On Monday afternoon, t2 and Taj Bengal played host to two special guests — Rahul Bose, the man of the moment whose directorial venture Poorna has released to rave reviews, and Purna Malavath, the youngest woman to summit Mount Everest at age 13 and on whom Poorna is based. 

Dressed in a blue tee and beige pants, Rahul walked into Sonargaon a little past 1pm. But everyone’s eyes were on the girl behind him — Purna, in T-shirt and denims, her hair pulled back by a plastic band — strode in with a smile and won everyone over from the get-go. For the next hour, munching on a scrumptious Bengali lunch rustled up by the Taj Bengal chefs at Sonargaon, Rahul and Purna spoke to t2 about their small big film with a huge heart. 

Rahul Bose: Before we start, I want you guys to see something. (Whips his iPhone out and clicks open a video of a movie theatre where hoots, claps and whistles greet a Poorna show). Just listen to it! You can hear people clapping in the middle of the show. This is another video where some school kids had gone for a show… you can hear them clapping at the end. 
Calcutta is the only city we are coming to after the film has released. In Calcutta, there is a culture of khela-dhulo, mountaineering… Darjeeling is close by. Out of the 26-27 cities in the country, Calcutta ranks fourth in terms of box office.

It’s like the IPL… Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore, Calcutta! I knew this city wouldn’t need the push but I am here because I want to see how people are reacting to the film. And I wanted to bring Purna here. 

There’s not one person I know who hasn’t cried in the film. This is the reaction I am getting everywhere… Virat Kohli… the whole Indian team saw it. The honourable President (Pranab Mukherjee) saw it. I am not saying he cried, but I know they were all very moved! Zoya Akhtar, Shabana (Azmi), Vidya (Balan), Vipul Shah…

Purna Malavath: Dangal team!

Rahul: Yes, the Dangal team… Kiran Rao. Mr (Amitabh) Bachchan met her (gestures towards Purna)… Farhan Akhtar met her and so did Aditya Roy Kapoor. It’s just been a moving experience for everyone who’s seen this film. 

Priyanka Roy (Team t2): The idea of Poorna is very big, but at what point did you feel that the film had become so big?

Rahul: Once I made it I realised that this film has got something. I spent so much money on VFX that I hadn’t budgeted for. But at the end, it’s all come together very beautifully. See, I hear all kinds of things — thoda aur VFX karna tha, village ka kam karna tha. Some are saying Everest (portions) was too much… some are saying should have put in more of Everest, there was too much of the village. Some are saying, ‘You should have put more of yourself in the film’ and others are saying, ‘Too much Rahul… cut the performance down!’ (Laughs) Who do I listen to?! Anyway, we made the film we set out to make.

We showed the film to focus groups… 16-17 focus groups. Filipino woman, American man, a man from Tamil Nadu, a tribal family from Maharashtra, rural poor and rural rich, urban poor and urban rich, educated and uneducated… fat children of rich people… everything! We were getting between 8.5 and 9.5 out of 10 in the focus groups. And I was like, ‘Okay we have something here’. Indians like to use this word called ‘heart touching’… there is no word called ‘heart touching’… but yes, a ‘heart touching film’ is what we believe we had! 

Chetna Sahoo (A Calcutta mountaineer who, at 49, became the oldest Indian woman to climb Everest and on Monday was t2’s special guest for this chat): Purna, how did you like the film?

Purna: Bahut achha laga… it’s my story, so it’s special. It’s very exciting. I watched the film with my family in Hyderabad on March 24. 
Rahul: That was a big day! 
Arindam Chatterjee (Team t2): Were you sitting next to her?
Rahul: No, no! Are you crazy? Harrowing! (Everyone laughs) So, Purna, her parents Lakshmi and Devidas, her brother Naresh, Aditi (Inamdar, who plays Poorna), Aditi’s parents and her uncle and aunt from Dharwad… ‘If these guys don’t like the film, I am sunk’… I told myself. 
Arindam: So what did Purna tell you when she walked out?
Rahul: She said, ‘I cried’… Aditi also cried. 
Purna: Everyone was crying! 

Priyanka: Rahul, did you ever think of casting Purna as the lead?

Rahul: No… and I’ll tell you why. This is a story about a girl who makes the most astonishing arc of any biopic in the world. From a girl who hadn’t ever stepped out of her village to conquering Everest took eight months. Other biopics take 10 years, 12 years, 20 years. Eight months is all this was. A shift happens when you are just a 13-year-old tribal kid to when you are planning to climb Everest and you see six dead bodies in the death zone and you touch the summit and come back… her eyes now are a 200-year-old’s eyes because she has seen death. 

