Your coffee is getting cold... straw debo? Or should I put a scoop of ice cream in it?” laughs Moushumi Chatterjee, at her plush new flat on Raja Basanta Roy Road on Friday evening, reminding you of the girl-woman in Balika Bodhu and Ogo Bodhu Sundari. Sparkly, chatty, full of life as ever. In town for the promotions of Aparna Sen’s April 12 release Goynar Baksho, where she plays Pishima Rasomoyi, Moushumi settled down for a laid-back adda with t2...

You look tired [she has just reached home from the airport] but coming to Calcutta must be a happy feeling...

Of course! I am Calcutta’s daughter, Kolkatar bou. Because my husband (Jayant, Hemanta Mukhopadhyay’s son) is settled in Bombay and my daughters (Payal and Megha) live there too, I live with them. I come down to Calcutta every month. Dodo (her eight-year-old Labrador) lives here, my relatives are here. Ma lives in Ballygunge. My brother and sister are here. I get to recharge my batteries when I come to Calcutta. I get invited by my sisters-in-law, I go sari shopping at Adi Dhakeswari and now Byloom. I love Chinese and I eat a lot at Mainland China.

What do you do in your me-time?

I love listening to music. I love cooking and fighting with my husband! I also have a pet to look after in Bombay — a 19-year-old Spitz and Chow Chow cross-breed called Gucci.

So, you are happy with your life...

Arrey, I am more than happy! I have got more than what I deserve. At the age of 16, I owned a Merc, I had a handsome husband and a cute little girl on my lap. I mean, come on, these are dreams that a 16-year-old dreams of and I had all this! God has given me a lot.

Like your character Rasomoyi in Goynar Baksho, you too were a child bride…

Yes. But Rasomoyi’s life has no resemblance with mine. Whether it’s the way she talks, looks or behaves, I am completely different from her.

You had played Mashima (to Rahul Bose) in Aparna’s The Japanese Wife. But this one is a naughty Pishima, is she a bit like you?

I had asked Rinadi (Aparna) why she only offers me roles where I need to look fat and play a buri! (Laughs) She has promised to offer me a younger character when I lose weight! So I have hit the gym again. See, Pishima is the only character in Goynar Baksho who has a lot of shades. The story is by my Meshomoshai (Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay) and what I understood about the character is that she’s a young girl who grows old and dies. She’s frustrated because she got married at age nine and became a widow at 11! Her beauty is wasted but she is educated, very intelligent and ahead of her time. She tells her nephew’s wife (Somlata, played by Konkona Sensharma), ‘Why can’t you take a lover if your husband can have a mistress?’

How was it playing Pishima?

Well, at this stage of my life, I got a full-fledged role. What I really enjoyed about playing Pishima is that after almost 40 years, I got to ride a train from Sealdah to Santiniketan! Oh, it was so much fun. Train-ey chepe Santiniketan jaowa, Manasi (Sinha, plays Somlata’s mother-in-law) got jhalmuri for me and the crew took such good care of me... this has been such a memorable experience for me. This is the bonus of shooting in Calcutta.

If it’s a bonus why don’t you do more films here?

I don’t get that many offers. Maybe people are not comfortable approaching me. Maybe they think I am not interested in Bengali films. I don’t have a manager here. I did films like Parineeta, Kori Diye Kinlam here, I worked with Ajoy Kar, Tapan Sinha… all the big directors. But after Ogo Bodhu Sundari, a lot of stuff was written against me. I think people envied me. My debut film Balika Bodhu was a super-duper hit. I got married into a very big household. I settled in Bombay, did Anuraag and that too became a superhit. At that time, the media wrote things like, why are directors still running after Moushumi, is there no other heroine in Calcutta? I was hurt. But because Calcutta gave me so much, I worked in mediocre films too.... I never wanted to lose touch with Calcutta. But I will not act in one or two scenes in a film here. I can do a film here only if the role challenges me.

Why did you leave Calcutta just when your career had taken off?

Balika Bodhu sotyi balika bodhu hoye galo. I got married when I was in the 10th standard and soon left for Bombay. I was the only married heroine at that time…. My husband was the first man I saw outside my family. I was a kid and was very happy to get married. Of course 15 years later, I felt... dhoor... why did I get married.... I always did a balancing act between films and managing my home. I also had my daughter (Payal) by then. I never prioritised my career. I am a wife, mother, actress Moushumi Chatterjee and I’m Indira, which is my real name.

You’ve always had brilliant comic timing. How do you do it so easily?

I don’t know. For me it’s very spot-on. I am very spontaneous. Bhanu Bandopadhyay had told me many many years ago: ‘Indu, you are a true artiste. You can make people cry and laugh too.’ After Ogo Bodhu Sundari, Uttamkaku (Kumar) told me he wanted to make two more films with me. He said, ‘Nobody has yet extracted the talent in you.’

For one of the song sequences in Goynar Baksho, Rinadi told me, ‘Indu, do whatever you want to because you are a ghost.’ So I walked in such a manner that everyone on the sets started laughing. Rinadi asked me, ‘Achha Indu, how did you do that re?’ I said it just happened! I think it’s God-gifted. While shooting for Angoor, Gulzar told me I was the laziest actress he had seen in his life. ‘You know you do excellent in the first shot and so you will never go for another take!’ he said, Yes, I am a very lazy person. But if a director can motivate me, I am an excellent technician. That’s why even after 40 years of being an actress, I still work on my own terms. Rinadi postponed the Goynar Baksho shoot for me. She had wanted to start shooting from last October but I could only do it if she started from November.

It’s hard to believe you are lazy...

By nature I am very bubbly chirpy. Hrishikaku (Hrishikesh Mukherjee) would always say, ‘Indu is like popcorn.’ See, life is full of ups and downs but you have to come out with flying colours.

Aparna and you seem to have found a comfortable director-actress equation…

This happened because of Sohag Sen (workshop director). I wasn’t the first choice for Mashima in The Japanese Wife. Rinadi told me about it later. Sohagdi was after Rinadi’s life, insisting that she take me. Then I got the role and Rinadi said, ‘Indu, tui ato sporting!’ I hope she’s happy with me in Goynar Baksho too.