BOX-OFFICE BONANZA

Mainak: Mishawr Rawhoshyo in 2013 is burning the box office, breaking all kinds of records. I get the feeling that you are not very surprised. I wonder why...

Srijit: (Laughs) No, that’s not true. We are pleasantly surprised. We were expecting big but not huge. This has been beyond our expectations.

Mainak: If we look at your filmography, it seems you have a knack for movies that have a sure shot at opening BIG. So how do you go about it?

Srijit: It is not possible to please everyone. I essentially make films for only two people: myself and my producer. If there is even one other person who likes the film, I consider it to be a bonus and myself lucky.

K VS F VS B

Mainak: If I go back to the idea of doing a detective story and a series like Kakababu, many years ago, you told me you had a modernised play version of Feluda...

Srijit: It was a non-canonical take on Feluda set in modern times, where Feluda is old.

Mainak: So you are obviously a Feluda fan.

Srijit: Yes, I also had another similar play on Bomkesh. So I am equally fond of Feluda and Bomkesh.

Mainak: So, is it fair to ask that when you pick a franchise and detective series like Kakababu, is there a five per cent chance that you are picking it because you are unable to go for a Feluda or a Bomkesh? Or are you trying something different?

Srijit: Actually, it is the latter. I love Feluda and Bomkesh. Yet, Kakababu is not a typical detective story, which is what attracted me to the franchise. Kakababu belongs to the action-adventure genre which is not very well explored in Bengali movies. Kakababu, in fact, hates being called a detective.

Mainak: Yes, which you cleverly bring up in the film...

Srijit: Kakababu has lost out a fair bit of ground to Feluda and Bomkesh in terms of popularity, public imagination and in terms of filmmakers choosing him. The last major film was Sabuj Dwiper Raja, which was ages back. So in a way it was inspiring as here was a golden chance to revive a character which has been dear to me since childhood while taking a fresh look at him in 2013.

KAKABABU 2013

Mainak: Our generation has experienced the Sherlock series on BBC and Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes. And what we’ve loved about them is how they’ve upgraded the original stories. With no offence to the recent Bomkesh and Feluda films, what we were missing, which Kakababu does address especially with Mishawr Rawhoshyo, is that you actually go in that direction wanting to upgrade it, bringing in the Twitter factor, 2013 and today’s Calcutta.

Srijit: Absolutely. When I watched Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes and the Sherlock series, I was blown away by the idea of giving due respect to the historicity and tradition of a character and yet re-presenting it in today’s world, making the character independent of time and space. Sherlock Holmes is a person who doesn’t die because his spirit lives forever. This embalming and mummifying of the spirit happens because they don’t treat Sherlock Holmes as a holy cow who cannot be touched.

Mainak: Absolutely. Let’s not forget we live in a culture that thrives on putting people on a pedestal...

Srijit: Yes.... Here non-canonical work is frowned upon and ridiculed as people are very dismissive about it, forgetting that if you want to make your favourite character immortal, you have to keep rediscovering his spirit through the changing times. So with Kakababu I kind of stepped in that direction. But I have to admit that I had a slight advantage because the number of followers Feluda and Bomkesh have, Kakababu doesn’t have.

Mainak: So, you were aware that if you touched a Satyajit Ray or a Sharadindu (Bandopadhyay) story, as in Bomkesh or Feluda basically, you knew the criticism that could come at you. For instance, if somebody takes a Feluda and gives him an iPad, the amount of criticism that person might have to face is probably not the same when touching a Kakababu.

Srijit: Absolutely. But if I ever get the chance to do a Feluda or a Bomkesh, I would step in the same direction as I have done with Kakababu. Perhaps I would be publicly guillotined...

Mainak: And isn’t that the fun of filmmaking? Let’s put ourselves out there and see how many stones get thrown back at us or maybe not! The idea itself is an adrenaline rush of the unknown...

Srijit: Yes. My Inbox would be flooded with hate mail and I’d have voodoo dolls resembling me. Sounds fun!

