After jumping all over the Punjab and South India, the roulette ball has finally landed in Bengal.

Filmmakers have lately been renewing their interest in the eastern state. One of the earliest was Khakee: The Bengal Chapter, which began streaming in March. While the spine of gangsters, politicians and law enforcers remained as it was in Khakee: The Bihar Chapter (2022), the ambience shifted to genteel tea at Calcutta clubs and crisp, kurkure fish fry. Moving to Bengal could also drive dialogues like, “The city of joy is turning into a city of bhoy,” and feature a female politician in a cotton sari.

Alongside the state, there’s been an uptick in the appearances by Bengali actors. Prosenjit was not just a suave politician in Khakee but also a cop who takes on the don in the Hindi film Maalik. Young Ritwik Bhowmick had made his presence felt as a classical Rajasthani singer in two seasons of Bandish Bandits but called it his “homecoming” when he was cast as Sagor, a ruthless killer in Khakee.

Half-Bengali, half-Maharashtrian Kajol’s first horror-thriller Maa was also set in Bengal. Ronit Roy, Indraneil Sengupta and Dibyendu Bhattacharya gave it authenticity but it was the goddess who was the centrepiece as the symbol of woman power. It is, however, a bit disconcerting when Devi Maa is used by filmmakers in garbled stories that strive to be feminist, and Bengal willy-nilly becomes the backdrop.

But Bengal is also a favourite ground when filmmakers want to play with poetry, music and dance. In the R. Madhavan-Fatima Sana Sheikh film Aap Jaisa Koi, Tripathi and his brother from Bihar got more than a punch on the nose from Madhu Bose and her folks. A storyline that flagged Bihar for gender chauvinism and Bengal for progressive minds, the Tripathis were ultimately taught a lesson in equality by the culture-loving Boses.

Although The Bengal Files has not been released in this state and has performed weakly elsewhere, most people know that it lingers on the politics and societal fissures of Bengal.

Next week, Kajol will be back to courtrooms and domestic drama in the second season of The Trial. She will also repeat her act as a woman who challenges an opponent as a “Maa”. But a point to note is that the Indian version of The Good Wife features her and Jisshu Sengupta as the Senguptas who’ve put down roots in Maharashtra. So, while there is a whiff of Bengal, it isn’t the dominant flavour of the show.

Incidentally, an SRK vs Kajol clash is scheduled on OTT next week. Kajol’s The Trial will stream on Jio Hotstar while Aryan Khan will debut as director with The Ba***ds of Bollywood on Netflix.

OTT is a safe place to begin unlike the box office. Producer Ajay Devgn was taken aback when Maa was rejected at the theatres. A pre-release preview for 200-odd guests had given him the false confidence that it had struck a chord with the women in the audience. The same happened at YRF where the cast and crew patted themselves on the back, convinced that with War 2, they’d made an epic film. Seasoned men like Devgn and Chopra have forgotten one cardinal rule: never trust a sneak preview audience. Most times, they’re so grateful to be invited that they’ll only tell you what you want to hear.

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When Manoj Kumar passed on in April, I got a call from the editor asking me if I could file a personal piece on him the same evening. Ditto for Shashi Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar. One midnight in 2018, I’d woken up the editor to tell him that Sridevi had just passed away in Dubai and he’d asked me if I could write a piece on her.

But this is the toughest obit so far. Farewell to an editor, an unfailing gentleman, a boss the team admired, his prose always a brilliant read. Travel well, Sankarshan Thakur.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and an author