Man of TODAY

Mithun Chakraborty could never give up on his Bengali roots. He keeps flitting between Mumbai and Kolkata for work. He gets talking about his latest Bengali film Rehmat Ali and more

Is it true that Rehmat Ali is the Bengali remake of Partho Ghosh’s 1997 film Ghulam-e-Mustafa starring Nana Patekar in the main role?
Not really. This is a Bengali film set in contemporary Bengal against the virulent political backdrop as it exists in the present time. It is completely localised within the Bengali identity. Who can really say which film is a ‘remake’ of which other film? The best way to express this is to perhaps concede that the film has been ‘inspired’ by one or more than one film. There may be parts of Ghulam-e-Mustafa, there may be some motivating elements from other films made even before. How can one be 100 per cent certain that a film is a ‘remake’ of another film when the actors are different, the ambience is different, the language and political contexts are different just because the director happened to direct a similar film more than a decade ago?

You play the title role of Rehmat Ali. What is your role and how did the title come about?
The title was a bit of a problem and we could not really land on the right title for the film. Then, Partho and I decided to give it the name of the principal character, Rehmat Ali. I enjoyed playing Rehmat Ali. It is a complex character that moves from negative to positive shades, much like we do in real life. We define ourselves within ranges of gray. No one is completely black or completely white. It deals with the way Rehmat Ali’s values change over time when he comes to live within a Hindu Brahmin family as a potential threat to them under orders of his adoptive father and boss, the dreaded mafia leader Abbaji who brought him up as his own.

You have one of the widest ranges in your repertoire as an actor over 30 decades. How do you manage to switch on and off from a character?
It is not difficult for an actor who has been in the profession for more than three decades. It comes with long practice and with experience. Practice, for me, is the bottom line. If I cannot switch on and off from one role to another I have no right to call myself an actor. Besides, for a totally commercial film like Rehmat Ali, there is practically no homework to be done. I speak the same lines in similar situations but maybe, I use a different approach. To be frank, we have approximately five storylines that cover every kind of film within the mainstream. One just changes the permutations and combinations to give a certain slant to a given script to make it a little different from the others. I have a tagline in Bengali commercial films and they have done wonders to the box- office value of the films. I have one in this film too; (laughs) Naamer aage Rehmat, pawre Ali, Sare jannat bajaye taali. The audience loves these tag-lines.

How do you interpret your role?
I first look at the framework the director gives me and the script contains. Then I add my own inputs without diverting from the model the director has provided me with. Within that framework, I play around with dialogue, costume, tag-line, make-up and so on. For Rehmat Ali, I have also put in some of the dialogues myself and Partho has credited me for it (laughs).

In the recent past, two of the most outstanding performances in your entire career have been in Bengali films: Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s Kaalpurush and Samir Chanda’s Ek Nodir Galpo. Don’t you feel frustrated when films like these do not run or are not released and marketed properly or are never released?
Of course it is very frustrating. But this is a part of the industry which, as an actor, I can do nothing about. That is why today, I have made the prospective commercial viability of a film the principal criterion to accept an assignment. This is one reason I said ‘yes’ to Rehmat Ali. It has wonderful commercial prospects. I have worked with Partho Ghosh earlier in Dalaal. Partho, Bappi Lahiri and me have worked together in the past. Along with Rituparna who has worked with me in several films, I knew we could pull it off. A film like Rehmat Ali gives me tremendous satisfaction because it will reach out to the masses, to a huge audience. What more does an actor want? True that at times, with the best of strategic planning, things fail to work out. But the aim must be commercial success and mass acceptance.

Let’s hear about your next Bengali film.
It is Shukno Lanka slated for release sometime in April-May this year. It is not exactly a mainstream film but I play a character I have never played before. My name is Chinu Nandy, a marginal man, who once nourished great dreams of making it big. With time, he reconciles himself to remain a junior artiste in Bengali films. He has no illusions left, much less - dreams. But his life changes when an internationally renowned Bengali director approaches him and asks him to play the lead in a film. I should not give out the story now. Gautam Pandey has directed the film. The other film I have signed with Mahesh Manjrekar is for the Bengali version of his Marathi hit Mee Shivaji Raje Bhosale Boltoy. I play the role of Dinkarrao Marutirao Bhosale which Sachin Khedekar played in the original. But we are yet to work out the logistics.

Where do you see yourself five years from now?
I am a man of today. I have learnt and accept that my today is made up of actions and deeds and that is equal to my tomorrow. I believe in this dictum and live by it.

We would like to know about your experience as Grandmaster on Zee TV’s Dance India Dance which is one of the most popular shows on a satellite channel.
It has been a wonderful experience. I aspired to give a platform to young dancing talents in India through this show. I believe that Dance India Dance will convert a dancer into a dancing star. I have great respect for talent. I do understand the tremendous pressure the contestants are performing in and I do empathise with them. I demand very high quality performances from them because I also believe that the audience does not deserve anything less than that. I respect the audience. My judgement is emotional, on behalf of the audience. It is not cerebral or technical because I believe that the judges are there to take care of the cerebral and the technical. The audience is there to react emotionally.