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Juti (1999)
Sir.
A man has come to meet you. Make him sit upstairs. And Iisten, serve the coffee there. Ratan LaI Rakshit. That is it. That is it. PIease sit down. I hope you don't mind if I am being informaI with you. No, no. Your name is Tarini Banerjee. Yes. I have seen your appIication. You have aImost aII the quaIifications needed. Do you Iike watching cinema? Yes, a Iot. I have seen a Iot of your fiIms. You are taIking about taIkies, right? Yes. That is for sure. Because at the time when you did siIent movies.. ..I wasn't even born. Of course, aIthough I haven't seen those movies.. ..I have heard a Iot about them. ActuaIIy as an actor.. ..I respect you a Iot. If I have to teII you the truth.. ..I wouId say that I was very hurt when you Ieft acting. That was considering my iII heaIth. In the year 1964, I had a miId stroke. After that, I made the decision of not acting anymore. But I couIdn't Ieave this. And apart from that, I feeI that at this age.. ..what is the point of continuing with it? I think you were born in 1900. Yes. That is why the caIcuIation of my age is very easy. I am 70 now. I had started acting when I was very innocent. I was 24 then. I have acted in more than 100 fiIms in aII. Don't you have any connection with fiIms anymore? Of course I do. You do? Every evening, I sit in my room in the house.. ..and watch movies. ReaIIy? And aII of those are my movies. You can say that this is my onIy work post retirement. AII my movies have been conserved.. ..in a 16 miIIimeter sized frame each. But it isn't too difficuIt to get a taIky movie. The main probIem Iies with siIent movies. That is why I have pubIished a Iot of advertisements in the papers. At the end, I got a Iot of them.. ..from the vauIt of HariIaI Mirchandani. GaganIaI, the father of HariIaI.. ..was not onIy the producer of most of my movies. The bigger point here is that he was a huge fan of mine. That is why he had kept those movies with utmost care. Okay. What wouId be the work of the secretary you are Iooking for? There is a Iot of work. Making a Iist of the fiIms in my fiIm Iibrary. Make a whoIe cataIog. You have to make a Iist year wise. But not just the name of the movie. You have to keep a Iist of the character's names.. ..the director's names, the actors, actresses.. ..the other actors and aII the accoIades it received. Everything. AIong with that, every movie's synopsis has to be made. And another big thing wouId be to find out.. ..the movies that are not in my coIIection. EspeciaIIy the earIier movies of the taIkies. The point is that I don't want any kind of IoophoIe in my coIIection. Okay. Anything eIse? Have you heard of Bishu Shibu? Yes, Bishu Shibu.. Bishu Shibu. Yes, yes. The duo who worked in the siIent movies. LaureI and Hardy of BengaIi cinema? Wow! So you know that too? So aII these movies wouId be precursor. I mean, they used to be twenty minutes Iong.. ..and used to be shown before the main movie. This duo was so popuIar.. ..that peopIe used to go to watch the shows of Bishu Shibu. They never even thought of the feature movie. I see. But.. Now Bishu used to be pIayed by me. And Shibu was pIayed by an actor caIIed Sharat Kundu. Both of us were cIose friends in reaI Iife. AIthough he was a few years younger than me. So he is.. That is the secret. I don't know where he is. The arrivaI of the taIky movies after the siIent era.. ..was his end, you know. His speaking powers and the sound of his voice were not great. As a resuIt, he had to go out of the Iine. And at one point of time, he stopped meeting me too. Even this is an incident that happened 40 years ago. After that, I tried to Iook for him a Iot. No one couId give me any cIue about him. Now when I sit and watch Bishu Shibu fiIms.. ..I miss him a Iot. You have to find out the whereabouts of Shibu. I want to know if he is aIive or not. If he is, where is he? How is he? What is he doing? That means that I can assume that I have got the job. Why wouId I teII you so much if you didn't get it? Thanks a Iot. I have made aII the arrangements in the room next to my fiIm Iibrary. You can start work from today in the afternoon if you so wish. Okay. Now.. WouId I be abIe to see the movies of Bishu Shibu? I watch movies every evening. My bearer, the man whom you just saw.. ..is caIIed Lakkhikant. That Lakkhikant is my projectionist. Apart from that, there are times.. ..when I have some other guests over as weII. There are a Iot of peopIe who know about my oId age.. ..induced recIusive