Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My films play only in Bengal, and my audience is the educated middle class in the cities and small towns. They also play in Bombay, Madras and Delhi where there is a Bengali population.
I have translated Bengali poets such as Subhash Mukhopadhyay and Sunil Gangopadhyay before. These were published by Hindi and Urdu magazines. But to take on Tagore's work is no easy task.
Commercial Bengali movies are all crass imitation of Telugu and Tamil movies. There are only a handful of directors like Rituparno Ghosh, Aparna Sen and Gautam Ghose who make quality films.
I got 'Jogger's Park' perhaps because one fellow Bengali Sachin Bhowmick, who's the writer of the movie, recommended my name. Then Ram Gopal Varma was kind enough to offer me a role in 'Bhoot.'
My memory of my household is of one immersed in books and music. I have a very intimate relationship with Bengali literature, particularly Tagore, and my interest besides reading then was music.
I never thought I would sing professionally, but it so happened that I made Babul hear a Bengali song I had sung many years ago. He thought I should sing and bring out an album. I readily agreed.
I respect Malayalam films the same way I respect Bengali films. I think Malayalam films have not compromised on the essence and have kept their own statement and are coming up with very good themes.
I see a lot of similarity between Bengali and Malayalam films regarding the basic emotions, the craftsmanship, art and performance. I also feel both the industries are very true to their art and culture.
If you're talking about industry, I've never restricted myself to Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, or Kannada. Whichever the language is, from Swahili to Marathi or Bhojpuri to Bengali, I would be happy to do it.
Even in India the Hindi film industry might be the best known but there are movies made in other regional languages in India, be it Tamil or Bengali. Those experiences too are different from the ones in Bombay.
I interviewed a lot of people in India, and I asked my mother to send me a lot of Bengali books on the tradition of dream interpretation. It's a real way for me to remember how people think about things in my culture.
Cinematically, anything like 'Khawto' in Bengali cinema hasn't happened. Yes, you get such films in Hollywood, a few in Bombay. In Bengali literature, you get such stories in the works of Samaresh Basu and Buddhadeb Guha.
The Mumbai film industry has definitely a bigger reach. But considering the rich content of work in many Bengali films, even by new directors, there has to be a better financially backed distribution model for films here.
There were days when I felt low and depressed. But I made sure not to harbor those feelings. To overcome that, I used to take a walk and speak to my bunch of friends. I even read up on mental health apart from some Bengali novels.
I am overwhelmed by the reaction to my songs. At Mitra, people went crazy dancing to Paglu's songs. Naveena, which hardly ever screens a Bengali movie, is screening 'Paglu.' I got mobbed at the theaters and lost my watch and shades.
Some felt my looks would not go down with the Bengali audience. They felt I was not photogenic. Others felt I was just what Bengali cinema needed when there was lack of glamour for heroine roles and there were few leading ladies around.
I seriously think Bachchan is more Bengali than any one I know. He's a true Bengali dada. And I'm not saying that because he has a Bengali wife or has spent time in Kolkata. There's more of Rabindranath Tagore's legacy in him than anyone else.
I don't know Bengali perfectly. I don't know how to write it or even read it. I have an accent, I speak without authority, and so I've always perceived a disjunction between it and me. As a result, I consider my mother tongue, paradoxically, a foreign language.
I like all kinds of food, but if I had to choose a favourite Indian cuisine, it would absolutely be Bengali! I love things like masoor dal with begun bhaja - or any type of bhaja, really - machher jhol, bhapa chingri. And how can you beat gorom, gorom rosogolla?
I ate Bengali food after my parents married and Dad started living with us, in both Willesden and in Delhi for three years, and then we all moved to California. Dad said he could make a really good dal, but I never saw him cook during the whole time we lived together.
Based on a taut screenplay by Nabendu Ghosh, 'Do Anjane' was a Hindi adaptation of Nihar Ranjan Gupta's famous Bengali novel, 'Ratrir Yatri.' It was my first chance to rub shoulders with the immensely talented Amitabh Bachchan and we went on to become a super hit pair.
I would say the film world has stopped operating as one. We have divided it into Hindi movies, Bengali movies, Tamil movies and so on. Earlier, there was only one channel and we all knew what was going on. Today, it is hard to keep track of programmes due to the advent of regional channels.
I speak English. I grew up speaking Bengali. This is the normal, the known, the obvious composition of who I am. Then there's Italian, this strange, other component of me that I've just created. It was a creative process just to learn the language, never mind to start expressing myself in it.
When I was selected as a Labour council candidate in 2009, people publicly challenged how I could possibly represent anyone from the Bengali community because of my faith and since my selection and election as the member of parliament for Liverpool, Wavertree, I have received a torrent of anti-Semitic abuse.
My parents being Bengali, we always had music in our house. My nani was a trained classical singer, who taught my mum, who, in turn, was my first teacher. Later I would travel almost 70 kms to the nearest town, Kota, to learn music from my guru Mahesh Sharmaji, who was also the principal of the music college there.
Monica Besra, a Bengali woman from a remote Indian village, was reportedly suffering from a malignant ovarian tumor when she went, in 1998, to a hospice founded by Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity. Nuns at the mission reportedly placed a medallion with Teresa's image on Besra's abdomen, and the tumor disappeared.
