When I was writing the screenplay of Devi Chowdhurani (Bandit Queen of Bengal) and doing my research work, one thing I was pretty sure about was that finding the proper location would be a humongous task. The story is set against the backdrop of The Great Bengal Famine of 1770 and the Sanyasi rebellion of 1776 to 1780. It is like recreating every single detail of a period that existed almost 250 years ago. Everything has changed, including, most importantly, the landscape.
The rivers have changed their courses, some of them are not so mighty any more and lost their significance as the waterway because of less water... dense forests with old trees are scarce because of rapid deforestation... the atmosphere is more polluted and full of dust now, making the long-distance visibility far less than those days, including the night sky. So I was pretty certain that we had to mix and match several locations from the different parts of today’s Bengal to recreate that era, that geography. As well as we have to take the help of CGI to recreate the far less polluted climate.
The original novel spanned from Durgapur to Rangpur (erstwhile Bengal province, now in Bangladesh) and the major river that was described in the book was Trisrota (Teesta). In the screenplay, Calcutta is also an important part where Warren Hastings was building Fort William afresh. To recreate 1770’s Calcutta we ventured out into Sreerampur, Barrackpur and Chandannagore, which still have those colonial structures and surrounding areas. In Calcutta, most of the old buildings are either built or renovated after 1857’s mutiny. My film is set 95 per cent in outdoor locations. That is the reason why we start shooting from late autumn till winter so that we can avoid rain and storms.
My executive producers, assistant team and local coordinators got together and formed a preliminary scouting group. They rode on bikes and ventured into unknown locations as per my vision, which I had briefed categorically. They would send me hundreds of photographs and videos daily. From those, I chose a few locations in Purulia, Bolpur, Jharkhand and the fringes of Calcutta suburbs to start my recce along with the other head of the departments.
Most of the places were unknown to me personally. I had never been there during my documentary days also. These places are far from civilisation and barring a few, none of them were explored on the screen before. Virgin but breathtakingly beautiful locations that will enhance the visual splendour of the film and will add a character, another dimension to the narrative.
Each zone was divided separately for the recce and we embarked on this journey which spanned four months and two seasons, summer and monsoon. After completion of the recce we were very satisfied with the locations and were able to zero in on the specific locations for each scene, sometimes multiple locations in different zones for a single scene. The entire recce process was an eventful one, a story by itself.
We climbed on top of a hill on a hot day. The temperature was around 48 degrees and a heat wave alert was circulated by the government. We trekked down through a gorge to find a beautiful waterfall hidden by the dense jungle. Most of us fell sick after the first phase of recce in gruelling hot temperatures but our passion for films kept us going.
We ventured into cobra-infested jungles. We didn’t face one luckily barring one day, when my DoP and I spotted a large snake slithering into the mud banks of a waterbody, a couple of feet away from us. One day one of our local coordinators showed us a video of an eight-feet cobra which was captured a few days earlier from the very spot we were standing at that point in time. We decided to keep an ambulance, a doctor, a nurse and anti-venom injections available 24x7 for the entire team throughout the outdoor schedules, in case of an emergency, as a precautionary measure. In most of the places in the jungles, we had to find a path by clearing the dense undergrowth with our hands, which was a bit risky though.
In certain locations, we now have to build a temporary walkway and make provisions for the truck and industrial crane clearance to reach the spot. I am not here to make a time-bound project, I am here to make a feature film the way it is supposed to be made. The way I was schooled, the way every noteworthy film happens all over the world.
We completed the recce a few days ago, in the middle of the monsoon. On the very last day of the recce, we were in the middle of a jungle when suddenly the rain started. We were not carrying any umbrellas. Foolishly we kept those in the car which was parked on the highway. We completely got drenched and ran towards the cars. It was exciting and thrilling.
On a personal note, in one of the schedules in Purulia, I got locked out in the open balcony adjacent to my room in the wee hours of the morning, when I had come out to enjoy the view of the valley. I had to climb and jump to the next balcony on the second floor to get myself out of the situation. And that too without any protection. My training during my boy scout and NCC days came in handy.
Since we have completed our recce, we are now moving on to the next stage, which is technical recce and storyboarding, where the ace action director Sham Kaushal will join us to pre-visualise the battle sequences for the film. Devi Chowdhurani (produced by ADited Motion Pictures and presented by Anirudhha Dasgupta and Aparna Dasgupta) is like putting together the canvas of five films and making a single film and thus it will take time to achieve perfection. One step at a time... and surely with the collaboration of the best technical and creative minds we will reach our destination. But personally, the journey is the most important to me.