INDIANA JONES AS INSPIRATION

Mainak: One of the things noticeable is that there is a lot of inspiration from detective films like the adventures of Indiana Jones, National Treasure, Tintin...

Srijit: Oh yes, absolutely.

Mainak: Like when you brought out the whip, I definitely saw a lot of Indiana Jones in it. So what are the elements that you wanted to bring across?

Srijit: Most of the elements were already there in Sunilda’s (Ganguly) stories. Fleshing them out was great fun as I was reliving my childhood of watching King Solomon’s Mines and Indiana Jones, or reading Professor Shonku, Kakababu, Tintin and Asterix. I tried to mount my storytelling on that kind of a frame. So I’m glad that you had a sense of deja vu as I had when I was filming it.

Mainak: You attempted a lot more than just a pure detective story.

Srijit: Absolutely. Kakababu from the beginning was never a detective story. I never imagined it as a whodunnit. It was always an action-adventure film meant for young adults with a dash of the political scenario.

GOING GLOBAL

Mainak: One more thing that comes to mind is you are very aware that you are taking the film outside the country. One thing that happens to the audience from the point they watch the trailer to when they see the film, is that they get the sense of an international film. They see Delhi and Egypt, with the way you have mounted the film. Is that something you are consciously doing?

Srijit: Absolutely, because the reality is that a kid today knows about Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings but doesn’t know about Kakababu, and that is something that pains me a lot. So let’s say a kid is very fond of Chicken Tetrazzini or Shepherd’s Pie. If I have to serve him bhaapa illish or chingri malai curry, I have to make sure the container at least looks as classy, so that he’d open it and then sample his own tradition, legacy, vernacular and history.

Mainak: So you’re up against big-budget films like the international adventure films?

Srijit: Yes, so to woo my target audience, I have to compete with them in the constrained reality of the Tollywood film industry. So we have done that and fought for that and I am very proud of my team: every person starting from Prosenjit to the spot boy, Swastika Mukherjee to the make-up man. People were moving luggage and cleaning up camel shit before a shot!

Mainak: So basically, somewhere down the line, we are always having the fun of a large-scale guerrilla film.... The illusion of the scale just gets bigger...

Srijit: Absolutely. This was a large-scale guerrilla film in the middle of an actual revolution, surrounded by actual military police in an actual sandstorm, with actual camels throwing actual tantrums.

Mainak: That can be rough!

Srijit: (Laughs) That can be very rough.

HE’S GOT THE LOOK

Mainak: Another thing I wanted to mention was that our generation of filmmakers (and this has been a criticism but I am used to seeing it as a positive) have the tendency to work on the look of our actors very consciously, as you’ve done, with an actor like Prosenjit in Autograph, 22shey Srabon and now Mishawr...

Srijit: Yes. Here it became doubly important because this look didn’t originate in my mind. It is etched in the public imagination for 30-40 years since Sunilda started writing about Kakababu. So, we had to make sure the look was actually loyal to that look.

MUSIC AND ME

Mainak: In your other movies, like Autograph, 22shey Srabon and Hemlock Society, the songs play a huge role. But here you’re using songs more as a travelogue. How did you prepare yourself for it?

Srijit: I always feel that we have come from a land of masters who have shown the way. How many people realise that Sonar Kella or Joi Baba Felunath have major songs, even during the climax? But they were used in such a brilliant and subtle manner... they were woven in. So here songs come in as a part of the narrative to take the story forward.

Mainak: This is a very personal opinion but for our generation of filmmakers, music is an integral part of who we are. We can define time and space in our own lives by the kind of music we listen to. Do you think music is an organic part of you as well?

Srijit: Absolutely. I am from the Indian subcontinent, and I am unapologetic about the fact that I use music and song to tell stories. I do not believe in the fact that just because the western world doesn’t...

Mainak: Honestly, the western world does use music but they use it in little portions.

Srijit: Yes, but I’m talking about their traditional musicals of the 40s and 50s that they’ve left behind. I don’t see that we should also do the same just because they have done it.

Mainak: Music is a syntax.

Srijit: Yes, it’s a tool.

