Of human bondage
BHAWANI CHEERATH
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Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, director of `Anuranan,' received the 16th Aravindan Puraskaram.
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OF RELATIONSHIPS: Rahul Bose, right, and Rituparna Sengupta in `Anuranan.'
"Does life as we live it have so many coincidences?" is a question one just cannot resist asking Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, director of `Anuranan' (A Resonance).
In Thiruvananthapuram to receive the 16th Aravindan Puraskaram instituted by Chalachitra Film Society in memory of filmmaker G. Aravindan, the director spoke about his debut film with the conviction that is characteristic only in someone so passionate about his work.
"Yes. We may not realise the significance of a meeting or event till long after, when other events would have a throwback on the very beginning of an event or relationship.
"Resonance is something that happens in relationships, you can't will it to happen, nor can you distance yourself. It happens when it does and I believe there are spaces within each one of us which cannot be filled in by a conventional bonding. The relationship does not have to be a physical one, because the chord strikes between two persons on different levels."
Categorising bonds
The bane is that we define how two people must relate and slot them according to our rules and label the relationship according to our perception. When they do not fit in, then it's time to paint them black as happened to Preeti (Raima Sen) and Rahul (Rahul Bose). One could not, by any stretch of imagination, call the Rahul-Nandita marriage an unhappy one. There definitely is the absence of a spark in the Preeti-Amit pair. When Preeti says, `I want to soar like a bird,' is there the hint of a discordant note?
Yet you see her watching her husband in awe when he is talking to Nandita, but there is also the total exasperation when he throws tantrums.
As a debut film, all that he had wanted was to say a story in a spontaneous manner without suffusing it with elements that will appeal. But did he have the growing NRI viewership in mind when he made the film?
"Trust me, I had nothing in mind. The characters are very real. For example, the letter-reading scene in the film, I went through a similar situation when I happened to read a letter written by my mother to a cousin, many years after it was written. But that night, I must have read that letter a hundred times and in the process re-discovered my mother," he tells you, striking a very personal note.
What does `Anuranan' offer the cineaste? Right from the beginning, there is a slickness that normally doesn't come through in a maiden film.
PHOTO: S. GOPAKUMAR
SLICK START: Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury
The answer lies in Aniruddha's experience as an ad filmmaker that has taught him to communicate within a short span of time. `Anuranan' is a film that has understood life as lived by the Indian Diaspora.
In an age when bonding between women is only taken in the physical level of the relationship, it is reassuring to find Nandita and Preeti relating to one another as women sans baggage, and more so when the bond is strengthened despite the unhappy turn of events which affect their lives.
Personal touch
There are many points in the film that strikes a personal chord in many of us and that probably is what makes this filmmaker happy.
"Yes, I faced a situation at one of my screenings in the United States when at the end of the show, a lady in her seventies asked, `So, finally Preeti did go back to Nandita... which means I too should have'."
The film has scored on casting with Rituparna Sengupta (Nandita), Raima Sen (Preeti), Rajat Kapur (Amit) and Rahul Bose (Rahul). "It was coincidence again when I had named my character, Rahul and the person donning the role was Rahul Bose! chuckles Aniruddha, rounding off the interview with a riposte to the allusion made in the beginning to the bundle of coincidences.
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