The music launch of director Bappa Bandyopadhyay’s upcoming film Amaar Labongolata took place recently at Eastern Metropolitan Club. The film, a creative adaptation of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s 1877 novel Rajani, will again see the story of the four literary characters — Rajani, Amaranth, Sachindra and Labongolata — come alive on screen. However, unlike the Bengali novel where Rajani features as the protagonist, director Bappa Bandyopadhyay’s film will revolve around the intriguing character of Labongolata, played by Rituparna Sengupta.
Produced by Sri Ganesh Entertainment, the music direction of the film was done by Bappi Lahiri. This being Bappi Lahiri’s last work in Bengali cinema before his death, his family members, including wife Chitrani Lahiri, daughter Rema Lahiri and grandson Rego B were present at the launch, joining the cast and crew of the film. “Amaar Labongolata is a wonderful film inspired by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhya’s novel Rajani. The film has an ensemble cast, including Alamgir, Indraneil Sengupta, Papia Adhikary, Bhaswar Chatterjee and Tania. Sadly we lost Sreela Majumder and Parthasarathi Deb. We also lost our legend of the music industry, Bappi Lahiri, who was the music director of this film. It was amazing that his entire family came together to celebrate with us his last work of music in Bengali cinema. His family has always been family to me and I was so happy to celebrate the launch of the film’s music with his family members,” said Rituparna Sengupta.
Rema Lahiri, who was present with son Rego B, who has just set foot in the music industry following his grandfather’s footsteps, said: “The film is based on a classic story. My dad recorded the song before Covid in our Bombay studio. He and Alkadidi sang the title track together. After the recording was done, everybody had tears in their eyes. Alkadidi and Baba have many hit songs together. But both of them were very happy to record this song. My brother, Bappa Lahiri, programmed the songs.” Rego B., who had visited Calcutta earlier this year for his song Seva Seva, added: “It always feels great to be back in this city. This film is very close to my heart as this is grandfather’s last work in Bengali cinema. All his songs were always a hit and I am sure people will love this one, too. Whenever he composed a new song he would first sing it to me.”
The film has a total of five songs. On the day of the music launch, three songs were launched — the film’s title track, Tumi amaar Labongolata by Bappi Lahiri and Alka Yagnik, Chokher Dekha by Shaan and Ei ami Rajonigandha by Anwesshaa Dutta Gupta.
“Rituparna had only suggested that we do the music with Bappida. After she spoke to him, Bappida was on board with us immediately. I went and met him and he blessed us for our film. He did all the songs so well, we had tears in our eyes,” said Ranjana Ganguly, producer of the film. “We plan to do a premiere show on Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s birthday. This is a literary adaptation and Bappida did justice to the film with his music. We plan to release the film sometime in July,” said Amarnath Palit, executive producer of the film.