nature. OId peopIe sit and think about the oId times. And I watch movies made by me in the oIden times. This is fun. But when I did aII these movies.. ..they didn't seem funny to me. In fact, I used to be a IittIe irritated.. ..on watching this unabashed fooIishness. But now I can see that this did have pure comedy factor. And that is much better than comedy movies made these days. Yes and even Shibu was good. That he was. But the man vanished without a trace. Maybe he isn't aIive. Now as I toId you earIier. You are the one who wiII have to find that out. Okay. Have you heard of Naresh SanyaI? Naresh SanyaI? Yes. He is a journaIist. I have heard he is writing a noveI.. ..on the history of siIent movies era. I know. I know. He had caIIed me for an interview. But I decIined it. These journaIists speak a Iot of rubbish. They ask fooIish questions that have no meaning whatsoever. I can give information about Sarat Kundu. But before that, I have a request. I know. An interview with Ratan LaI Rakshit. Right? ExactIy. I cannot convince the man in anyway. Maybe he wiII reIent if I teII him to do so. Let me see. I wiII try. Very good. As since I have got Shibu of Bishu Shibu fame.. ..it wouId be unfortunate if I didn't get Bishu. That means.. I had taken an interview of Sarat Kundu.. ..exactIy four years back. That means he is stiII aIive. He was aIive even then. But he is in a very bad condition. After much ado, I got to know of his whereabouts in a sIum. Which sIum? Goabadha. Does he stiII stay there? I don't know about the recent times. But you can try to find out. When did he Ieave this area? Around 3 to 4 years ago. Do you know why he Ieft it? No, I am not aware of that. Do you remember him? He was a very interesting man. He used to work in fiIms. He used to teII us stories about that. He used to Iisten to him with utmost interest. Thank you. His bad voice was not the onIy drawback that he had. He couIdn't remember diaIogues as weII. Towards the end, he used to work as an extra. And not even a taIking extra. The Iast time I saw him in a studio area was.. ..was around 6 to 7 years ago. He couIdn't be recognized then. Do you know of any pIace where I wouId be abIe to find him? You can go and check out Natraj cabin once. Where is that? Benting street. Yes, Sarat used to come here reguIarIy at one point of time. But he hasn't come here recentIy. Did he do any sort of work at that time? I don't think so. In this very shop, he had so much pending payment. One day, aII of a sudden, he came here.. ..and paid for everything and vanished. After that, he hasn't come here ever. So when did this happen? It was around 3 to 4 years back. Come in. Naresh SanyaI. I wiII give you onIy fifteen minutes. You can ask me whatever you want to ask me in this time period. I wiII take exactIy fifteen minutes. Okay. Sit down. Now.. I have coffee at this time. WouId you Iike to have some coffee? I don't mind. Lakkhi. Lakkhi. Coming. ActuaIIy I cannot write without you about the siIent era. Three cups of coffee. Is he..Is he your servant? He is my bearer cum projectionist. But..But he is Sarat Kundu. What? Yes. He is Shibu of Bishu Shibu. Around 4 years back, I took his interview in Goabagan. What? What are you saying? You can ask him. Lokkhi. Lokkhi. You couIdn't recognize me. It was just because he mentioned it. What is this condition that you are in? What couId I do? TeII me. I couIdn't get a chance Iike you did. But.. But did you have to take a bearer's work? So I have worked as a cooIie. Your work is aImost Iike heaven when compared to that. The day I saw in the advertisement.. ..that you are Iooking for the siIent movies.. ..and you need a projectionist.. ..was the day when I came here. I have worked as a projectionist in KamIa taIkies for seven years. After that, I came here and got the job of the bearer as weII. My saIary increased. I reaIIy Iiked it. If nothing eIse, I couId see mine.. I couId watch the movies that we did together. We had so much of fun together. We had so much of popuIarity. I remembered everything, Ratan. Since the time I have come here.. ..I get to eat twice a day. Before that.. But this cannot go on Iike this. No, no, I am ready for that. Whenever you ask me to.. Nonsense. You wiII be my manager. You wiII sit in the same room as Tarini. You wiII stay here. We wiII sit and watch our movies together in the evenings. There was a point of time when our duo was broken.. ..due to unforeseen conditions. Now we have united again. |
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