Ahijit with Indraneil Sengupta

Enter, the youngest sleuth of Tollywood — goenda Gogol. A t2 chat with director Arindam Dey who also revisits his own childhood through Goenda Gogol, a film based on Samaresh Basu’s young sleuth, which releases today.

Is Goenda Gogol a whodunit?

Well, I would like to say that Goenda Gogol is an adventure film for children with a detective angle. Based on Samaresh Basu’s Sonali Paarer Rahasya, it’s a simple, sweet story that both children and adults can relate to. Of course there’s a mystery that Gogol (Ahijit Ghosh) solves in the end, so it’s not really an edge-of-the-seat whodunit. It’s an entertaining film and a travelogue. We shot the film in Puri, a very identifiable place for Bengalis.

Sleuth stories seem to be the flavour of the season in Tollywood...

Yes, that’s also one of the reasons why I made Goenda Gogol! It’s the trend now, every director is making a detective film. Be it Bomkesh or Arjun or Kakababu. I also wanted to make Gogol because he is my favourite character. As a kid I have grown up reading Samaresh Basu’s books on Gogol. That’s why I was so nostalgic shooting it.... It reminded me of my childhood.

Detective stories aren’t easy to make. What kind research did you do before shooting?

True. Detective stories are the most difficult to shoot. It took me eight months to shoot Goenda Gogol. Shooting got stalled many times. Sonali Paarer Rahasya is a three-page story, so I had to build on it. I incorporated a train sequence. I have also modernised Gogol, given him specs and a Tab. There are long chase sequences in the jungles. Plus, the haunted house around which Gogol’s adventures take place had to be built on the Puri beach. Puri has changed a lot since the time Samaresh Basu wrote the story. I couldn’t find a single house which looked old and worn-out. We were supposed to shoot in Konark but couldn’t because of the rains and then I didn’t get the permission, so we had to shoot the Konark portions in Udayagiri.

Ahijit Ghosh,who plays Gogol, is a Class VIII student at St James School

Tell us about the other characters in Goenda Gogol...

Rachana Banerjee and Shaheb Chatterjee play Gogol’s parents. Indraneil Sengupta and Debdut Ghosh play very interesting characters but revealing it will give away the story.

Your last film Ajob Prem Ebong... was a relationship tale. Why this sudden turn to children’s film?

Like all other directors, I too want to make films on various subjects. Ajob Prem Ebong... was a very serious film about an accident, so I had decided that my second film would have a subject that I should be comfortable with and people should enjoy watching. Gogol is a character that every child is familiar with and to watch their favourite character on screen would be a lot of fun. My next film Chaya Manush is about a writer (Parambrata Chattopadhyay) and a recluse (Raima Sen). My fourth film will be a biopic on the singer Geeta Dutt, starring Paoli Dam. Variety is the spice of life, after all.