Tumi Na Thakle...

Tumi na thakle, shokal ta eto mishti hoto na
Tumi na thakle megh kore jeto brishti hoto na.

Shokal-ta is never mishti. Neither for me, nor for Bhuto. More for Bhuto, she wakes up when, well others come back home from work. At this point, a vote of thanks to the megh kore jeto brishti hoto na, for not playing spoil sport to the rare occasion when Bhuto agreed to join me for a noon show of Bong Connection at INOX. 170 bucks for the 5th row. Man, I don’t have a problem shelling out 170 bucks for a weekend film. But the 5th row!! Not to mention respected 80+ sweethearts sitting next to us on both sides, giving me a doubt if I was nearing 23 or 83. Just a mention, Bhuto as expected was late. We missed the first 2 minutes, after which we took the wrong seats, thanks to our perfect calculation of ‘chota chere, duto seat baad diye’.

Tumi aacho bole mon kosha koshi
Kore hasha hashi nak ghosha ghoshi.

If you haven't done something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day. Well I had!! At least on this occasion. As I already mentioned earlier, Bhuto was late. So I bought her ticket. While buying the ticket, the person at the counter asked if I was the one going for the movie. I was initially taken aback. ‘Yes, but why?’ ‘No I mean is the other person above 18, this is an adult film you see’. ‘Well, you see I can guarantee that I am above 18, but I don’t really know if Bhuto too is above 18. You know its bad manners to ask a girl, her age. How do you expect me to ask her, her age?’ (Didn’t mention the name Bhuto though). ‘In case the security stops you all, you can take the refund.’ Both of us were smiling/smirking to glory. Had the mumblings in the cue behind me not started, we would have continued with our Ong…Bong…Chong.

Tumi na thakle gorer math ta mathei mara jeto
Tumi na thakle Gariahat ta Guatemalar moto.

Don’t know if Gorer math ta mathei mara jeto, but Saturday afternoon surely would have. Thank you Bhuto! Since Gariahat has come up, let me say this at this point. I guess Anjan Dutta, took to proving that Gariahat had the possibility of becoming Guatemala. So many shots of the Gariahat flyover, with different image sizes, angles and maybe also different lenses was definitely worth an attempt at that. By the way, I have a question. Not that I am too good with roads. Once again, I might also be wrong in recognizing the place shot, but to me it seemed, in the last scene, when Raima Sen is accompanying Sayan Munshi to the airport, the car was on the Gariahat Flyover, yet again. They were heading from the Pantaloons side to Golpark. Well, you can take that way to go to the airport, but isn’t that a longer route. I mean, a shift in the imaginary line would have probably done the trick. (Well, not literally. What I mean is, wouldn’t it be better if the car headed from the Golpark side to Park Circus, if it had to be the Gariahat Flyover.) What say Mr. Dutta? Sir, if you remember, I had given you a copy of my fist short, for your comments. Till date, haven’t got your review, Sir. So, I chose to review your film instead. But since I don’t believe in the concept of film criticisms, this review is different. Well, you can’t really call it a review. Call it anything, its my view.
Oh yeh…Oh yeh…

Tumi na thakle gaito na gaan, goopi baghar dol.
Mohon Bagan kobe hoye jeto shudhu East Bengal.

I must say, I liked the songs. A lot of Kolkatans didn’t, for various reasons but music, but I did. Ok, barring the Oo lala part of Pagla Hawa. The rest of that song, I felt was well re-mixed, re-packaged, re-sung or whatever was done to it. But the Baul, I hope that’s what it is, on the death of Dadu, was the best. It hit me straight in the heart. Sujon, amar majhi. May be not so much for the song, as much for its contextual timing and the way it was sung. Then again, what is a song, without contextual timing and its manner of singing? So Sujon Majhi gets an A+ from me. What in Bong you would call gaye kata dewa gaan; I couldn’t stop turning to Bhuto in the hall and say, ‘this one’s great’.
As for those, who claim, rehashing Tagore songs is disrespecting him. Well, I can’t really comment, because I am doing something that is truly disrespecting the great one. At heart, I genuinely do respect Tagore’s work, at least most of it. But, I can’t really help it. People, my parodies of Tagore’s works are targeted at, are accepting it, and big time!! Sorry Sir, never thought I would, but I am.
Oh, then there is Bhuto’s favourite hybrid song, Majhi re, dekhecho ki tumi tare. It was supposed to be Bengal’s answer to western songs, rather western language songs. Whatever be the language, I liked the song, so let’s rest the case at that and not try to remember it. Chelebelar shopno hajar, geche hariye kon sagare.
Coming to one section of the film, where Apu (Munshi), takes on the sound recordist in the studio, regarding analog and digital music, reminded me of the year I spent at XIC, with V.D. Sir (Vikas Desai: Maker of Shaque, Gehrayee, Umeed...etc.; Editor of Shekar Kapoor’s Masoom. To me VD is more than a respected filmmaker. I take him as my guide. There are just two people whom I turn to for advice, support and guidance; be it professional or personal; and they have never let me down. One, as you have already understood is VD Sir, the other is Ma’am. Thank you, for helping me out with everything. Would have been nowhere without you two.) Coming back to where I was – Digital and Analog music; I am sure VD would call it masturbation, self indulgence. That’s what he told me after watching my first few shorts, specially ‘My Last Shot’, where I diverted from the main story and started debating as to what to me an ideal film is, how an ideal film should be made, a fight between film and digital video. An imitation is an imitation is an imitation. So, back to what I was saying, Anjan Dutta, the musician’s self indulgence/masturbation for analog music.

Tumi aacho bole Cicely-te aache Suchitra Uttam

I don’t know if you can compare any of there performances to that of Uttam-Suchitra, but I wouldn’t think twice before saying this was Munshi’s best till date. Boy, you have finally made a junior Bosco-ite proud. I never expected him to pull off that accent so convincingly. But a cherry on the cake was the performance of the stalwart Soumitra. Even I could have done that. There is a limit to using star-value.

Tumi na thakle Banalata Sen shokal shondhe dactar lane e kapor kachto
This was one line I couldn’t take, especially Banalata Sen being one of my favourite pieces from Bengali literature. The lines mouthed, ranged from clichéd to good, to very good, without consistency. But ami Maniktalar chele…had me in splits.

I believe Anjan Dutta ran out of film stock, and had to end the film suddenly. The end was too sudden. So as a tribute to Bong Connection, I too rest my case here. Thank you!!