The audience for Bengali cinema is about to witness a historic moment on the big screen on June 7. The iconic pair of Bengali cinema, Prosenjit and Rituparna Sengupta, will make their 50th appearance on screen in Kaushik Ganguly’s film Ajogyo. Produced by Surinder Films, the film narrates a story of love, loss, friendship and more, mirroring the contemporary urban society. Ahead of the film’s release, t2 caught up with the director at Soul-The Sky Lounge for a tete-a-tete on the making and more.

What kind of response did you get from Ajogyo’s trailer release?

Fantastic! We didn’t imagine this kind of a response. The audience loved it so much! Trailers of many films have been appreciated, but when a trailer’s dialogue becomes viral, we understand that the trailer has penetrated the audiences’ hearts and minds. During Ardhangini also, this had happened. Some of Churni’s dialogues, like ‘praktan stree mahajan er moton’ became very popular and people started making reels. We understood the reach of it. Nowadays, you can invest money and boost likes and views. But the best thing about Surinder Films is, they never do that. Whatever feedback we get, we know it is happening organically. Ajogyo’s trailer made that impact. I am aware that there is something unique about it. So many producers asked me who made the trailer. We (The Screenplayers) made it racking our brains and we wanted it to be different. It is Prosenjit and Rituparna’s 50th film. But moreover, it is a film and it is our film. So people have a lot of expectations from such a film. After Jyeshthoputro, Drishtikone and Ardhangini, the audience wants to see a good film. So, we had to try harder.

Did you have Rituparna and Prosenjit in mind for the leads right from the inception of this story?

Yes. It is a designed film. It is not that I thought of this story first and then thought of them. It is a film for them. Our 48th film was Drishtikone. I didn’t want to do their 49th film. So, I was patiently waiting for their 50th film. When I saw they did their 49th film, I approached them for their 50th film. Prosenjit, Nispal Singh of Surinder Films and I discussed it in the first meeting. I gave them a few options and they selected one story. My company The Screenplayers developed the script and we tried to match up to the audience’s expectations centering them. Prosenjit and Rituparna is not like any other actor-actress pairing. The audience has scripts written about them in their hearts and minds and they have their desires and dreams around them that we need to cater to.

You told us that the audience doesn’t wish to see a happy ending for them…

Yes! They don’t want a happily ever after for them. Then the story is over. Like, Amitabh and Rekha… will the audience ever want them to stay in the same house? Their grief gives people joy. Their discomfort gives people joy, their distance gives people joy. For Prosenjit and Rituparna also that’s true. The more they are in distress, the more the audience will find joy in it. So, if we make a film with them, we have to cater to people’s desires.

Silajit’s appearance looks very interesting too…

Silajit is mindblowing in this film. People trust my acting and give importance to what I have to say about acting. Silajit did a fantastic job. We did not keep Silajit on the poster consciously… but that’s not an issue. What people need to see is how he performed in the film. He is so intelligent and he has seen so many ups and downs in life, he can imitate those moments in life. Raktim’s is the toughest character in the film and he did a great job.

Ajogyo is a tale of relationships. But is it also a thriller as the trailer suggests?

A thrilling element is there in any love story. A guy goes to meet a girl…hiding it from the parents. Isn’t there a thrill in it? A thriller has many shades and forms. It is not always about the presence of a gun and a detective. The film has bloodshed and devastating situations, in the trailer we can see a dead body being carried on a rickshaw van… these are all part of life. If we stand on a Calcutta street, we can see these scenes every day… it is not a sweet love story.

There is always a social context highlighted in the backdrop of the stories you narrate…

Of course, there will be a social connect. To me, a film is meaningless if it doesn’t have a social connect. Films will remain as a document of a particular time, so it is our responsibility to portray it through our films. The love that bloomed during a Naxal movement amidst various tensions… if we see today’s time, there are similar stories of love going through similar tensions due to their present reality; but for that, a Naxal movement is not required in the backdrop. If we can portray these, then the film has relevance, it has importance, and it fulfils its needs to society.

You have made many unique films like Cinemawala, Chotoder Chobi, Nagarkirtan but in your last few films, you have explored marital relationships interestingly in the contemporary urban space…

It interests me because a person finds his or her bliss in his or her marital life, or rather, in their family life if not always in their marital life. So to bring it up in the story is very important to me. I want to tell stories of marital life in future also. Films like Cinemawala, Nagarkirtan will remain amidst these stories only but if you think deeper, even films like Nagarkirtan show married life; in Cinemawala, Param and Sohini’s life also highlights a married life. They are going through a crisis of adjusting with the father-in-law… there’s a domestic life involved and a local problem is being addressed with an international problem.

In this film, a relationship and time are simultaneously being captured. People’s belief in love is diminishing. We see so many divorces around us, today’s young generation is scared of getting married. It is not that something is wrong with them but our times couldn’t give them that comfort. The comfort that our grandparents gave us tolerating many things in life. The times are strange but in these strange times, it is our responsibility to narrate stories that can bring back that trust in love…. so that people can think that even if I am in pain, I love; even if I am not doing well, I love; even if I am not near, I love.

When you are working with human relationships, who are the filmmakers who have inspired you the most?

Every filmmaker narrates their stories based on their experiences of times they have seen while growing up. All our great filmmakers, when they were making their films… did they not have dwarfs in the society then? But they never felt like making a film like Chotoder Chobi. During their time, the cinema hall crisis had started… but they never thought about it. Did they not have transgenders in the society then? But they did not make Arekti Premer Golpo or Nagarkirtan. So, it is the aptitude of each director and depends on how they are observing… it makes us proud that we are making such films. I am talking about my films because the responsibility for these films is mine. People sometimes say that great films were only made earlier. I disagree. The kind of research that is happening now, had not happened earlier. Filmmakers are choosing subjects based on minute things in society. That culture of sighs will parallelly always remain.

While watching the trailer of Ajogyo one cannot miss the cinematic language of speed, sound, lights and colours you have used in this film… can you tell us a bit more about it?

I have used it very consciously. Because life is colourful. If we consider our thought process, we will realise that we don’t think about one thing for a long time. Our thoughts keep changing. So, capturing those in four frames, two frames or a glimpse of it… in a film also we can narrate a story like that. What is going on in my mind can be narrated on the screen through images and different treatments. If we can arrange these devices and give them a shape… what matters is the passion inside.

The waves appear to be a metaphor in the film…

It is a good question. We have written on a poster that the sea doesn’t take away anything, it returns everything. When we stand near the sea and the waves recede it suddenly feels like the sand beneath our feet is moving away. In that sense, it is a metaphor. For me, an important metaphor in the film is the train and in the trailer there was a play wheel and the moving train wheels… these are very important. The colourful wheels of childhood days don’t stay colourful throughout, it rusts and its sharpness sometimes can even take life.