Romancing the rain

(L-r) Indrani Halder, Sudip Mukherjee, Aloknanda Ray and director Anjan Das

Brishti, the rain, is back as the leitmotif, and obviously back also is Anjan Das. As a matter of fact, so is Joy Goswami. In the trailblazing fantasy-reality creation, Saanjhbatir Roopkathara, Joy Goswami’s poetic prose was milked by Anjan Das into celluloid. Awash with the scent of rain. Anjan’s next film, Iti Srikanta, though based on the Saratchandra classic, pushed the fantasy-reality genre to make it all his own signature. Iti Srikanta wasn’t without the gentle sprinkle of rain, either. Even Faltu, which Anjan described as “a rude film”, used the rain as a signature, with cinematographer Shirsha Ray elemented into both the films.

Shirsha here was brooding over the low light, along with a pensive Anjan at the Harish Mukherjee location while setting up the scene for Jaara Brishtite Bhijechhilo. Indrani Halder (one can only think ‘dancing-eyed’ when one mentions her name) and Sudip Mukherjee (who always makes one think he’s passed out of not NSD but NDA), play a couple. They were getting ready to gorge on luchis and things (“Where’s the salt, it’s missing” grimaced Sudip for the take) while the always-happy Aloknanda Ray, playing Sudip’s mother, was eating and angling the morsel for the camera at the same time.

Ishwari Bose-Bhattacharya with Joy Sengupta

A couple of days later, we caught up with Anjan Das, at a Sunny Park location, looking a lot more spritely. No prizes, but our guess was as good as yours. His artistes from Mumbai were here, Joy Sengupta (who’s done Bengali films before) and new find Ishwari Bose-Bhattacharya (Paris-born, and who has recently relocated to Mumbai from Calcutta). And, yes, the charming Ishwari was seductively wet in the hair (wet behind the ears in more senses than one). Ishwari and Joy were into a romantic scene, with what else, the rain pelting in the background. Romance, rain. Ishwari, Joy. If the poet-writer Goswami was there, he would have shly muttered, what Joy.