(Clockwise from above) Director Anjan Das with Soumitra Chatterjee; Indrani Halder; Yash Pandit and Manjari Fadnis on the sets of Phaltu. Pictures by Pradip Sanyal

The spartan farmland a few km off Santiniketan is where Soha Ali Khan had breathed life into Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay?s Kamallata two years ago. This March, the maker of Iti Srikanta has returned here for his third feature film, Phaltu.

Financed by Arindam Chaudhuri?s Planman Life, the film stars Soumitra Chatterjee, Indrani Halder, Nirmal Kumar, Masood Akhtar, Debesh Roy Chowdhury and the Rok Sako To Rok Lo lead pair, Yash Pandit and Manjari Fadnis.

The sprawling farm looks like a village, with clay huts scattered around. Under a tree, Das trains his camera at Phaltu, the young protagonist whose quest for identity forms the spine of the film based on Syed Mustafa Siraj?s novel, Ranir Ghater Brittanto.

?Mustafa Siraj has clubbed two true stories in Ranir Ghater Brittanto. It starts in 1951 when a mad woman takes shelter at Ranir Ghat, a habitation of some uprooted people. After being raped by five men from the village, she gives birth to Phaltu. Twenty years later, the past is dug up and Phaltu is haunted by his father?s faceless identity. Any of the five men could be his father,? says Das, on his second project with Planman after Saanjhbatir Rupkathara.

Das is just happy that Phaltu has finally taken off after a two-year gestation period. ?I had planned it before Iti Srikanta. I was drawn to the fact that many of us suffer from a guilt conscience for things we might not have done intentionally but have ended up harming people. I wanted to explore this and the effects sexual repression and displacement have on people,? says Das, checking out the next day?s schedule in between.

The conflict among the villagers about Phaltu?s paternal identity is reflected through the eyes of Soumitra Chatterjee and Nirmal Kumar, one a potter and the other a priest.

As Das calls Chatterjee for a shot, the lanky hero of Rok Sako To Rok Lo, now playing Phaltu, dashes towards the camera. Barely recognisable in unkempt hair and ragged looks, Yash intently observes every gasp and sigh that the veteran actor lets out. ?Phaltu is in search of his own identity. He is an emotionally insecure person but has a positive outlook,? says Yash, who has stationed himself in Behrampore for the past two months to imbibe the ways of a villager.

?And I think I have picked up a lot with the help of my coaches, including bits and pieces of the Murshidabad dialect. As I didn?t have anything to do in the evenings at Behrampore, I used to spend time watching the Uttam Kumar and Soumitra Chatterjee films on TV,? he adds, hovering over the monitor with a discerning eye.

For Manjari though, make-up and costume are the keys to the village belle makeover. ?The workshops with me didn?t quite work out. But the moment I get into this costume and make-up, I get under the skin of my character,? says she, with coats of paint on the face to tone down her fair texture. Manjari?s screen persona, Tuktuki, is in love with Phaltu and hangs herself after learning a shocking secret.

A notch up on the deglamourised look scale is Indrani, with very little dialogue and no make-up to back up her mad woman?s role.

?I am not really putting any effort to behave like a demented person. I am trying to underplay because otherwise the characterisation tends to get theatrical. In fact, my hairdresser and make-up artiste have helped me with tips on mentally unstable people roaming the city?s streets,? says Indrani, entrusted with the pivotal character who stitches up the past and the present in flashbacks.

?And I am very excited about a scene where I give birth to Phaltu, where instead of a pillow-stuffed tummy I have decided to show the belly as it looks actually. So, a special effects artiste from Mumbai has made a latex belly for me,? she smiles, in tattered clothes and tanned skin.

But can a film stripped of any vestiges of glitz and glamour work at the box office? Maybe not, feels Das. ?But you can?t keep the box office in mind while making a film you are passionate about. A film-maker is like a poet or a sculptor,? he explains.

Das?s next project, Kalprahari, is based on Subodh Ghosh?s story Kalpurush. ?It would have Mithun Chakraborty as a very unusual man and Indrani as his second wife. But that?s a long way to go...? says Das.

For now, he is planning to shoot the rest of Phaltu in Behrampore in July during the windy showers.