It’s been an extremely hectic day for Drishtikone lead pair Prosenjit and Rituparna Sengupta, on the last leg of promotions and meetings for the Kaushik Ganguly-directed film that hits screens today. Settling down for a chat with t2 at The HHI over a bite, frugal eater Prosenjit went for a poached egg while Rituparna downed a few cans of cola. Excerpts from the adda...

From the trailer of Drishtikone, it looks like the leading man is caught between two women...

Prosenjit: Yes, there is a man and there are two women but it’s not a triangular love story, I mean obviously not. There’s a wife and another woman, so you are right partly. There is a relationship between the married man and the other woman. So I play Jion, a lawyer, and she (points at Rituparna) is Sreemati, my client. There’s a case and a relationship grows between the lawyer and the client... it grows very gradually, slowly.

There’s a thriller element too...

Prosenjit: Yes, because there’s a case. And there’s angst, pain and love. It’s a heady mix. How Jion and Sreemati fall in love and what happens thereafter is what Drishtikone is all about. The love between them is unusual. It’s not your typical extramarital thing. It’s a mature love story; it’s intense, complex, complicated. Rumki (Churni Ganguly, plays Prosenjit’s wife), Jion and Sreemati look at life from very different perspectives.

Some of the dialogues are heart- wrenching in Drishtikone, all written by Kaushik.

Rituparna: I think man-woman relationships have changed over time. Drishtikone is a tale of two people coming from different directions. They were not meant to meet but they do under very difficult circumstances. Both Sreemati and Jion are very different people, yet something pulls them towards each other... something very powerful that they can’t resist. 
It’s not love that happens to them. It’s something else that happens to them. That’s how I have understood the film and our characters. My takeaway from Drishtikone is that love doesn’t have to always happen in a very happy situation. It can happen when you are in despair too. That is the beauty of Drishtikone.

My character Sreemati is very complex. I have never played anyone like her, neither is she like me in any way. What happens is when we play a character, we relate to it. But I couldn’t bring myself to relate to Sreemati in any way. So it’s been a challenge being Sreemati.

Prosenjit: You will expect a certain thing from these characters but they do something completely different.

Rituparna: Exactly. The chemistry between Jion and Sreemati is extraordinary! It’s a difficult subject too. Jion is blind in one eye and yet Sreemati falls for him.

Prosenjit: Eyes are very important to fall in love, isn’t it?

True. Bumbada, do you like your look in the film? You play a visually challenged man...

Prosenjit: Yes, Jion has poor eyesight. He can see with one eye only. We consulted a doctor who showed us pictures of people who are blind in one eye. So I wore a lens that I got from the US.

The first thing the doctor said is, ‘Apni barabari korben na’ because wearing lens in one eye can strain the vision and power of my eyes.

My doctor suggested that I should wear the lens for not more than three hours a day. However, during the shoot I was wearing it for long hours. It was risky. On the second day of the shoot, I got an eye infection from wearing the lens and so I missed Paoli’s wedding. After five hours of shoot, I would feel dizzy, which only Kaushik would understand and he would give me a break.

Rituparna: It was very difficult.

Prosenjit: At one point, Jion goes completely blind. I would ask my boys to hold my hand and bring me to the set. Because I wanted my performance to be real. In fact I climbed up and down the stairs without being able to see anything. When Ritu saw me on the the first day, she couldn’t give her shot!

Rituparna: Yeah! He looked scary. I couldn’t look him in the eye. I had tears in my eyes. It’s a very difficult role.

Prosenjit: And it’s a love story. Eyes are very important in a love story, na? In fact Kaushik had met with a huge accident and had to be operated twice. He refused to get operated for the third time to correct his vision. 

So both of you agreed to do another film two years after Praktan.

Prosenjit: Our drishtikone matched perfectly. (Smiles)

Rituparna: We always look out for something extraordinary in a script.

Prosenjit: See, if Ritu and I are doing a film, we have to give a very different experience to our audience. You cannot watch our films munching on popcorn and fiddling with your phone. 

But will it primarily be a love story?

Prosenjit: Why not? Why can’t we be in a film like Falling in Love?

So post-Drishtikone will there be another gap of two years before both of you say, ‘We do’?

Prosenjit: I don’t know... it could be seven years too. We are not in a hurry. Even if we star in only seven films they all must be landmark films.

Rituparna: They should be included in the history of Bengali cinema!

Kushali Nag

Picture: B. Halder

Which recent Bengali film will be a must-watch even after a decade? Tell t2@abp.in