Do you have an ashtray here or should I go outside?” Anindya Chattopadhyay asks Anupam Roy. It’s 10.30pm on a weekday, and the Chandrabindoo man has dropped in at the Amake amar moto singer’s new apartment in Lake Gardens for a t2 chat. “We don’t have an ashtray here, but you can stand by the window,” says Anupam. “I’ll get you an ashtray soon. Recently my wife gave me such a pretty ashtray that I can’t use it!” Anindya cracks up. It’s all quips, laughter and adda as the two music men chat about Shiboprosad Mukhopadhyay-Nandita Roy’s Praktan, for which both have composed songs (available on Amara Muzik), after Bela Sheshe. 

 

t2 tunes in...

 

Apart from composing songs, you two have acted in Praktan too...

Anindya: Initially Shibu had told me that I’d be acting in the film. And then I got to know that there’s a sequence where a bunch of musicians (Anindya, Anupam, Surojit and Upal Sengupta) are returning to Calcutta from Bombay by train. The songs we sing on the train add to the drama. When fleshing out our lines, Shibu told us we could speak like we do in real life. 

Anupam: Then the film wouldn’t have got a U/A certificate (laughs). 

Anindya: So Shibu gave us our lines! 

 

Anupam, how did Shiboprosad convince you to act?

Shibuda has been asking me to act for a while now. And for Praktan, at the beginning, I didn’t even know that Bumbada (Prosenjit) and Soumitrada (Chatterjee) were there in the film! (Laughs) It was as if only the musicians were there...     
Anindya: Shibu has this great power of convincing people. 

How does he go about it? 

Anupam: Back then, when we would meet, he would address me as ‘Aare Byomkesh, aare Feluda, you are the only one I can see in the city!’ This is how he would wind me up and for a moment you’d almost think it is true! He needed 10 days from me for the shoot, and I was quite surprised... I thought I’d have to say dialogues for 10 days. I had just got married. Instead of going on a honeymoon, I was going for a film shoot! Honeymoon bhoge! By the way, I have very few dialogues in the film… mostly like why, what, when, how…

Anindya: Chaplin-esque. We are there as songs in the film!  

Anupam: Upalda has a stellar performance. 

 

 

Were you tense in front of the camera?

Anupam: No, we play ourselves in the film and we improvised our lines. 

 

Anindyada, will you be acting in more films now?

(Laughs) Shubho Mahurat kore amar kaal hoyechhe. So occasionally people get to see me as an actor! 
Anupam: Hello, you got to work with Nandita Das!
Anindya: One of the important scenes in Praktan focuses on the break-up of the band Bhoomi, and there’s a praktan angle. I play the pacifier there. 

Anupam, your Kolkata song has been appreciated. Is it tricky to write a song about Calcutta?

It is a challenge to make a song about Calcutta. It’s like writing a song for your mother. It is so tough, there’ll be many comparisons. I just knew I would not use Gariahat More and Howrah bridge in the song.

Tell us about your association with the city...

Anupam: There is this strong urge to return to your city when you are abroad. I have also written a song just on Calcutta, but haven’t released it yet. 

Anindya: His Kolkata song has become so popular that he’ll think twice before releasing it (the other unreleased song on Calcutta)! 

Anupam: Shibuda asked me to do a song about a city that will have a feel-good, positive vibe. It will bring out the chemistry between Prosenjit and Rituparna’s characters in the film. One day I was travelling by car and suddenly the melody of the first four lines came to me at a traffic jam. I recorded it on my phone immediately. The melody came first and then the words. 

Anindya: See how distance and traffic jams can fire your imagination! And this is also a characteristic of this city.  

Anupam: Living in this city brings a strange feeling of joy. We often forget how happy we are in this city. You’ll realise the pull the moment you go abroad. Then you’ll feel like having an egg roll or a chicken roll; you’ll put up sad posts on Facebook about missing the city.   

Anupam, your song Bawshonto eshe gechhe draws on your experience of walking the city streets and ending up on Cornfield Road. In Praktan, Prosenjit plays an explorer who conducts guided tours across Calcutta. What do you feel about walking the streets of the city?

The city has so many lanes and bylanes which one can only access by walking. Southern Avenue to College Street… you will get to discover the essence of a city only when you walk around. 

Anindya: When people are in love, they walk the streets a lot. You don’t feel the discomfort at all. You feel like walking, by the sea or the roads. 

Anupam: You don’t feel like stopping… 

Anindyada, has this ever happened to you in the past — you started walking down a north Calcutta lane with one girlfriend and ended up meeting another or a praktan in the next lane?!

[Anupam’s wife Piya chips in: ‘This could have happened to Anindyada.’ Everyone bursts out laughing]

Anindya: No, no, I was never that smart that I would have so many girlfriends. But yes, one can bump into a known person. 

What’s the best part of working with Shibu and Nandita Roy?

Anindya: Both know Bengali drama very well. 

Anupam: Both know how to use songs in films... they respect the songs. They are good storytellers and present songs really well. On other instances, we have noticed filmmakers using either snippets of songs or having on-screen sounds drowning out a song. We like directors who keep our songs from the beginning till the end. 

Anindya: Do you know I had done an item dance in their Alikh Sukh?! 

And who were you thinking of while doing the item dance?

Anindya: I was only thinking of god… and how soon it would get over (laughs). 

What’s your take on the idea of ‘praktan’ (ex)? 

Anindya: We get to understand the importance of the present because of ‘praktan’. Praktan also implies a situation where one doesn’t end up with the loved one. And we only remember the fond memories. And people become a bit different when they fall in love. 

Anupam: And nothing compares to the excitement one feels when one falls in love. It’s a great feeling.

Anindya: That’s a magical phase. 

 

 

Anupam, why did you pick Iman Chakraborty to sing Tumi jake bhalobasho?

Iman sings Rabindrasangeet and folk songs really well, and has rendered the female version of the song beautifully.  

Anindya: Iman is just right for the song and that Anupam picked her for it is a master stroke.