THE SUPERVILLAIN

Mainak: Now to get into how you’ve approached your characters: If we were to look at Mishawr as a superhero movie or an adventure film, I really appreciate the way you spent a lot of time building the supervillain Hani Alkadi (Indraneil Sengupta). I’ve seen The Dark Knight’s Joker, Bane, Lex Luthor, but usually in the detective stories we’ve had over the years in our country, we don’t approach them as supervillains. It’s like you almost put him on a pedestal. How did you approach Hani Alkadi?

Srijit: The first lesson in building a supervillain I learnt when I was eight, reading the story of this man who had 10 heads, a great devotee of Shiva who had a super magnetic personality who could conquer various kings and was the king of the Dravidian world — Ravana. My concept of a supervillain started with him.

Mainak: It’s our Paradise Lost.

Srijit: The Ramayana is incomplete without Ravana. The same goes for Milton’s Paradise Lost. In Batman, the people who’ve played the villains over the years, they were fantastic.

Mainak: The bigger actors were kept for the villains.

Srijit: They knew that a franchise will only work well if you have an equally good supervillain. (With due respect to Christian Bale...)

Mainak: He becomes the Dark Knight.

Srijit: He becomes the Dark Knight. Danny DeVito, Uma Thurman.

Mainak: Jack Nicholson.

Srijit: Jim Carrey... just look at the people who’ve played villains. Even in Bollywood, in every Dhoom there is an even distribution of power and characterisation between the hero and the villain.

Mainak: I don’t even think it’s even.

Srijit: Exactly. It’s started to get lop-sided now.

Mainak: I’m sure it’s not a problem, but do you think that for the audience, Hani Alkadi is where the film is at?

Srijit: Hani Alkadi’s character is on a par with Kakababu which is huge, given that he’s an Egyptian and Kakababu’s all Bengali with a lot of parochial sentiments. When a man who’s from an alien land and goes around killing people is on a par with Kakababu, that speaks volumes for the author-backed glorification that Hani Alkadi receives, and which I think Indraneil executes brilliantly.

Mainak: Would you agree that this is one of Indraneil’s finest performances?

Srijit: Absolutely! One of the co-ordinators told us that they have an Egyptian actor who looked exactly like Indraneil, so I knew I was bang on with casting him because I wanted his bone structure, which is not at all Bengali.

Mainak: My bigger question is, how does Bumbada (Prosenjit) react to it?

Srijit: (Laughs out loud) See, we’ve had a discussion on this. This was a character which was so accurately described in Sunilda’s story that we had no other option but to keep it the way it was. I don’t think it does disservice to the film at all. I still feel it is a film which is jointly owned by Kakababu and Hani Alkadi. Why the effect of Hani Alkadi stays more with you is probably because it ends with Hani Alkadi going away and his monologue and speech. But if you look at in totality, even Kakababu has a huge build up, as you have the super-angle shots, the limp, the crutch, so it would be fair to say it’s a jointly owned film. But yes, the supervillain makes his mark and he is as unforgettable.powwow and dhishum

Mainak: You had major action sequences. One of the major things that stood out for me was how you approached them. One of my favourites was an action sequence in Egypt, where you start treating it like a graphic novel. When you’re using the comic book approach, you are mixing a lot of genres. So what made you want to go for stylisation?

Srijit: See, with Mishawr we wanted to freak out and let our hair down, as it was about the entire crew and cast’s combined childhood. I thought the best way would be the action sequences, as it would stick in your memory with the powwow and the dhishum. I also wanted to add a little bit of my own touch by superimposing that with the actual scanned pages of Mishawr.

Mainak: So you are also enjoying the self-referential paradigm in which the action sequences are being done...

Srijit: Absolutely, and I wanted to convey that this is the story of a superhero that is literally coming out of the pages of a book.

FELUDA fallback

Mainak: It shows that you’re a Feluda fan. When you’re introducing the Neel Mukherjee-Swastika track, there seems to be a combined duo that sort of relates us to Jatayu. So there is a sense of ‘Yes, I am watching Kakababu, but at the same time I’m enjoying a little bit of the Feluda nostalgia’. So is that something that you were consciously doing?