We also needed a girl who could make the audience believe that she had the capacity to climb Everest. So when I auditioned Aditi, I sat very close to her and looked into her eyes. She was the 110th girl I was auditioning out of 500 girls we had looked at. I could see in Aditi self-pride, determination, grit and that she’s a magnificent actress… her eyes were showing the emotions I wanted from that moment. And yet, she’s a tiny, 13-year-old fun-loving kid. 
The challenge was when we were filming the Everest portions and I was like, ‘If I don’t see it here (points towards his eyes), then there is no film’. So that last shot in Nepal when I tell her ‘We are all with you’, and she sits with the mountain in the background… that’s the time I felt she’s ready. 

Priyanka: Purna, were you on the set when the film was being shot?

Purna: The film was shot in my village (Pakala, Andhra Pradesh) for seven days. I was there on set then. And I guided Aditi in the rock-climbing portions…
Rahul: She taught Aditi… her trainer Shekhar Babu also taught Aditi. She had the best… there’s not been one accident… not one scratch in this film. Not in Sikkim, 15,000ft, thigh-deep in snow… nothing! 

Ishani Priyodarshini (first year, St Xavier’s College): Your first film as director, Everybody Says I’m Fine, is vastly different in theme and tone from Poorna. Why the shift and why this gap of 16 years between the two films?

Rahul: We all have different sides to our personality. One day we like Chinese food, the next day it’s Ma’r ranna khabar.
Purna: Chinese food is bad! 
Rahul: She hates the tinned food she got when she went climbing! (Laughs) Yes, so we all have different sides. I play rugby, but I also write and act. So whether it’s Everybody Says I’m Fine or Poorna, I bring my entire life’s experiences to it. That’s why I cast myself as Praveen Kumar (the IPS officer Rahul plays in the film). I have an NGO that works with kids… we have kids from Manipur, Kashmir, the Andamans…. I knew that part of it, I knew the governance part of it and I also knew that Praveen Kumar and Poorna’s chemistry had to be warm, beautiful and gentle.
What I like the most about the writing is that he never tells her what to do. I loved that because women in India don’t want to be protected… they don’t want their hand to be held. They want to be left alone to make their choices… that’s true gender equality. Whether I want to become an item girl or a NASA scientist, let me make that choice. 

Shayari Roy (Class XII, St Stephen’s School): What was more creatively fulfilling — playing Praveen Kumar or directing Poorna?

Rahul: Obviously, directing. When you are directing, it’s your idea of life and the world that you are putting out. People are reacting to your entire world-view through that film. When you are acting, you are acting out someone else’s world-view. So, directing is always more fulfilling… but it’s damn hard work! Whenever I feel lazy, I’ll act in four-five films (laughs) and whenever I feel I have some energy, then I will direct a film. It’s more fun acting, it’s more satisfying directing.
Whatever film I make as director, it will have humanism and an underlying theme of compassion. What you’ll take back from the film will be an overarching humanism. The person who did it best in the world was Satyajit Ray. People ask me if I am feminist, now that I have made Poorna. Of course I am! If you are a humanist, you are a feminist. 

Priyanka: Wasn’t there the pressure to be able to do justice to Purna’s extraordinary story?

Rahul: I was aware of the responsibility that Purna’s entire life is ahead of her. That if I take a misstep or I don’t take the right tone, then everybody will have some impression of Purna that will be damaging to her. This is not a biopic about someone who will say, ‘Theek hai yaar, tu ne bol diya toh kya hai usmein… agle saal toh main marne waala hoon!’ (Everyone laughs) 

Arindam: What was the biggest challenge in directing the child actors?

Rahul: The two performances that have come in for the greatest praise, even from critics who have not given us 4 stars, have been that of the two girls (Aditi and S. Mariya, who plays Priya). They had the emotional wisdom to understand every scene even though they are 13. And I never talk to kids like kids. I never say (imitates baby talk), ‘Dekho yeh safed pahaad hai’. No! Balls, man! I would take Aditi on long walks… if the scene was about grit and determination, the walk would be about the time in her life when she had to fight the hardest… it could be a biology exam or her grandfather’s death. But the child has to discover that inside. And you need to love kids, which I do. 

Arindam: Was there any scene where you had to really drive Aditi hard? 

Rahul: I drove her very hard… rock face was hot… hanging on… the assistants were giving her the love, but I wasn’t. She had to be prepared and I wasn’t leaving without taking the shot. I had a ‘Child Actor Charter’ before the start of the film… that no kid will work more than four hours at a stretch and not more than eight hours a day. And that every kid in the film will have a teacher, a mentor, a tutor… whatever they wanted. I am not a child labour guy, but on that mountain I was brutal. You can see it in the making of the video and she imitates me now. (Mock screams) ‘Aditi! Look like an Everest mountaineer! Aditi, look down and move!’ But when she had twisted her ankle, I would put Voveran on it. I’d strap it up…
Priyanka: So you were the Dangal dad! 
Rahul: I haven’t seen Dangal! (Laughs) But yes, I was known to be schizophrenic on the sets. I would laugh and talk in the evening and in the morning, I would be back to being the director. 

