Interestingly, our conversation with actor Chitrangda Singh started off with coffee, when she visited Calcutta recently. Looking elegant in a strappy dress and content with her perfect cup, the rendezvous even spilled on to chai and she ended up sharing her recipe of adding pepper to it. “Basically that chai with pepper in it, for the last 10-11 years since I started having it has just been such a saviour. I don’t fall sick when travelling in and out of different cities,” said the actor who made her Bollywood debut with the crime drama Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi two decades ago. The actor-producer who was last seen in Gaslight and who shot for Bob Biswas in the city, talks about the club culture in Calcutta, going big on biopic and her fitness regimen.

Welcome to Calcutta, Chitrangda. What is it about the city that you love?

Well, I’ll be honest, it’s mostly work. Other than that it’s the food and the people. We shot Bob Biswas here, by Sujoy Ghosh. And I remember we had to pause the shoot because of Covid and then came back later that year to finish it. I have spent so much time here. I love Bengali mithai. I cannot have it though due to professional hazards but I love it.

Apart from food and the people, anything else that you look forward to when you come here?

My visits are very restricted but I remember a long time back, we came here for New Year’s because my extended family is still here. The club culture (in Calcutta) is amazing. My father was in the Army and he was posted here at Fort William, so it just feels like home right away. My mother has some very fond memories of that place. We have been to the Army club and since I have golf connections (she was married to ace golfer Jyoti Randhawa)... my brother has played at golf courses here. There are so many connections with the city. Also, once we just went club hopping as there are so many clubs in this city. In fact, Royal Calcutta Golf Club is affiliated to St. Andrews Golf Club in Scotland, which means if you are a member here, which a cousin was, you could use the St. Andrews golf course, which is the first golf course in the world. I love that there’s so much history and culture and the people, including the journalists, distinctly strike you as being very different from the North and even Bombay. I think that’s beautiful and I love that about Calcutta.

Since you have a strong connection with Calcutta, is there a dish that you would like to have a lifetime supply of?

I love mishti doi and sweets made with chhena. I also love puchkas. I’m not much of a foodie, to be honest, but I like fish curry. I like one that’s served on kela patta, the paturi! Two writers who are working with me on a script back in Bombay are from Calcutta and they keep sending me paturi and even sukhi macchi, I don’t remember what it’s called but I really love them.

Poster of Gaslight

It seems like you love fish....

Yeah, I think so because I am not a very heavy red meat person.

The last time t2 spoke to you, it was regarding Gaslight. You had also said that you’re working on a biopic….

Yeah, I know it’s still in process (a biopic on the youngest Param Vir Chakra winner, Yogendra Singh Yadav). I think the industry and the work have been very slow. It is very much in the pipeline. We have finished scripting and the director is locked, so now it’s in the process. It’s only when you start producing something you realise how long a project takes before it goes on the floor. But it is very much in the pipeline.

We can expect it next year?

Absolutely! We should start filming it next year. That’s the plan.

OTT has opened floodgates for creative souls. What roles would you be looking forward to in this space?

I want to do something that is not the most formal or typical of commercial cinema. When you come to OTT, it allows you to do real characters, where you’re not all the way the villain or all the way the heroine, so to speak, in the most conventional sense. I think that is the exciting part. Whatever I’ve done so far, I’ve always been a little in the middle; it always had shades of grey. I personally enjoy playing characters like that. I just feel like the right part hasn’t come my way so far, though there have been a lot of offers.

Now that you’re producing films, what kind of content interests you?

See, this is one thing I keep clarifying, I don’t think I’m the production house manufacturing films. I think it’s a passion project thing for me. If I find a story that is very convincing like this biopic.... I feel like it has to entertain you, firstly. It is very important to entertain your audience because that is cinema. But at the same time, it has to also touch you in some way. The mix of these two is so important. First, when it’s a real story, of course, you know that we’re not lying, nobody sat in a room and wrote a story. It is something that someone has lived. I’m very big on biopic because I feel like you’re giving facts and you’re making a film around somebody who’s been a hero in real life, and there is entertainment to it because it is so inspiring.

Moving beyond work, you’re blessed with lovely hair and skin. What’s the secret?

I definitely need to thank my parents for the genes that blessed me with beautiful hair and skin. But there’s something that I have discovered and that is not to fill yourself up while having your meal. Always get up from the dinner table a little hungry. I have really started to feel good in my skin or energy level. This fasting on water and electrolytes for 82 hours is very healthy. I am very big on health.

And your fitness regimen includes....

I do cardio about four or five days a week. I have an amazing trainer so I do kickboxing. But you have to keep moving. Walking is the most simple and efficient exercise in the world.