“You should know and also make the kids understand not to disturb an actor when she is being interviewed,” counsels Konkona Sen Sharma as an excited mother approaches her for an autograph and a selfie with her kids. It has been a long since one last interviewed the versatile actor but Konkona hasn’t changed at all. Simply straight forward, she doesn’t want to indulge in anything superficial. So before the release of A Death In the Gunj, she won’t go into the details of the narrative beyond a point. It is her first feature film as a director and Konkona says it is not that she always wanted to be a filmmaker. “ This is a story that I know for a long time. The film is set in 1979 in McCluskieganj, a small little village in Bihar, now Jharkhand. Back in the day, my parents had a little house there and they, with their friends and relatives, would drive down from Kolkata to this place. I was not even born or was very young. They would drive for eight-ten hours and spend time holidaying there,” says Konkona on the sidelines of the ongoing Habitat Film Festival.
She was too young to participate but later she heard stories. “So there were family anecdotes that this happened or that happened. Most of them are lovely funny stories but because the place is remote and quiet, there are some stories which are spooky and creepy as well. There is something chilling about them. And this is one of those stories.” The essence of the story was with her and it was only when she was spending some time with her father (Mukul Sharma) when her house was being renovated in Mumbai that they started talking about it. “In my head, it became bigger and bigger and eventually I realised that it could be developed into a film. I remember I made this decision in Gurgaon house. Then I started writing.”
She says some part of the little girl in the trailer could be her, but largely it is about her elder sister, Kamilini. “But it is not like that it is all true. It is very atmospheric because it is set in a particular time and place. It has a very specific, intense feeling about it, and I wanted to share that.” She doesn’t want to attach her meaning to the proceedings and expects the audiences to draw their own inference. “The film is about relationships, how human beings interact and what we allow people to get away with and what we expect from people and how they conform and don’t conform to perceptions, and what are the consequences.”
The characters are drawn from real people like Tanuja’s character is based on her grandmother, Supriya Dasgupta. Must be difficult for her as to what to hold and what to reveal? “Not really, as the characters rang true to me. Some of these people I have heard about and some of them I have seen. And we have all felt emotions of separation, loneliness and dejection.”
Crumbling space
One of the challenges was shooting on location at McCluskieganj. “It came up in 1933. It was supposed to be a heaven for the Anglo Indian community. Around 30 families settled there. After independence, many of the Anglo Indians left leaving their old crumbling cottages to the tribal care takers who were living in abject poverty. With little governance to maintain, the whole place was dying.” Her mother, seasoned actor-director Aparna Sen, was always there to help. “We used to talk on a daily basis. She was my first wealth of information about the scenic place. It was called mini London. That’s why they had this house there. The problem was there is no archival information about it. Even in Kolkata, you can find only a few pieces of information. So I had to depend on people’s memory, and memory is not perfect. It is fluid, and people remember only what they want to. My mother would say this happened and sister would come up with a different version. So it was difficult to make one cohesive image.”
Talking of casting, Konkona says she has a fantastic ensemble in the form of Kalki Koechlin, Ranvir Shorey, Tanuja, Om Puri and Vikrant Massey. She was always sure about Ranvir and Vikrant but discovered the talent of Kalki and Gulshan Deviah along the way. “I never thought Tanuja could be part of my film until Honey Trehan (casting director and co-producer) suggested. She indeed looks like my grandmother. We didn’t want a matronly kind of grandmother. We didn’t want a stereotype of grandmother.” Similarly, referring to Kalki’s character, Konkona says, she didn’t want to go by the preconceived notions of how a “femme fatale or a sexy woman looks like.”
Bonding of veterans
On the bonding of Om Puri and Tanuja, with their different styles of acting, Konkona says, “Watching Tanujaji and Om ji talk and bicker was too much fun. Sometimes they were in the background of a scene aur aagey kuchh aur chal raha hai but we were more interested in what they were saying. It was so interesting. She was a trooper. She would do whatever she was expected to and then sit quietly in a corner and read her book.” In comparison, she continues, “Omji was such an irreverent spirit...always doing masti. Neither he was taking himself seriously, nor was he taking the film seriously. I would apologetically go to him to explain and he would make fun of the way I was working,” she laughs.
Meanwhile, her acting career seems to be on a pause. “No, Lipstick Under My Burkha is going to be released soon. Though it was shot some time back, for the audience it would still be fresh. I do few films which I find interesting. I am not an industry or trend watcher. I watch only five percent of Hindi films that are made.” Has she been challenged enough by Hindi cinema? “Sometimes I feel like that but it is not my language,” sums up Konkona as she heads towards the kids, who have been waiting patiently.
