim Chandra, Sarat Chandra. I have a knack for languages. I watched a lot of Bengali movies as a kid. I am very fond of Tapan Sinha films. I feel Nirjan Saikate is a masterpiece. Among the recent ones, I have seen Asamapto, Shabdo. I learnt Hindi by watching Dharmendra and Bachchan movies. Picking up a language is a matter of how deeply you listen. That is one of the fundamental skills an actor must have. My first Bengali film was Iti Srikanta. Then I did a film which didn’t release. Arindam Sil is a friend whom I know from Iti Srikanta, and I did his Har Har Byomkesh. 

Going into a Bengali film shoot, how different was it?

There is a lot of shouting... a lot of chaos on the sets (laughs). I have found a mechanism within to keep myself calm, to deal with it, be focused and alert. When I shoot in the West, everyone is quiet. Ang Lee will whisper to his actors, his production boy, spot boy. So if he whispers, everyone whispers. The precision of timing is to the dot in European or Hollywood film shoots. They spend more time in the pre-production than in the shoot. Everything is planned and executed to the T. See, we believe in next life. That’s why we hear the whole ‘dekha jabe in next life thing’! In Germany, if the light cue is one second late, they’ll be horrified. 

Do you go to the theatres? 

The last films I watched in the theatres were Court and Masaan. Loved both. For watching a film in the theatres, after negotiating traffic, and then putting in the time and effort... it has to be worth it. Such good content is available on the digital platform. I have a fantastic projector and a screen at home (in Delhi). So I don’t want to waste my time on a film to find out how that’s going to turn out. Unless my trusted friends tell me it is a good film. 

How do you prep for dubbing?

I depend a lot on the director and sound recordist. I hear it and I say it. 

You are used to doing sync sound films. So how was this experience where you dub for a film?

It is difficult because you have to recreate something which you have done at a specific time; situations are different. Scientifically, you cannot recreate the same thing again. Because life has moved. You are not the same person. You try to come close to it. Sometimes you can rectify certain mistakes. You also prepare accordingly. There are some actors in India who cannot dream of doing a sync sound film because they don’t even remember lines. 

I approach it like a play, remembering my lines. I treat it like it is my final performance. At the same time, since films are shot in a haphazard manner, you don’t get the graph right. So then you can correct those things. What I miss in a dubbed film is the breathing body. It feels sterile. See a dubbed version and a sync sound version of the same scene, you’ll feel the difference. It’s alive. There is the sound of the breath. I try my best to do it again (during dubbing)... you can come close to it, and you try to live with it... to the point that you have to think that your grandchildren will watch it some day and criticise you. That is my nightmare. A hundred years later, the style of acting will change. So my grandchildren might look at us the way we look at Saigal now.  

How was Pratim to work with?

I loved him. He is a keen observer of life. He hears very well. When you create the truth of a moment, he gets it. That’s a very important element in a director. He is calm and cool. Since we had little time before the shoot, I just told him, ‘Just take my hand and lead me.’ And I completely submitted to my director. Of course I come up with suggestions, but they are open suggestions that you can throw or take. I have no ego issue. Film is a director’s medium. I have seen his Maacher Jhol and thought it was a very interesting film. 

This is your second film with Paoli... 

Paoli is a good friend; we did a film together called Maati. I met her for the first time during the shoot of Maati. We warmed to each other in the process. She came home to Delhi. I cooked for her. I went to her house in Calcutta and was fed a wonderful dinner. I had a great time working with Paoli. She is intensely curious. We’d do the same scene again and again in different ways... laughing, crying. We keep it open and she is ready to rehearse. You don’t often see this — that somebody is ready to rehearse again and again without having the fear of losing spontaneity. That’s the skill of an actor.