as the River flows : masters and legends (part II)

Bidyut Kotoky   | Movie-Blog | December 20, 2009 at 2:22 pm         Print

(…continued)

“Have you heard of born again Catholic? You must be aware that they are more conservatives than many Catholics. In the same way, I’m a converted Assamese. I have spent more time in Assam than you two put together. And yes, I won’t say a single word against my people in any film” – that was the first reaction we got when I me and my wife Pallavi met legendary actor Victor Banerjee for my film in Goa even before he read my script. I knew him as the only actor in the world who worked with three of the all time great directors – Satyajit Ray, David Lean & Roman Polanski. But as time progressed, I got to know him more….

Sanjay Suri & Victor Banerjee

I told him that I had thought of him for a long time for the role of the grandfather in my film, but was scared to approach him. Mainly because his reputation as a wonderful actor, who is very particular about his basic requirements, precedes him. And I am planning to shoot my film in the back of beyond, where even the basic accommodations are a luxury… After taking nearly half an hour to read & interpret what remained unsaid in my two page synopsis of the film, Victor Banerjee said, “It is true that I insist on club class travel and five star accommodations in most of my shoot. But it is also true that I visited Majuli a number of times and know what you are talking about…” And when I hesitantly mentioned that we may not be able to match his market price, he told me with a smile- “Pay me whatever is left after settling the dues of others…”

On the shoot, there was a particular scene where I wanted him to enact a role of a female demon in a very cumbersome costume. I was not very sure whether he would be willing to do that – especially because the part involved wearing a mask and hence could easily be done by a duplicate. But when he I came to know of it, he told me- “I would have refused to do your film if you had not allowed me to perform that scene myself…”

Due to circumstances, we had to re-locate his part of the shoot to Jorhat from Majuli. On the shoot, Victor Banerjee was a father figure. Every day he would insists on carrying traditional delicacy for us from local joints – and yes, I must admit, I was not even aware of the existence of most of those joints…

The dubbing of the film was divided between Mumbai and Guwahati. And he was more than happy to choose Guwahati over Mumbai for his dubbing. But none of us were prepared for the disaster that was waiting to happen in Guwahati on the last day of his dubbing. After a particularly grueling eight hours of dubbing, Mr Banerjee had finished his Assamese dialogues for the film and was relaxing, while the technicians of the studio was taking a transfer of his portion. Than the news came to me -by mistake, instead of transferring they deleted his entire dubbed track!! Nobody had the heart to tell him about it, but being the director the unpleasant job rests with me… I decided that under the circumstances, I have no option but to be honest and upfront about what had happened. After hearing me out, Victor sir took a deep breath and said, “Bidyut, I always believed that in life there is no point pondering about honest mistakes – let’s try to look for a solution.”

That is Victor Banerjee for you. A great actor and an even better human being… As the dubbing was getting over and he was getting ready to leave for Guwahati airport, I asked him about his experience of doing the film. “Well, to tell you frankly, you have not let me down” – said Mr. Banerjee. That meant a lot…

Mr. Nakul Kamte. The sound designer of films like Lagan, Dil chahta hain, Lakshya and many more. I met him for the first time on September 2007, during the 53rd Indian National Film Award. I was there for getting a special mention for my documentary, “Bhraimoman Theatre – where Othello sails with Titanic” whereas he was there to collect the best sound designer award for the film “Rang de basanti”. He walked up to me and said, “My mother is from Assam. If you ever have a project based on Assam, I would love to be a part of it.”

(to be continued…)

Bidyut