Besides being a filmmaker, Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury is also a known name in the ad world, with upto 400 ad films to his credit so far. He started his film career in 2006 with the Bengali film Anuranan and got a National Award for it. His next outing, Antaheen (2009) too got a National Award. It was the first film where Radhika Apte acted in a full length role. Hindi viewers know him through the hard-hitting Pink (2016), which talked about female consent. It won the Best Film On Social Issues at the next year’s National Award and also won the Filmfare Best Film Award. Currently, his two films, Lost and Kadak Singh, both OTT releases, were well-liked by the audience. Excerpts from an engaging talk with the director who likes to make films on societal issues.
Where does the inspiration to portray complex relationships so intricately, as seen in your National Award-winning films like Antaheen and Anuranan come from?
I think it’s life. I don’t look; I see. I don’t touch; I feel and absorb. My nature is not like a one-night stand with anything, be it the story, music, or humans. I go deeper. Growing up, all my friends were a little older than me. My father’s friends were my pals. A lot of older women were my good friends. I had a lot of relationships and those relationships were unnamed. So sex is not important, whether it’s a man or a woman. If there is a relationship, there is a relationship. See, these are certain things called realisation. When you have that, you can see things, and a lot of people confide in you. You know, I’ve seen life. I don’t know why people trust me, but I do get to know a lot of stories.
You made the concept of platonic relationships popular, as seen in Anuranan.
Of course. At the end of the day, it’s a man and a woman and a friendship is bound to happen. There are certain times when there are also sexual connotations, but unless she or I are interested, why should you get into that act? This understanding was also the inspiration for Pink. So be it Antaheen or Anuranan, it’s a relationship and it’s real. That’s why maybe it touched people. I can’t work on things that I don’t believe in or that didn’t happen to me. I was in a relationship with a woman even after marriage. In those days, there was no chat system; we used to email. I had also gone abroad for her. We discussed it all, and there was a lot of crying. It was an unfortunate situation. Antaheen happened from there.
What made you pick Radhika Apte for a Bengali film, Antaheen?
Cinema is very instinctive. It is about your gut feelings. I had spoken to a lot of people in Kolkata and Mumbai and was trying to zero in on someone. Rahul told me there was a new girl called Radhika Apte. He asked me if I would like to talk to her once. At that time, there was a cafe just below my house in Mumbai. She came and
as I entered the eatery, I saw a girl sitting on a chair with her feet folded and eating spaghetti. I loved that image.
You haven’t worked with her since?
I haven’t done many movies post-Antaheen. I will definitely cast her in the future because I do want to work with
her again.
What about Rahul Bose? Were there talks about collaborating with him after Antaheen and Anuranan?
He’s like family; we’re in touch regularly. When a script evolves, it’s obvious that we think of our friends. But then you need to do the casting accurately. I might do an extension of Anuranan. There are a couple of ideas that are coming to my head and I’m in the process of writing. Rahul’s character died in Anuranan, but you never know—maybe a doppelganger?
Pink was such a conversation starter.
No means no, voiced by Amitabh Bachchan, became a slogan. I wanted to make Pink in Bengali. So we wrote it in Bengali, and there were two-three producers in the Bengali film industry who wanted to support it. They wanted to do that. Then I proposed that film to Shoojit Sircar and Ronnie Lahiri. We did a film together called Aparajita Tumi. I pitched the story of Pink to them while returning from the recce for this film. They told me it needed to be made in Hindi. Since I came from a co-ed school, I used to have more girlfriends than boyfriends. I used to find them much more secure and that’s when I noticed a lot of taboos. I can wear shorts and go anywhere they can’t. I can go with a bare chest if they show their cleavage, but there’s a problem. There are so many restrictions. Pink was my and my collaborators’ protest. It is a propaganda film. And when Amit Sir said it, it became a global phenomenon.
Tell us about your experience working with Amitabh Bachchan.
When it comes from Mr. Bachchan’s, you know the dialogue—no means no—not only the nation but the world understood. We were all so happy. And this is a propaganda film; I truly believe that. Even Kadak Singh is empowering. I want to make an empowering film. I want to make a film that helps women or men.
So Amitabh Bachchan was always the first choice for the film?
We wrote the film and Shoojit was trying to cast it. Then he called me from Kolkata. Then Ronnie, Ritesh and Shoojit went there. We narrated the story. It took him five minutes to say yes and we came out and danced. We waited for six years to do the film. I started writing the post-Antaheen, in 2011. Taapsee Pannu was terrific. She was with the film completely and is extremely hard-working and collaborative. Be it Kirti Kulhari, Andrea, Angad Bedi, Andrea Tariang, or Vijay Varma, everyone believed in
the film.
Be it Lost or Pink, your actresses are always aptly chosen for the script.
Every film evolves organically. Yami was perfect as Vidhi in Lost. She loved it. She nurtured it. When the collaborator starts believing in you and the subject, magic happens automatically. It’s all about conviction, trust, and belief. That’s the ultimate. I’m extremely happy with Lost and Yami Gautam.
To have Aparna Sen and Sharmila Tagore together in Antaheen, what must that have been like?
If there’s trust and I am capable enough to communicate what I want, then it’s not really that challenging. In my last film, Lost, Pankaj Kapoor told me, “When I talk to you, I understand everything, things become easy, and I can say no to you.” Maybe my age. Maybe this is my experience in life. I come from a lower-middle-class family. You know, I struggled a lot. I have seen life.
Coming to Kadak Singh, how does an actor like Pankaj Tripathi surprise you?
What an actor, what a human being! He will make you laugh, trust me. When you watch the film, he will make you laugh, cry, and numb you. This is an extremely difficult role and something he hasn’t done before. We bonded well and understood each other. So I do a little bit of workshop before getting into filming. I try to stay with my actors for two-three months. You have to live with them. You have to love them. You have to hold their hands. They have to hold your hands. The camaraderie is built then, where everybody is responsible for everybody. Pankaj Tripathi is awesome.
Getting critical acclaim both in Bengali and Hindi cinema, what have the takeaways been like?
There’s a language called film language. I don’t make a Hindi or a Bengali film; I want to do a Malayalam film someday too. It depends on budgets big time. There is not much difference or challenge. You know the language is different, but trust me, I told Pankaj Tripathi that when my body rejects something, if something goes wrong in a shot, direction, or punctuation, my body reacts. So when I make a film, a symbiotic relationship happens with the shot, my body, mind, and soul. I don’t carry a script and shoot. The process is important and in the process, you have growth.
What would you say has been your most challenging film yet?
There are challenging moments in a film. I made a film called Buno Haansh with Dev. I couldn’t open the camera on the roads. I was shooting in Bangladesh, where there were 50,000 people. I didn’t know how to complete the shoot because if anything goes wrong, people will die. I don’t know what was happening—so many challenging moments. But Kadak Singh, script-wise, was very challenging. The way it evolved was challenging. Usually, most of it comes from my mind, but this time it was the producer, Viraf Sarkari. Ritesh came to Calcutta. In six years, we have written this script. The acting, structure and storytelling with the creative challenges we showed, but the kind of collaborators I had ultimately became a cakewalk.
What advice would you give to your younger self today?
Fall in love. Dive deep. Enjoy life. Be honest. Be truthful, and make mistakes. But carry on; don’t stop.
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