Scientist Bedabrata Pain, 49, left a flourishing career at NASA jet propulsion lab, where he has 87 patents to his name, to direct his debut Hindi film Chittagong - the story of understated, Bengali heroism. Masterda Surya Sen plotted and executed the Chittagong uprising against the British in the 1930s. Chittagong tells the story of the raid of the British armouries by revolutionaries in Chittagong, now in Bangladesh, which shook the British colonialists.
Pain was one of the inventors of the active pixel sensor technology that produced the world's smallest camera. He was inducted into the US Space Technology Hall of Fame. Starring Manoj Bajpayee and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Chittagong deals with a group of schoolboys and young women, led by Surya Sen, a teacher, who raided two armouries in the place.
I caught up with Pain while he was in Delhi. In the course of a two-hour-long interview, Pain spoke of what drove him to make Chittagong, his vision of where Indian cinema is headed and financial factors that cripple filmmakers. This is the first part of a two-part interview.
The journey of Chittagong has been a rocky one right from the start when Ashutosh Gowarikar's 'Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey', on the same theme, released earlier than your film, even though you had a script ready
In 2007, Shonali (his wife) and I started writing Chittagong together. I am the primary writer. In 2008 I shopped it around here (in India). There were three companies very keen to produce the film. I went back with an MoU. In December 2008 I quit JPL NASA. Recession had hit and no one was making films. That was the first stumbling block. Ashutosh started his film and he got money from Bombay and in 2009 they announced 'Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey'. It was being made and no one had any interest in my film although I had a script and he didn't.
Then royalty from my inventions came in and that was the money I put into my film. I finished the film, showed it to Anurag Kashyap, he loved it and brought Sunil Bohra in.
Was Abhishek Bachchan your first choice for Masterda?
All kinds of false stories float in the media. See, I had gone to meet Jaya Bachchan. She loved the story. This was even before 'Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey'. Abhishek came down and heard the story. He was keen but he hadn't taken any decision at that time. Personally for me, Abhishek will not really work as Masterda in my mind. Abhishek doesn't have the Bengali look. Abhishek has his bravado and it's the bravado that doesn't work for me. A historian made an interesting comment on Chittagong. He said we managed to capture the Bengali heroism which is not chest thumping, bicep flexing heroism; it is the understated, cerebral, visionary, not-really-thrusting-themselves-in-the-forefront kind of heroism.
Post the very talented Nawazuddin Siddiqui's phenomenal turnout in films in the last few years, on hindsight, had you thought of reversing his role with Manoj Bajpayee's?
In 2008 I met Nawaz in Delhi and I said 'Nawaz bhai humein pata nahin kiss role ke liye aapko chahiye, par aap Chittagong mein ho'. Nawaz is not Surya Sen. The role that he plays is exactly the right role for him. He plays Nirmal Sen, Masterda's right hand man, the only romantic character in the film and very unlike Nawaz.
How difficult is it to make a period film? What are the roadblocks?
Well, money is one. (laughs) Money becomes a big factor because when you see period pieces like 'Gandhi', they practically take over a whole area and recreate an era... even what Ashutosh did for Jodha Akbar. We did not have that kind of money. I would always try to shoot on location, it gives you an authenticity. A lived in place, no matter how good your production design is - and I had the best - Samir Chanda - you can never create that look. Samirda was a master in creating the weathered look. But I shot in a place called Lataguri. I could not shoot in Chittagong. But you wouldn't know that it's not Chittagong.
If you had to leave behind a NASA career, why not make a dependable and commercial film like Ek Tha Tiger, Agent Vinod or Housefull 2?
First of all, I think there are many different ways of committing suicide...(laughs)...No I'm just being facetious. Secondly, what I have are fantastic actors and an A-grade crew. The film has a quality which you don’t have in most Indian films. To me, making an authentic film of world standard is more important. I did not come into this to make money. My film is one-tenth the cost of 'Khelein Hum... ' and for a period film it's very very low cost.
With new technology bringing down the cost of filmmaking do new filmmakers have better scope of showcasing their art?
I think, in the last few years, there has been a democratisation in filmmaking, largely because of the advent of digital film making. Sometimes people take it to the other extreme, but I do not want to sacrifice quality. For instance, many films are poorly lit because the maker wanted to get a shot. Many times with indie filmmakers, it becomes more important to finish the project than to do it right. In India we have this 'chalta hai' mentality. I hate mediocrity. Whatever I do, I want to make it much better than average and today technology allows you to do that at far less cost. From financial point of view also there has been a democratisation.
Crowd sourcing is a popular and viable option
From shooting to editing, costs have become much, much less. But there is one area we still haven't cracked - which is distribution. Unless you are in the theatre nobody takes you seriously. That requires a certain amount of money, and connections. Will we see in the coming years new forms of viewing? Would something go straight to your handheld? What if every locality has a screen? We create a common room where digitally we choose from a number of films... somewhere between a video library and a theatre. Can we bring the marketing costs down? That is my vision. (With additional inputs from PTI)(To be continued...)
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