Darjeeling is back. for tourists. for Tollywood. for Bollywood too — with team Anurag Basu, starring Ranbir Kapoor, poised to shoot there for Barfee. and who better to rediscover darj with than Anjan Dutt? it’s The place that has nurtured the singer, actor and filmmaker in him. with a spring in his step, Dutt took t2 on a tour of his five favourite retreats — both old and new — before the music release of Ranjana ami ar ashbona

 

 

St. Paul’s

[The car wheels uphill.] I belonged to an old joint family and there were disputes. The family was cracking up, so they felt I should stay away instead of seeing fathers and uncles fight. This was around 1962 to the ’70s. There used to be a lot of foreign students in St. Paul’s — Irish, Filipino, Thai. When school would close for three months during winter, I would often stay back. Almost whatever I am today is because of this place.

[Points at the boundary wall of the school as the car pulls over.] This wall wasn’t there then. The school was always isolated, so it would be an adventure for us to escape by jumping off the khud and go for a movie, bunking school. If caught, we would be whacked. The punishments depended on the level of naughtiness. First it was ‘leave stop’, next was ‘picture stop’ which was not getting to watch the Saturday movie. Then it was ‘cold shower’, ‘caning’ and finally ‘social stop’ — the worst punishment... that meant not getting to meet the girls! We used to wait months for the Loreto Socials, when we’d put Brylcreem in our hair and try to look like Cliff Richard or Elvis Presley (laughs out loud).

[Strolls around the campus.] My first cigarette, I smoked here. My first swig of beer I had hiding in and around these places (points at the bushy shrubs fringing the campus). It’s where I had my first taste of blood in the mouth after a fight and my first love affair.... I fell in love with our dormitory matron Mrs Egliston! She was in her late 30s and I was 10 or 11. She used to wear this strong perfume, her lipstick was red and her legs looked extra wide because of the kind of stockings she wore. I fell in love with her straightaway. She used to invite a few select boys she liked to her apartment where she’d bake us cheese cake, play music on her record player and teach us how to twist.

Then, slowly, Mrs Egliston faded away and Margaret came in and I went for my first date to Glenary’s. That was another phase. I started growing sideburns but kept it hidden with my muffler till it was seen by the teachers and I was caned!

Unlike the other schools in Darjeeling, St. Paul’s was more into music, choir and orchestra, so my basic love for acting, music and theatre all grew from here. I was a treble in the school choir. Once at an inter-house concert I sang Lucky Lips without realising what I had chosen! The whole hall went silent. The rector looked shocked. Nobody clapped but the boys... they just loved it and giggled away. In the end I got a cold shower!

The quadrangle, where I’ve come back to shoot Chowrasta and a song sequence in Bada Din, has been my favourite part of the school.

I also come back to do theatre workshops here with the boys and perform, not professionally though. None of my teachers are around but the younger teachers all know me because I keep coming back to write a script or shoot and I call them ‘sir’.

Joey’s Pub

[Is greeted by the bartender as soon as he walks in. Delighted by the surmise visit, the bartender readies a mug of beer for Dutt in a jiffy.]

Joey’s Pub is run by Puran Gongba. He was in North Point and I was in St. Paul’s. He was much senior to me but invariably the girls would go after him because he was very stylish, the Elvis Presley of Darjeeling.

I discovered him in Calcutta all of a sudden some years after I passed out of school. He told me that he’d given up everything to become a musician.

I never heard from him in a long time and then after a few years I walked into this new pub I discovered in Darj when I had gone there with Chanda right after our marriage. And there was Puran again! He told me he had given up music and was now running this pub. His father had a restaurant called Dilkhush, very famous in Darjeeling for its north Indian food. After his father passed away, Puran came back to Darjeeling, pulled down Dilkhush, turned it into a pub and called it Joey’s Pub. That was 25 years ago.

[Sits down on one of the bar stools.] It’s a fantastic pub, very close to an English pub. Very quaint, very British, entirely wooden and beautiful and plays all kinds of retro and British rock music. A year ago, there was a fire and everything was destroyed. The pub is still open but they’re rebuilding it. Everybody calls Puran Uncle Joey now, after Joey’s Pub.

Of the 10 best friends I have in the world, Puran is one and when I come to Darjeeling, Joey’s Pub is where I spend every evening. Coming to Joey’s is like coming back to your best friend.

