And now on Rituparno’s death the grief-stricken Prosenjit plans a
film on Ritu. “I should write a book on him. But that is not my domain.
So I will do something on screen. Yes, I am planning a film on Ritu now.
Of course I’ll preserve and restore his 19 films. But I’ll also make a
film on him.”
Lately Prosenjit and Ritu had grown distant because of the latter’s
insistence on undergoing potentially life-threatening hormonal
operations. Prosenjit warned Ritu not to mess around with his body. But
the director adamant on changing his gender wouldn’t listen. This issue
created a rift between the two life-long friends. Rituparno also
insisted on making gay-centric films which further distanced Prosenjit
professionally and personally from the filmmaker who changed the career
and life-course of Bangla cinema’s biggest superstar since Uttam Kumar.
Exclaims Prosenjit, “But look at the irony, Ritu finally did a
non-gay film ‘Satyanweshi’ after three years, where my wife Arpita plays
the main female lead. So I was connected to Ritu in what we didn’t know
would be his final work. Arpita and Raima Sen were like daughter to
Ritu. My wife is not just an actress but also a wonderful singer. Ritu
smsed me when I was in Cairo saying, ‘After a long time I got to work
with a singing actress.’ For Arpita Rituda was a teacher. She’s lucky to
have worked in his last film. Regrettably I didn’t get time to visit
the sets if ‘Satyanveshi’. But my wife would constantly BBM pictures
from the locations.”
Sighs Prosenjeet, “I am sure my wife would look lovely in ‘Satyanveshi’. He could make any actress look beautiful.”
Prosenjeet was unable to work in any of Rituparno’s films since
2009 because the director’s work gravitated towards an expression of his
homosexuality.
“Not that I minded playing a character,” clarifies Prosenjit. “But
those films were about Ritu’s character. They were made to express his
viewpoint and anguish. I felt I had no place in them, although he and
the director Kabeer Kaushik offered me his lover’s role in ‘Arektir
Premer Golpo’. But that was a film about his character. I had nothing to
gain as an actor. People started gossiping about my refusal to play a
homosexual character. But if I get to do a film like ‘Tootsie’ or
‘Brokeback Mountain’ I’d happily play gay. I’ve taken risks during my
career.”
Recalling their long association fondly Prosenjit said, “So many
memories flood me. We fought like any two very old friends over childish
issues. When Ritu decided to take on the editorship of a Bangla
magazine I fought with him because I thought he was unnecessarily
deflecting attention from his true vocation. We also fought over a
television serial that I produced and he acted in. But today I know we
made something that would be remembered 20 years ago. Even Mamta
Bannerjee liked our serial.”
Prosenjeet warned Ritu
against undergoing gender-transformation surgeries. “I told him not to
do anything that would jeopardize his health. We all needed him. But he
didn’t listen. My fights with him were on this issue. He was taking
health risks that would suit a 20-year old. He went through operations
that affected his health. I tried my best to dissuade him. But he didn’t
listen. Now I regret it. All of us his friends should have tied him up
bodily and prevented him from doing this to himself. He would’ve been
making path-breaking films for the next 25 years. The good thing was,
during recent months he had snapped out of the homo-centric cinema and
was making a film that had nothing to do with sexuality.”
Recalling his abiding association with Rituprano, Prosenjit says, “I
feel sorry for today’s young actors in Bengal who would now have no
opportunity to work with Ritu. They’ll never know what they’ve missed.
Ritu tapped the other more serious actor within me. He put me in touch
with emotions that I didn’t know existed within me. Do you know, he even
wanted to cast me in the very first film that he made, the children’s
film Hirer Angti? Ritu regretted not casting me in that film as well. He
was new and at that time everyone scoffed at his ambitions. ‘Are you
mad? How can you cast Prosenjit in a children’s film? He’s a big
commercial star. He wouldn’t even meet you.’ That’s what Ritu did to me
and many other mainstream actors. He took us out of the commercial zone
and placed us in this other world altogether. You see, Ritu used a
refined aesthetic language. But he had the mainstream audience
interested in that cinema. He got big stars from Mumbai and Kolkata into
his cinema. He made actor reinvent themselves. Look at what he did to
Raima Sen. Today’s she is accepted as a sensible actress in Kolkata.
Ritu’s contribution to cinema is tremendous. Everyone who saw me in
Ritu’s ‘Doshor’ and ‘Sob Charitra Kalpunik’ wondered what I had done in
these films. But it was a magic created by Ritu. When I did my first
film ‘Unneshi April’ with him I had just two scenes. I had a very
difficult love-making scene with Debashree Roy where I had to be with
her but my mind was somewhere else. Ritu left it to me to convey this.
When I did the scene he was very pleased. In ‘Sab Charitra Kalpunik’
where my character dies, I had to be decorated with chandan etc. Ritu
was very disturbed doing this. He didn’t like decorating me as I played
dead. Then Bipasha Basu also intervened. We forced him to do it. Ritu
was very emotional on and off screen. When he was shooting ‘Khela’ he
wanted me to use my own clothes to play a film star because we didn’t
have budget. He dug into impossible resources to make his cinema happen.
He’d go to any lengths to get that perfect shot. I enjoyed every moment
of my screen work with Ritu. He was my mentor.”
Pondering over the loss Prosenjit says, “I used to tell my wife if
something happens to me she should immediately go to Rituda to guide
her. Now he’s gone. We had our share of fights. But we were always there
for one another. Our friendship went far beyond work. I will be
grateful to him all my life. It will take me a long time to get over the
loss.”
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