Dhoti and shirt with a coat. There’s no denying how convincingly Sushant Singh Rajput has slipped into the fave Bengali sleuth’s clothes in Dibakar Banerjee’s Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!. t2 caught up with Manoshi Nath and Rushi Sharma, the ladies who dressed Sushant and all the other characters (except Swastika Mukherjee) in the film. 

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! is looking amazing. What was the ideation process like?

What we obviously wanted to create is a world of 1943 that you would know and believe that you are there. In our minds 1943 is a black-and-white world, but it wasn’t so in reality. We had to create the right colour palette for you to believe that. It needn’t be sepia tone. We watched a lot of documentaries made around that time. Our film was also a winter film. We took colour references from the ads and art of that time. 

What we noticed was that a lot of white was used at that time… white dhotis, kurtas, shirts and pants. We wanted to use white but break it down with dark colours. It is a noir film. We have used a lot of layering of jackets, shawls and stoles. Another trend was the Bangla coat. Then there was the British influence. The G.I. soldiers were also based in Calcutta at that point of time. They gave us the darker colours. 

We are fans of detective Byomkesh Bakshi and this was a world we created according to Dibakar’s and our vision. Dibakar’s films have to be high on character authenticity… from a pocket watch to the drape of the dhoti or the sari. Little details, like the drape and fabric of the dhoti, depicted the contrast between Ajit (Anand Tiwari) and Sushant (Byomkesh)… the social strata. 

Sushant is an orphan who has studied on scholarship. Ajit comes from money… he is seen using a cigarette tin can as opposed to Sushant who keeps his cigarettes wrapped in paper. The canvas shoes that Sushant is using have been traded with the G.I. for cigarettes. Ajit is wearing these shiny black Oxfords. Sushant’s deconstructed jacket has no lining. It falls on his body in such a way that makes his body diminutive. He is a well-built guy and we had to make him look thin. Ajit is wearing wool blends. Sushant is wearing a sleeveless, slightly ill-fitted hand-knit sweater. Since the backdrop is World War II, there is no opulence. Sushant wears the Bangla shirts over his dhoti. Ajit wears chequered kurtas with dhotis. You also see Sushant in an American gangster suit.   

What was Dibakar Banerjee’s brief? 

He just wanted us to educate ourselves! Because it had to be period specific, our presentation had to be substantiated with proof.  

How difficult was it to turn Sushant into Byomkesh given that he has only played romantic leads in the past? 
Sushant, while he is shooting any film, he leads that life. He was on a strict diet. There was lack of food in 1943. His entire workout also changed. He changed his hairstyle and we gave him a unibrow. We gave him a dhoti and a Bangla kurta to wear throughout… for a month-and-a-half he only wore Bangla kurtas, standing in it, walking in it. 

How did Calcutta contribute or help? 

The kind of jewellery, the pump shoes, a lot of the antique stuff, a lot of the saris… it contributed hugely. We believe you cannot show the flavour of the city without visiting the city or becoming a part of it. Nobody really clicked family photos at that time. We met octogenarians and there was a lot of oral history. We met a lot of Chinese families. A very big part of the research was about finding out how people were at that point of time.  

Coming up for Rushi-Manoshi

• Dangal starring Aamir Khan 
• Mohd. Azharuddin’s biopic starring Emraan Hashmi 

ONE OF A KIND

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! director Dibakar Banerjee with Feluda maker Sandip Ray at a special screening of the film at INOX, South City, on Friday. 
Picture: Sayantan Ghosh

Saionee Chakraborty
What do you think of Sushant’s look as Byomkesh? Tell t2@abp.in