Srijit: Absolutely. The real reason is that particular track was not very dynamic in the story. I wanted to make sure that when Kakababu gets kidnapped, Santu (Aryann) has access to the adventure and a back-up plan and structure, something that would support Santu’s adventures while intercutting with Kakababu’s kidnapping. So I had to give Snigdha (Swastika), Siddhartha (Neel) and Rini (Tridha) very specific flavours.

Mainak: So you felt, let’s get out of the detective story for a bit and add a little fun to what I can’t omit in terms of plot.

Srijit: I couldn’t omit them, so I might as well make them a little interesting.

Mainak: That’s something you are extremely successful at, as it becomes a major relief. As someone sitting in the audience, I wanted to see more of that.

Srijit: There were people who wanted to see less and some who wanted to see more. The ratio is a very fine balance.more robin than topshe

Mainak: When talking about the sidekick or the ‘Watson’ structure, with the Topshe-Feluda build-up, when you’re approaching the chemistry between Kakababu and Santu, while building the nostalgia of Feluda and Topshe, Ajit and Bomkesh, it felt like I was seeing more of a Batman-Robin combination....

Srijit: Bang on!

Mainak: A lot of people felt that they didn’t get the fun of Feluda-Topshe in Kakababu and Santu, but I don’t think that’s where you were heading in any case.

Srijit: Yes, in any case Santu and Topshe are chalk and cheese. They are very different as Santu is much more physical and proactive.

Mainak: And you smartened him up.

Srijit: Yes, I upgraded him. In fact when I watched Mishawr objectively as an audience, I could see male bonding similar to Probir Roy Chowdhury and Abhijit Pakrashi in 22shey Srabon.

Mainak: When you are also bringing in the love story between Rini and Santu and the way Kakababu is addressing it, that also does remind us of 22shey Srabon.

Srijit: Yes absolutely, that is a reference point.

Mainak: But is this a criticism that you face when this is discussed? Because for Bengalis, the nostalgia will always be there for Feluda....

Srijit: People have to shake that Feluda hangover off because that would not be fair to either Sunilda or Satyajit Ray, as the way they structured Feluda-Topshe and Kakababu are very different. For example, Rini is there in Sunilda’s story. Not in a romantic mode but in a back-slapping sort of a relationship with Santu. But there Rini and Santu are much younger. So what I did was I mentally extrapolated the relationship.

Mainak: And put them post-puberty...

Srijit: Right.

Mainak: So every single young boy who has the dream of being a Topshe or a Santu can expect a Rini from now on...

Srijit: (Laughs) Definitely for Santu. I don’t know about Topshe...

Mainak: After Mishawr Rawhoshyo is out there, I wonder if somebody would like to see an asexual version of Topshe....

Srijit: Earlier people didn’t talk about this stuff. When Topshe was written, did people his age not fall in love? I don’t buy that. This hush-hush and denial is fair for us to question while keeping the original reverence to the character. Sunilda himself said that: ‘Listen I wrote this in the 1980s and you are doing this in 2013. The concept of childhood and adolescence has changed, so please make your changes. Take my story as a model, but refurnish it to today’s times.’ He was a person who kept up with the changing times and encouraged me to add things to the characters and adapt.

HELLO, HIDEOUS!

Mainak: This comes as an audience reaction in the light of the way you are building up this film, the way you mount the film in an international way, somehow the first attempt to kill Kakababu in the hotel room visually falls a little short...

Srijit: This is a problem with the story, as the entire situation takes place in a little guest house room. So I didn’t have the space to explore an action sequence...

Mainak: But isn’t that something you could have re-adapted or taken it somewhere else?

Srijit: Maybe I should have re-adapted that bit, and I would also re-do two of the CG (computer graphics) shots.

Mainak: Yes, I was going to get to the CG!

Srijit: I’ll tell you what happened with the CG. Mishawr has 195 CG shots, which is huge for any Bengali film.

