Mainstream Indian cinema will of course
remember him for once again waking
Bollywood to the merits and creative
satisfaction of working in Bengali cinema,
eliciting the largest ever beeline of Hindi
cinema stars (Amitabh Bachchan,
Aishwarya Rai, Ajay Devgn, Bipasha Basu,
Arjun Rampal, Preity Zinta, Manisha
Koirala, Kirron Kher) heading to the
Cinemas of the East, since the Golden
Era of the 1950s and 60s. Ghosh‛s consistent ability to extract memorable acts,
sometimes the best in an actor‛s career – Kirron Kher (Bariwali), Aishwarya Rai
(Raincoat), Bipasha Basu (Sab Charitro Kalponik), Preity Zinta (The Last Lear),
Rakhee (Shubho Mahurat), Riya Sen (Noukadubi) or Deepti Naval (Memories in
March) – had made him such a favourite for Bollywood‛s thinking superstars that
they would rush to perform under his baton, often free or for a pittance when
compared with their Mumbai prices.
To be fair to the director, he also gave many Bengali actors some of their career
best acts – Prosenjit Chatterjee (Dosar, Sab Charitro Kalponik), Soumitra
Chatterjee (Asukh), Deboshree Roy (Unishe April), Indrani Haldar and Rituprana
Sengupta (Dahan), Aparna Sen and Konkona SenSharma (Titli), Deepankar De and
Ananya Chatterjee (Abohoman), Jisshu Sengupta (Chitrangada) and Rupa Ganguly
(Antarmahal).
The media ‘savvy‛ filmmaker, who tad enjoyed dropping names had in one of my last
interviews with him hinted at contemplating doing Devi Chaudhurani with Katrina
Kaif in the lead. No wonder, it would have delivered another shocker to purist
Bengali cinema fans still coming to terms with Aishwarya Rai‛s Binodini in Chokher
Bali. But knowing his way with impossibilities, anything could have been possible!
So many more tales could have been told, so many more memories made... For
Rituparno Ghosh, whose life had literally revolved around his medium ever since his
film world debut two decades ago (Hirer Angti, 1992), with a no less gripping
personal story off screen, a fitting tribute would be a biopic, when the memories
and associations with him are still fresh.
Let‛s see who thinks about it first because happen it sure will,
someday sooner than later…
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