The grey sky suddenly turns sunny. Himanshu Dhanuka, my producer, and I step out of the tube station on Oxford Street. I’m back to one of my favourite places in London, Leicester Square. Ignoring the windy chill, me and my young producer go hunting for the street corners of Soho and cafes on Convent Road we have plans to shoot in from May for our forthcoming project, The Bongs Again.
Rewind to Houston
Exactly 10 years ago, me and another young producer, Joy Ganguly, had walked the streets of Houston, searching for locations to shoot The Bong Connection. It was the beginning of an adventure. I was 52 and Joy was in his 30s. We managed to produce something that not only the Bongs of Calcutta loved but a new wave in Bengali cinema somehow emerged. I will never ever take full credit because the entire team of young technicians, my producer, actors and the anticipation of the young audience made it happen. The day it was showcased in Museum Of Modern Art, New York, I cried and silently paid my dues to all those behind it.
Today I am 62 and again feel a similar urge to break new ground. Joy had pestered me to do a Bong Connection Part 2 based in the US and Jaipur, which, despite having started, I did not feel an inner urge to do. I’m really not a Part 2 or sequel type. If fresh ground has to be broken, then fresh ideas and new concepts have to emerge. So when again a 30-plus Himanshu approached me to do a Bong flick in London, I felt the adrenaline rush again.
I wrote a fresh script based in London and my very own Calcutta, and my team comprising my music director Neel Dutt, my cinematographer Indranil Mukherjee, my editor Arghyakamal Mitra and my executive producer Sanjay Pathak loved it.
Breaking new ground
The Bongs Again is another attempt to break barriers that we ourselves have set up in Bengal. Big budget, big stars, so-called production values that no longer matter to world cinema. I feel it’s high time we go truly global. There are many Calcuttas in my Calcutta. The feudal charm of north Calcutta, the new rich Salt Lake, the highly cosmo, hippie and seedy Calcutta of Sudder Street, the wildly chaotic Chandpal Ghat….
Similarly, there are so many worlds in London. The rich Brit London, the hippie London, the Soho, the Brick Lane, Kent seaside and bohemian London…. So I have decided to tell the stories of two cities that were once so close through The Bongs Again. It has nothing whatsoever to do with The Bong Connection.
The similarity lies in its spirit to be with the times. To focus on the spirit and evolution of today’s young Bengalis who are far more global. To have great music and songs which again break new ground in terms of true experimentation and real fusion. To have the new-gen actors take the challenge to be far more edgy. To deal with the marginal and not the mainstream. To evolve a style which means 2016.
Banjos and rundown bars
As I audition for a major role, a young London-born-and-brought-up Pakistani actor, Hassan, catches my eye and mind. He loves Naseeruddin Shah, Irrfan Khan, Mrinal Sen and Anurag Kashyap. He seems to have loved Ranjana Ami Aar Ashbona and is enthused to act with Parno Mittra, one of my lead actors. I try my best not to be excited and keep talking to him about Lee Strasberg and Brecht.
We walk into a rundown but fabulous jazz pub, where we plan to shoot a major scene. Himanshu unabashedly asks the management whether I can step up on the stage and sing 500 Miles with a banjo, an important song in our film to be arranged by Neel and played by Amyt Datta. I do that, while our line producer Sid (Sudipto) tries to woo the women behind the bar to play the bartender for the scene. Sid shows us pictures of a ramshackle beach house in Kent which is exactly like that of my script but the owner in Sussex is unable to come down but Sid insists we see it.
We drive down to Eastborne seaside on a rainy morning in Sid’s car to fix our locations and meet with the Council, listening to Sweet Home Alabama. Himanshu keeps rattling about global cinema and his new project with the renowned Bangladeshi director Farooki and Irrfan Khan. He keeps telling me not to compromise and the fact that cinema is no longer Bengali, Hindi or French but global.
I talk to my wife Chanda, who has recently achieved her dream of owning a Burmese restaurant near Golpark, and she in her own nonchalant way assures me that dreams never cease, they simply multiply.
The star cast
We return late and Harsh, Himanshu’s cousin brother, helps me buy my bottle of red wine while Himanshu basks in the glory of receiving his newly bought Ronin and Osmo 4k camera, which is of the size of a cellphone, that he wants Indranil to check out before the shoot.
I return to the cute hotel in Luton which Himanshu has checked me into and order my Fish ’n’ Chips and drink my wine and smoke in the patio… I imagine Neha Panda the designer, playing one of my leading roles (actually suggested by Himanshu), walking down Sudder Street looking like Rooney Mara from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I imagine Jisshu (Sengupta) driving his Harley-Davidson down Chowringhee with close-cropped hair. I imagine Soumitra Chatterjee in an extremely interesting role. Imagine Gaurav Chakrabarty in an English overcoat and scarf in London. I imagine a young talent from Calcutta playing a trickster in Alimuddin Street to a black actor playing a gangster in London…
I start believing that I am blessed ’cause I am still surrounded by young people and their energy and can still break rules, reach out to the world and not get stuck in the middle-class success of Byomkesh Bakshi. After two glasses of Red Cabernet I remember Ashok Dhanuka of Eskay Movies, who are producing this new adventure, telling me that “trust” is the basis of all energy. I decide to write this article for t2 from London. Just to tell those who care for my work that I trust you guys out there. That you give me the energy to begin yet another journey in my life. Yet another new chapter.
I connected with The Bong Connection because... Tell t2@abp.in