Mainak: I don’t think I even noticed many of the good ones. But there were three hideous ones. Couldn’t you have maybe worked on them?

Srijit: (Laughs) Honestly, I thought there were two shots... not hideous Mainak, be kind! (Laughs)

Mainak: I’m not watching a Bengali telefilm made on a low budget, I’m watching a film that feels pretty international in the context of which they come across as hideous.

Srijit: I was correcting those shots till October 8 — my release was on October 11!

Mainak: You should have subtitled your date excuses.

Srijit: (Laughing) Now you are getting catty. Marbo! So I was continuously correcting it till the 8th after which the guy told me: ‘Boss, with my manpower, the amount of time that we have allocated to CG and with the kind of budget we have, this is the most we can do for now. If you give me one more month, I can make it to the standard you are expecting!’

Mainak: Because we shouldn’t fall short...

Srijit: Exactly. So when he asked me if I was unhappy with the CG, I said that two out 195 is not a bad ratio, yet like a wicketkeeper, you only notice the catch he misses. So those two shots will haunt me forever.

Mainak: In the context of it feeling like an international film with break-neck speed, in the second half you get the feeling that it slows down where Hani Alkadi and Kakababu have a discussion. You sort of feel like: ‘Why isn’t the movie moving right now?’ Do you think there was a way you could have gone about it differently in order to keep it consistent with the pace?

Srijit: No, because I thought that slowing down and catching your breath while taking in the philosophy of Hani Alkadi and the current turmoil in Egypt was a more interesting narrative rhythm.... What I think is that in the portions of the conflicts between the two philosophies, maybe the information bit could have been snipped a little.

Mainak: While you’ve built such wonderful characters — from Prosenjit to Indraneil to Swastika to Neel Mukherjee and the fabulous cameo by director Kamaleswar Mukherjee — somewhere with Santu and Rini, and I don’t want to blame the actors, probably a little more push would have helped, as they were up against very strong veterans....

Srijit: See, it’s true that Rini didn’t really have much to do in terms of the script, but what I needed was some kind of a cosmopolitan presence. Because Rini is a person who has studied in an international school, who has travelled all over the world. So I needed a kind of diction with a cosmopolitan reference which I thought Tridha delivered very well. In terms of histrionics, if you read the story there’s nothing, it’s just a presence.

F FOR FRANCHISE

Mainak: So you kind of need to build these characters as you have a franchise in mind?

Srijit: Absolutely. My answer to all the people who ask me why there were so many characters in the first half is: Boss, one needs to know who is whose uncle, where they stay, their family tree... which is so unique to Kakababu as we don’t see much of the family in Feluda. We see a family in Bomkesh but that is a very nuclear family. Here is a...

Mainak: ....Aykannoborti poribar...

Srijit: Exactly, there is an old house in Bhowanipore with a Dada and a Boudi, and Santu.... So I thought let me start off establishing these, and then later as I go on with the franchise, I’ll build them.

Mainak: And I get the feeling as I hear the box office ringing, you have a major task ahead with a major responsibility to up the game. Because you’ve taken it to the next level....

Srijit: Absolutely. And which is why I will have to select the stories accordingly as I can’t base my next Kakababu film in a jungle in Calcutta!

Mainak: Once you have gone to Egypt, you can’t....

Srijit: In fact my plan was to do a desert, a jungle and a mountain. I’m done with the desert...

Mainak: So now your jungle will have to be a little more exotic. Maybe Africa?

Srijit: The jungle will have to be Africa. Jungle Er Modhye Ek Hotel is one of my favourite stories. And for the mountain, if it is a toss-up between Sikkim and Mount Everest, I would rather go for Mount Everest.... I will be upping the game. Obviously infrastructure constraints I will need to consider which I will try to better and take to that level.

Mainak: Best of luck to Team Mishawr. Great job. And we should expect much more?

Srijit: Yes, you will get much more. And I’m so happy that the audience has shown its muscles, it’s crazy!

Mainak: They’ve stood up for the underdog.

Srijit: Absolutely. This has given me a lot of courage and the next mounting will be even bigger, smarter, sharper and grander.