[Takes a sip of the chilled beer.] Of course it’s also for my love for drinking. I don’t think it’s an addiction but something you relish, like coffee. I have never ever got drunk in my life. I drink for the joy of it. The ambience, the glass, the alcohol... all have to be right, so Olympia to me is a classical heritage pub and atmosphere-wise Joey’s Pub is the best. They make terrific cocktails and I love their Whisky Sour. There’s a small kitchen where they make little toasted sandwiches called Jaffles.

It’s a haunt mainly for backpackers, so you get to see a lot of foreigners. When the crowd is a little less, Puran brings out his guitar and both of us play all the old numbers. Puran belonged to the first ever rock band in Darjeeling, called Hillians.

Revolver

It’s the newest of my favourite places in Darjeeling. A Beatles-themed hotel-cum-restaurant, which serves breakfast and Naga cuisine, is also one of my favourites in the country. They have five rooms named after John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and (their manager) Brian Epstein, with rare photographs of the artistes in each room. It was started off by two young, talented musicians of Darjeeling. You can only listen to the Beatles here. I came here one early morning while I was in Darj writing the script of Bomkesh Bakshi. I wanted to have some coffee but didn’t want to go to Keventers or Glenary’s because they are very crowded these days. That’s when I heard about this place from a friend.

[Points at a rack full of comics and coffee table books on the Beatles.] I love coffee shops. That’s why I love Flurys and Glenary’s but this is unique. Also because Beatles is a favourite of everybody.

[Sits down on the low divan with a cup of Black Espresso.] All my scripts have been written in Darjeeling. I wrote Bomkesh in Planter’s Club, Ranjana Ami Ar Ashbona at Swiss Hotel. After my first visit to Revolver, I found myself coming back here. I’d get up in the morning, have some coffee here and go back to writing. I miss a theme cafe like this in Calcutta. I’ve never stayed here but I’m thinking of writing a script at Revolver.

Capital cinema

[Stares up at the big clock tower.] It’s closed now. They’re making it into a municipality building or a town hall but it used to be one of the best cinema hall buildings not just in Darj but in the entire country.

This is where I used to come to watch movies back then. A heritage cinema hall which is very, very old — almost a hundred years. There used to be three shows — morning, noon and evening. No night shows in Darjeeling. Some of the best films I’ve seen were at this hall. James Dean’s Rebel Without A Cause.

I watched Marlon Brando for the first time here in On The Waterfront. All the great films like Summer Holiday, The Sound of Music, Gone With the Wind, Casablanca and Nayak, my first Bengali film, I’ve seen here. They would screen one or two Bengali films in three months. Rest were all English films.

I fell in love with cinema here at Capital. I don’t think I would have been a filmmaker if I hadn’t come here and watched these films.

The Capital had a capacity of around 300 seats. Ticket prices were around Rs 5 or 6, which was a hell of an amount for schoolboys like us. We’d go for the one rupee or 16 anna ones. We’d save our pocket money first for the beer, then the cigarette and lastly the movies. Sundays were outing days, when the boys would come out post-breakfast and hang out till 4 in the evening.

[Gazes at a board with film posters at the entrance to Capital cinema.] The board is still the same. The clock was also there, right from our childhood days, but it stopped sometime in 1979-80. By the time I started making movies Capital cinema was closed. It feels terrible. I wonder why the hill town or the Morcha can’t make it into a heritage cinema hall...

I’ve requested many exhibitors to buy over Capital cinema, restore it and give me the responsibility of the cafe inside. Only Arijit (Dutta), who is also an old Paulite, is interested.

Oxford Bookstore

Most of my collection in my house library is from here. You find anything and everything at this book shop, especially on mountaineering or Buddhist philosophy... something you’ll never get anywhere else so easily. Not even at the Oxford Bookstore in Calcutta. My entire thriller collection has come from this place and my wife’s collection of Buddhism and Tibetan books also comes from here.

[Browses the rows of books and picks one. Leafing through the pages of Che Guevera’s Bolivian Diary, he heads towards the cash counter.]

A lot of Che Guevera books that were missing from my collection I’ve always found them here.

I’ve been coming here from my school days. It’s more than 70 years old now. Ever since I decided to build a library at home, whenever I come to Darjeeling I carry at least three or four, and sometimes more than 10-11 books, back to Calcutta.