Chetna: You have been fit all your life. Do you think you could climb Everest yourself?

Rahul: Yeah, but it would take me 18 months of training… 18 months and (Rs) 50 lakh! The latter is easier than the former, in terms of capability.  But it would be unbelievable… not an ego trip. It has to be a search into yourself. After some time, the ego is finished. You are just digging into yourself. I did speak to a climber who has climbed Everest who told me, ‘Thanks to your film, people will not think Everest koi bhi kar sakta hai’. Aajkal there’s an impression that anyone can do it. 
 
Chetna: Rahul, I want to tell you that your film has brought mountaineering to the forefront. So many people now know about Purna’s feat because of your film. I watched the film and told everyone I know to go and watch it. 

Rahul: Thank you so much!  

Shayari: How difficult was it shooting on the mountains?

Rahul: Really tough! An ordinary day in Sikkim… wake up at 3am, get out by 4am, reach the location driving up 5am, by then the sun is up… I would reach by 5 and start climbing… the crew would go, ‘Yeh toh paagal hai, where is he going?!’ I would climb for half-an-hour to 45 minutes… maybe 1,000 ft. By 10am, there would be fog, by 11am cold. By 3pm, the temperature had dropped another 10 degrees. By 4pm, it would get dark and we would leave. We had to open a hotel because everything was shut in January. My blanket stank of urine. I used to wake up at night gagging with the smell of urine! There was one heater, that looked like a heater but only made a sound… kat-kat-kat-kat….the only heat it gave out was my irritation and anger when I saw it. We used to freeze from 5.30pm to 3am. It was absolute hell for seven days.           

Shayari: It must have been crazy for your crew! 

Rahul: Yeah, for the gloriously unfit crew from Bombay, smoking and drinking, and eating chips and chocolates!
Arindam: When Poorna reaches the top of Everest, you do an interesting thing… you just mute the sound. From then on we see images of people, like Poorna’s family members celebrating, but we don’t hear anything...
Rahul: That’s the only place where you can see the director in this film. Otherwise it’s just the film. I always imagined that… always, even when I was prepping for the film… because there’s nothing I can say that would not sound cheap and shallow. I have always believed that in sex and lovemaking in films, the audience’s imagination is much more vivid, as well as in certain moments of triumph and tragedy… let the audience just create that moment.

Priyanka: Do you think this experience has made you a better filmmaker going forward?

Rahul: Without a doubt. I understood digital... the great, glorious joy of letting the camera roll while the actors get it right. VFX, the greatest teacher, the three-and-a-half months I spent including my birthday (July 27) working on VFX. I learnt a lot. You grow up in 16 years… you can grow up to be an a**hole, or grow up to be a deeper, wiser thinker. 

Arindam: Going forward, what are the kind of films you want to produce?

Rahul: I will produce when I direct. The decisions you can take in 30 seconds… the producer wins or the director wins (snaps his fingers). You don’t have to be tactful and say, ‘Please get me that red Mercedes… Maruti 800 kya hai? Arre, at least Baleno toh lao, yaar!’

Priyanka: Are you gravitating towards telling more women stories or is it happening organically?

Rahul: Organically. I just respond to my urge from within. I don’t respond to what the market wants from me right now. I thought this story was irresistible. One thing I know for sure… there is one definitive sports film inside me. It will be about rugby. That’s going to happen. How and when, I don’t know. 

Chetna: Purna, we know you want to become an IPS officer. So what happens to mountaineering?

Purna: I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro last year. Now I’m preparing to go to Australia. I have finished my Board exams, so I’ll focus now. 

Priyanka: And Rahul,what’s next for you?

Rahul: I will get my knee back in shape. For two years I have not played rugby. In April, I’m going to nurse my health. In May, I’ll get back to writing in my house in Himachal. I’ve signed a Bengali film and I’m shooting that in June. I’ll be in Calcutta for the whole month. I would like to make my next film in early 2018.

Arindam: On a lighter note, Aparna Sen calls you ‘Brando’. What’s the story behind that?

Rahul: Nothing to do with my acting capabilities! She tells me, ‘Why do you mumble so much?!’ That’s the reason she calls me Brando... and I call her Prima Donna!  

Arindam: Purna climbed Everest at 13. Rahul, what were you doing when you were 13? 

Purna: Kiss! (Everyone laughs)
Rahul: Yes, I was trying to kiss! I was fantasising how I could get a girl in my class to kiss me. Or how I could kiss her. The be-all and end-all of my ambition at the age of 13 was to get into the school cricket team and to kiss this girl. 
Arindam: Did the kiss finally happen?!
Rahul: With that particular girl? Never! 

Pictures: Rashbehari Das