He was there for — and in — her first film, Nater Guru, showing her around the set, making sure she said her lines properly and guiding her. After that Ranjit Mallick and his daughter Koel went on to do quite a few films together. After a six-year break, Senior Mallick is back at the theatres this Friday with the comedy Honeymoon, also starring Subhashree and Soham. Last Sunday, Koel turned interviewer for t2 and lobbed a few questions at her dad!

Koel: Honeymoon is hilarious, I saw it a few days ago. And we know that Baba has a great sense of humour. So did you improvise some of the fun lines on the set?

Ranjit: Yes!

Koel: Certain lines come naturally to him, like this one in Honeymoon — Kaaner matha kheye morechhe hotochhara! He might come across as serious and intense, but if you keep a CCTV in the living room here, then you’ll get to know what a fun person he is.

Ranjit: Please don’t put it here. Aar upokar koro na!

Koel: One will get the content for a proper comedy reality show!

Ranjit: Laughter is the best medicine… and as for my lines, they come from life. A day without laughter is a day wasted… and I completely believe this.

Koel:After all these years, Baba has gone on a signing spree. So Baba, what prompted you to take up these roles?

Ranjit: You can say, this was my khamkheyalipona. I had taken a break because a kind of monotony had set in. I wanted to explore… I wanted to enjoy the weather, look at the sky, birds, trees…

Koel: You could have done all of it while shooting! Why take a break? Once I got so engrossed looking at the sky during the shoot of the film Mon Mane Na that I missed the cue that was supposed to alert me for a scene.

Ranjit: Requests kept pouring in over the years, that I do films...incessant requests came from my Bangladesh fans. 

Koel: Baba, for which role of yours did you need extra preparation?

Ranjit: Swayam Siddha, where I played a mentally challenged person. And I picked up the nuances from a 30-year-old person whom I had spotted from the balcony of my Bhowanipore home… he was watching a monkey do tricks on the road and reacting in the same way a couple of eight-year-olds were doing. He was behaving like a kid. Probably, his mental age had come to a standstill. I brought him home and spoke to him, observed him closely, the way he talked and walked.

Koel: Our family is full of doctors, engineers and lawyers. Who was that one person who inspired you to be an actor?

Ranjit: Our family members had an inclination towards music, dance, theatre… my father used to play the flute, organ… wrote poems. Of course, one has dreams of becoming a hero upon entering college. I used to watch a lot of Uttam-Suchitra films. Also Robert Taylor movies.

Koel: I remember a time when you could spend only Sundays with us. You used to read a lot of poetry then, on rainy days. What did you take back from those poems?

Ranjit: Some of the poems still bring tears to my eyes…

Koel: Your voice would choke with emotion.

Ranjit: Because I would be moved by them... mostly Tagore poems.

Koel: I remember I was in school. On days when he knew my mother had gone out to shop, say to New Market, he would call on the landline after some time from the studio office just to check whether she was back home safe. He won’t show that he is romantic! He would say things indirectly. 

t2: Koel, would you share your thoughts with your parents?

Koel: To a certain extent I did, but then I started noticing that my father would get really affected by it. I shared everything with my mother.

t2: And did you discover a new side to him during shoot?

Ranjit: Let me say something first. It felt very risky to act with her in Nater Guru. To make sure that she was saying her lines correctly, getting her expressions right, I would forget my lines! Ami bekaydaye porechhilam!

Koel: I figured that! But the advice I got from him has been priceless. He has seen the world and knows what one can go through in this profession, a lot of heartbreaks due to many reasons… he would alert me so that I was prepared. Otherwise you can get bruised badly. He did not want me to go through what he went through. 

t2: Do you consult him for scripts?

Koel: I sound off the concepts of my scripts to him.

t2: Do you want Koel to return to mainstream films?

Ranjit: Yes, hundred per cent. I would like to see Koel in quality mainstream films with good stories. You remember Uttam Kumar’s Tumi je amar… that song still moves everyone. That’s romance. Now, you know three is a crowd. So when you see a contemporary romantic song, you see 611 tie-clad people dancing behind the hero and heroine. I get sick! Why can’t the hero and heroine be left alone?!

Koel: Baba! Things have changed now!

t2: There is a Wikipedia entry that says you are known as the Belt Man!

Ranjit: I don’t know who made me the Belt Man. I don’t know how this happened. I used the belt in maybe four-five films.

t2: Do you get offers to do a film together?

Koel: A few had come… one was a nice film about a father and daughter. It was a sensitive but a very sad film. Baba did not want to do it.

Ranjit: I need a ray of hope in the end of a film. The film should be sensible and entertaining.

Koel: If the script is mind-blowing, we would love to be in a film. 

Text: Arindam Chatterjee

Which is your fave father-daughter film? Tell t2@abp.in