Probashi- Cover Story
Probashi- Cover Story
Excerpts from Production Controller’ s Diary
18 February 2012: It’ s been more than two months since I made an entry in the diary. Was busy shooting for Shunyo Awnko in the vicinity of Ajodha hills, Purulia. We got Santhal tribals from the nearby villages to act in the film. I and my team would go door to door urging the Adivasis to come and join the shooting. During outdoor shoots people always collect to watch the filming, here however there was no such curiosity. It was later did I realise the reason. The tribals had never seen a movie in their lives and neither has television penetrated these deep remote parts of the country. Cinema is completely alien to them. One thing which struck me is that the tribal women folk are much more empowered than their non tribal counterparts. They readily joined the shooting. One reason why the film shoot was attractive for the people who joined in was because we used to serve food. In these parts where people live in abject poverty a full meal is a bonanza. We were paying Rs. 150 per person to those who joined the shooting, to our surprise many of them would forget to collect this payment, and we would have to go to their homes to give the money. Quid pro quo which is a norm in our modern world is yet to be enforced with rigour in the lives of simple tribal folk. We were their guests, and they expected nothing in return. The entire film crew of Shunyo Awnko stood humbled.
8 August 1998: I am back in Kolkata literally drenched, because for last four months we have been virtually chasing the monsoon for a documentary sponsored by the meterological department, which shows how monsoon progresses in the country and how people react to the reains. Myself along with documentary film maker Bappa
Ray, Sanjay Agarwal the cameraman and our driver been driving through the swathes of India chasing the monsoon backed by the predictions being provided by the meteorological department. It had been about a fortnight since we latched onto the rains in Kerala and were now in Goa expecting the monsoon to keep her date with us. The local meterological departmentin Goa referred to their headquarter in Delhi, where after some serious number crunching in the super computers it was conveyed back that the rains were still ten days away. We were stuck, without rains what were we to shoot. As we were taking some stray shots on the streets of Panaji, a curious middle‐aged man( a Fisherman) approached us and enquired about our project. On learning that we were to shoot the monsoon, he looked up and then remarked that the rains will start next day morning. We brought up to treat technology as God dismissed the man’ s prediction. And lo and behold next morning it started raining and we with relief started filming. Wait of seven days as predicted by the Met department was not needed. And the Goans responded to the rains with colourful raincoats unlike in Kolkata where one only sees black umbrellas. It was a feast for the camera. And we came back our faith in the traditional knowledge restored; the computers and satellites of the Met department for once could not match the prowess of traditional wisdom.
16 June 2002: Back to penning the diary after 2 week hiatus. Last two weeks was spent with luck and no luck, at the same time, ironical as it may seem. Let me write this saga of luck and no luck running concurrently. In film lingo there is a term called“ Cameraman’ s Luck”. It is said that the best cinematographers all over the world are also the luckiest ones, because having the best technical and composing skills are not enough if the sequence they want to shoot does not present itself. E. g. if a flock of geese in flight has to be captured in film, you would need the geese and you would need them to be fly, and if you are not lucky you will never find the flying flock despite your best camera equipment and years of experience and training. In my experience of the entire director’ s I have worked with two directors – Goutam Ghose and Buddhadeb Dasgupta are really blessed with“ Cameraman’ s luck”. However in our shoot for Abaar Araney( spread over last 2 weeks),‘ Cameraman’ s luck” seemed to have suddenly deserted Gautamda. This is what happened. Gautamda, Rojotava Dutta, Shashwata Chakraborty, Jishu Sengupta and the crew with our equipment in a convoy of three cars headed to Jayantinodi in the jungles of Alipurdoar to film the sequence where Rojotava, Shashwata and Jishu are unable to cross the river due to sudden flash floods. Jayantinodi is known for having flash flood with furious swirling currents during monsoons whenever it rains in the upper reaches of Bhutan. Now this was monsoon time and it was raining incessantly, catching Jayantinadi in full spate during monsoon was an axiom and Gautamda was very sure that we would wrap up the shooting in one day. And as predicted when we reached the river it was in full spate, the water furiously splashing on to the boulders, and eddy current in swift swirl, it was a river in full rage, something I was seeing for the first time. Apparently as usual it appeared that Goutamda’ s‘