Noted
novelist Suchitra Bhattacharya's Rangeen Prithibi
was published last year. Known for her painstaking
research of facts that go into her works, Bhattacharya's
novel traversed into the nooks and corners of
show business and explored the reel and real-life
stories of film stars, producers, directors, has-beens,
failures of the tinsel world that defines the
cinema capital of the eastern parts of the country
– Kolkata's Tollygunge popularly known as
Tollywood. The film version of this novel is aptly
named Tollylights and is realizing a
long-time dream of actor Arjun Chakraborty who
steps into direction with this film. The producer
and the production house, namely Sudhir Ahuja
and Unilux Infoweb Production respectively, also
mark their debut into the film world with Tollylights.
 Arjun,
incidentally, comes from a family full of doctors.
He was brought up in Rajasthan, which gave him
a command over Hindi, in addition to English and
his mother tongue, Bengali. "I diverted from
the trodden path of following medicine as a career
and though my father did not care for my choice
much, he did not come in the way. My focus was
on directing films from the beginning because
I was brought up on a generous diet of good films
such as the ones made by Satyajit
Ray, Mrinal
Sen, Rajen Tarafdar and so on. And if one
had to make a career in films, Mumbai was the
place to go," says Arjun, moving into flashback
mode.
"This story is about Tollywood, the struggles
of the people who make and inhabit it, their dreams;
of those who are in and are outside the industry.
It deals with their emotional conflicts, motivations
and ultimate goals," said Arjun at a Press
Conference at Tolly Club last week to launch the
film.
"Arjun put forth a proposal to make the
film. I chose the name and coined the title Tollylights
as it mainly tackles the emotional ups and downs
of the people who define this world," informed
Ahuja, an attorney by profession with business
interests in art, food, media and computers apart
from law. "This is my first film and I hope
to make many more films in English, Hindi and
Bengali," he summed up.
"Directing films was my only dream when
I came to Mumbai many years back. In fact, I assisted
Gulzar from
the very next day of my arrival in Mumbai in not
one, but four films – Devas, Angoor
(1981), Namkeen (1982) and Libaas (1988),
of which Devdas was later, shelved. Someone
saw me assisting him on a location shoot and asked
me if I would be interested in facing the camera
as an actor. I took it up and did two very good
roles in two films, Zara Si Zindagi (1983)
as Kamal Hasan's friend and Ankush (1985)
as one of the four young men gone astray who turn
crusaders later in the film. Then Tollygunge seemed
to be the answer as there was no work for me in
Bollywood. I had a good career as an actor in
Bengali films but the directorial baton eluded
me for years till I read this novel, met Mr. Ahuja
and he agreed to produce the film with me directing
it," elaborates Chakraborty.
Tollylights is focussed on the film
industry in Tollygunge and on the people whose
lives revolve around it. It explores the rises
and falls of the stars, directors, their frustrations
stemming from the insecurity they work within.
"There are several things that drew me to
this story. Firstly, doing a film on film people
offers a lot of alternatives to fall back on because
an actor plays many roles during his career and
these can be narrated within the film, adding
colour and variety to the subject. If you are
making a film on a clerk for instance, he may
remain a clerk for the whole or most of the film
and there would be little scope to offer variety
to the audience. Secondly, I never cease to be
fascinated by the fact that an actor, who continues
to lead an illusory and false life in front of
the camera throughout his career, finds it difficult
after a time to slip back into his real life role.
This clash between illusion and reality, between
fiction and fact, between reel and real life attracted
me to make a film on our lives. I identify with
the character I am playing in the film –
that of a struggling director. Thirdly, we, as
actors, are famous, powerful, and glamorous when
we are in the limelight. So, when we begin to
age, when our demand begins to fall, when we begin
to face failure and a drop in our fans and in
our ratings, we cannot cope with this reality
because all along, we felt all this was for good.
We are all like Greta Garbo with differences in
degree but not in kind. I feel that all these
elements offer a lot of scope for exploring different
shades of characterizations, relationships, incidents
and events. I have remained very loyal to my literary
source except the changes that the change from
the written word to celluloid calls for,"
says Arjun.
 There
is no love angle in the narrative. It centers
on a young housewife (Sreelekha Mitra) who walks
out of her husband and begins to live with a man
old enough to be her father (Barun Chanda). When
she steps into films and becomes a famous star,
the story also steps into the film industry and
explores facets of their lives – how some
stars tend to gamble away their money in races
or drinking, how a star fails to draw the line
between his reel role and his real role even when
the camera is switched off and the director has
announced pack-up. Arjun confesses that he has
skirted the casting couch business completely.
Shooting of the film is complete and is now into
post-production trying for a November release.
The acting cast comprises of Sreelekha Mitra,
Barun Chanda, Arindam Sil, Mita Chatterjee, Abhishek
Chatterjee, Kamalika Banerjee, Kharaj Mukherjee,
Biswajit Chakravarty and Amitava Bhattacharya.
Arjun himself plays an important role in the film
and has managed to rope in Mithun Chakravarty,
Sunny Deol, Tapas Pal and Satabdi Roy for special
appearances. The extremely talented Soumik Halder
is cinematographing the film while production
design is by Tanmoy Chakravarty and Tejendra Narayan
is writing the music. Subrato is editing the film
scripted by Dipanwita Ghosh Mukhopadhyay. Jojo,
Abhijeet and Preeta Banerjee will be lending their
voices to the songs for the film.
"My inner desire is to keep my options open
with several alternatives such as my music –
I have cut four cassettes of my songs, directing
and acting so that when the time comes, I do not
tend to lose my mental balance and fail to cope
with the reality that my days of glory are now
over," says Arjun summing up.
Shoma A Chatterji is a freelance journalist
who specialises in cinema and gender. She has
won the National Award for Best Writing on Cinema
twice.
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