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| (Top) Ananya Chatterjee and Kaushik Ganguly in Laptop; (above) Kaushik and Anik Datta at the adda in Ta’aam at 95 Rashbehari Avenue. Picture by Anindya Shankar Ray |
Anik: Have you seen Harmonium?
Kaushik: Yes.
A: The Yellow Rolls-Royce?
K: No, I haven’t.
A: You have woven your story in Laptop around an inanimate object but in some way the inanimate object is almost life-like. Almost everyone asks us where did you get the idea from, what’s your inspiration? A little silly but let’s begin with this question (laughs)....
K: The inspiration isn’t Harmonium or The Yellow Rolls-Royce. I always try to dig out new stories. The inspiration I would say is Jafar Panahi’s The Circle where one story ends and the other begins. There were other thoughts too. Say, for instance, a hundred rupee note. Let’s say we pay our bills here, then the next customer might get that very note and he pays it to a taxidriver, the driver gives it to a passenger who may give it to someone else…. So the hundred rupee note passes many hands....
A: Yes, as a child we were asked to write essays on the autobiography of a 50 paise coin.
K: Yes, a lot like that.
A: It’s a very interesting format. Such a film can be made in different formats but there has to be a leitmotif…
K: I would like to mention something interesting. Ek Mutho Chhobi was made with six directors doing different stories. Everyday we had meetings for the film and various ideas would pop up. We could not come to a decision. The major disagreement was whether the six stories would be individual stories or connected to each other. I would always vouch for some connection between all the stories.
A: But I think that didn’t happen...
K: No, I lost!
A: Your films have a strong emotional content but in Laptop it’s understated…
K: Yes, it was deliberate. I may not do films high on emotional content anymore. I tend to talk a lot! I really liked the fact that people are laughing even at the sad song (referring to Swastika Mukherjee’s sad song in Bhooter Bhobishyot) in your film. See, stories don’t come in that order. Today we have a reference because there’s a Harmonium. You think of a story and maybe it’s similar to another story. Whether in the past 10-15 years, this kind of a film has been made or not is what matters. That’s why your film has worked. It has surprised people!
A: There’s a melancholy, a sadness in the entire film but despite it, there’s a strange sense of feeling good.... I found Laptop very sensitive. When I first thought of making a film, I wanted to make this kind of an intimate, understated film. But I went into ad films and a big draw of ad film is humour and I entered that zone.... But talking about liking a film is dangerous because people say…
K: That we praise everyone! It misleads the audience. Genuine and honest discussions should take place that will help a director grow.
A: If you can say openly what you like, you should also speak up on the scenes you didn’t like. There was praise for Bhooter Bhobishyot from people I never knew, like I have never met Suman (Ghosh, who wrote on Bhooter Bhobishyot in t2). I, of course, mailed him later. After my film released, a lot of people stood by me and one of them is you. And when I saw Laptop, I really liked it. Can’t I express that? It was like watching a European or East European film. Visually it’s very close to European films. Very haunting music and even your character. There are several reasons for liking it...
K: I think you should ask me about what you disliked about my film.
A: A lot of your co-actors have complained to me that you have taken the best role in the film. You are throwing a full toss ball and hitting sixes! (Laughs.)
K: I was in a dilemma whether to do it or not (he played a visually challenged novelist). I offered the role to Mithun Chakraborty and then Goutam Ghose.
A: Mithun Chakraborty?!
K: If Mithunda had played it, maybe he would have taken it to another level. When you offer him a different character, he works very hard.
A: Don’t you face logistical problems while acting and directing?
K: When I am not acting while directing, I am a bit relaxed. When I am acting as well as directing, I have to take care of a lot of things.
A: Tremendous pressure!
K: Despite my assistants, the pressure is there. But I don’t regret playing the character in Laptop.
A: Pijush (Ganguly) is brilliant. Who played Rahul Bose’s father?
K: Arunda (Arun Guha Thakurta). He is a National Award-winning director. He has made Assamese films.
A: Was there any other consideration while casting Rahul Bose? I have seen this tendency to bring an actor from outside...
K: No, I had thought of Rahul specifically. I don’t have a fixation for stars. Nobody’s watching Laptop for Rahul Bose.
A: Precisely my question.
K: The reason why I took Rahul is because Indra, his character, comes from abroad and has never lived with his parents. There’s a certain dryness about Rahul, his emotions are not very Bengali.... I regret one miscasting. It would have been great had Rahul played Saswata’s (Chatterjee) character and Saswata Rahul’s.
A: If an actor has someone like you opposite him, he will easily get a complex! (Both laugh.)
K: I am overweight, yet when I see a fit actor playing a character I wish I had played, the fact that I can’t be as fit as him isn’t a deterrent because as an actor I am hungry and that hunger is there in Rahul.
A: The other thing that I liked about Laptop is that it had a lot of cinematic moments, like the scene where milk dissolves in a cup of tea and there is a rumbling noise of the clouds. Then the pice hotel montage flashes and the noise of the typewriter. This is something I saw after a long time in Bengali films.... The sound design is very good.
K: Anirban Sengupta and Dipankar Chaki (Potla-Jojo) are the sound designers.
A: A lot of people have said that the sound design in my film isn’t great.... I also liked your and Ananya’s relationship, very interesting. Ananya is a very good actress and I must add that in Laptop all the women looked beautiful!
K: But I did not allow anyone to do make-up.
A: Even then they are beautiful. Also, I wouldn’t say erotic... but there was a slight hint of it in one of the scenes...
K: In the scene where Ananya is seen wearing a bra, ironing her clothes and my character enters the room...
A: Yes, there’s almost a sexual tension... maney they share a strange relationship. Was there a hint of a relationship?
K: See, when he (Kaushik) first gets to know that Sudha’s (Ananya) father doesn’t like her to work for him anymore because her neighbours are talking ill about them, a bad vibe develops between the two.... Such a moment could have been a moment of passion between the two, but the man cannot see.
A: What I also liked is that you did not titillate the audience. You could have easily done that. This particular scene isn’t there in the posters or publicity stills.
K: That scene could have been on the poster, Ananya in a bra! It could have been a very saleable poster. I can’t deny that but there are no still photographs of that particular scene.
A: You made sure that there were no photographs?
K: Yes. During Rang Milanti too, I did not allow any still photographers during the three liplock scenes. I don’t want to make that my publicity stunt. If I have to do this to get the audience, then that’s a pity.
A: Is Laptop, according to you, your best film so far?
K: Yes, definitely. I won’t include Rang Milanti in this list because it’s of a different sensibility. I feel Laptop is smarter than Aarekti Premer Galpo.
A: Personally I would keep Laptop far above Rang Milanti.
K: For me human relationships are very important.
A: And you let that dominate your films, but you came out of it in Rang Milanti and you’ve gone back to the emotional quotient in Laptop again...
K: Yes, it’s like you shampoo your hair because it gets entangled. After Aarekti Premer Galpo all the hair on my head got entangled! That’s why I did Rang Milanti and it helped me. I am very scared of getting tagged as a serious filmmaker.
A: Changing track is a very intelligent decision.... I will be very happy if the film runs for many more days.
K: I got a call from someone who said, ‘Can we have Laptop part 2 because in the last scene we see a guy running away with the Laptop and he disappears in the mist.’ Very interesting, you see. A hill station is a small place and someone steals the laptop and it eventually comes back into the tea estate owner’s house and then it might go back to the doctor (Arindam Sil).... There’s a tremendous cinema hidden between this coming and going....
Kushali Nag of t2 sat in on the chat
