Top: (From left) Jisshu Sengupta with Dipankar De; Below; Mamata Shankar with Ananya Chatterjee

Why have you named the film ‘abohomaan’?

‘Abohomaan’ means eternity. The film is about the eternity of relationships, interactions, lineage, the tradition of mentor and muse, of father and son...

So what’s the story all about?

It’s about the creator-muse relationship between a filmmaker (Dipankar De) and a young actress (Ananya Chatterjee). There is also a surface story — of the director, his wife (Mamata Shankar), his son (Jisshu Sengupta) and the actress with whom he is romantically involved. An incident occurs, which is seen from the perspective of these four characters. The narrative has three strands — time present, as the film starts with the death of the director; time past, which is when the director meets this girl; and the film within the film. They run parallel.... I have also tried to explore how a relationship becomes a scandal and if there’s any way to come out of the trap. I had seen how incidents turned into scandals while editing Anandalok. And because the film industry is a forbidden ambience, any kind of interaction has the potential to be a scandal.

Have you drawn from any real-life director-actress relationship?

Well, there are several real-life instances of director-actress relationships. (Ingmar) Bergman has talked about his own... then you’ve Guru Dutt-Waheeda Rehman, Raj Kapoor and his heroines. In my film, there’s a huge age difference between the director and the actress. He is about 60 years old, she is 25-26. She could well have been his son’s lover, and I have purposely kept it that way to dispel the notion that Abohomaan has anything to do with Satyajit Ray and Madhabi (Mukherjee). My film is not a sensational story of two important personalities.

Rituparno Ghosh

What is unique about the creator-muse relationship?

See, there’s a peculiar complexity in this relationship. There is an inherent conflict and it ultimately leads to separation. The director feels he has created the actress, but the actress doesn’t think so. To give it a clear picture, I have used the Girish Ghosh-Binodini story for the film within the film. Binodini feels betrayed by her mentor (Girish Ghosh), so does this girl. It is almost a continuity of the tradition of the patron and the muse. When the creation surpasses its creator, the creator does not want to take the creation’s responsibility anymore. I can explain this with Dolu (Raima Sen) and my example. If Dolu had turned out to be a very powerful actress on her own, maybe I wouldn’t have felt so responsible towards her even now. But I think we directors also enjoy the dependence actors have on us. Dolu, again, is almost like a daughter to me, and just as in a child-parent relationship the parent’s sense of responsibility slackens when the child grows up, so it is with the director and his actress.

For me, the Girish Ghosh-Binodini story was inevitable. In her autobiography Amaar Katha, Binodini has given two accounts of her life — the first written when she was very young, the other written in the last stage of her life. Viewing one life twice was philosophically important to me... tracing how life changes with the passage of time.

I was a little apprehensive about how the foreign audience would react to it at the festivals, since Girish Ghosh-Binodini has a strong cultural nuance. But surprisingly most people enjoyed it. The film (produced by Reliance Big Pictures) had gone to Pusan, Montreal, Marrakech…

Are there autobiographical elements in Abohomaan?

No, you wouldn’t find anything autobiographical here. I have had film directors as characters in Bariwali, Khela and The Last Lear. Of the three, I think I have a similarity only with the filmmaker from Last Lear, not from the angle of cruelty, but his sensitivity.... But I can’t promise that I will never be cruel like him (Arjun Rampal’s Siddharth). I have seen cruel directors like him. I have also been cruel at times. For instance, I sometimes get other people to dub for my actors, like in Bariwali. That hurts the actors.

What made you cast Ananya?

She is a good actress. I had seen her work on TV and she had dubbed for Manisha (Koirala) in Khela. I thought she would do well in films. Ananya plays both the young actress and Binodini.... I now feel that I had the courage to do two roles in Aarekti Premer Golpo because I had directorially resolved how to have one actor play two roles in Abohomaan. Maybe it has helped me in Aarekti Premer Golpo.

What is Jisshu’s character like?

This is a more mature character for Jisshu after Shob Charitra Kalponik. He plays two ages — first, when he is very young and is planning to start a music band; the second when he is grown up and has become a filmmaker. He then forms a nice friendship with his father. It’s like rediscovering his father.... Riya (Sen) plays his wife.

Dipankar and Mamata had a kind of forbidden relationship in your film Utsab…

Yes, Abohomaan is my gift to Mamadi and Titoda (Dipankar). I owed it to both of them. They are my favourite actors. They were Ray’s last hero and heroine too… in Shakha Proshakha and Agantuk. Though Mamadi had a proper role in Utsab, I couldn’t give anything substantial to Titoda. But he will be depressed if he reads this. He will think I am done with him (laughs)!

What are you working on next?

I don’t know when I am going to start my next film. I haven’t decided yet... I am caught up with so many things now. Sunglass has been revived, so I will be off to Mumbai for the final print soon. By then it will be time to go to Berlin with Aarekti Premer Golpo.... I haven’t made a film for such a long time! Over the last 10 years, 2009 is the only year when I didn’t make a film.