“With time, I find myself getting increasingly involved in new kinds of roles, an interesting script or an interesting character. The director’s experience does not really matter. When Subhadro narrated the story of his film to me, I found it extremely challenging. The film is tentatively titled Dunia which is likely to change. The film is more like a one-act play, where the other characters revolve totally around the central character called Biplab, who is a very ordinary man, a clerk in a government office, slightly timid and totally without ambition or aspirations. But all this is when he is outside and working in the office, typing letters, attending to telephone calls and remaining basically alone and isolated. He leads a double life because once he is at home, he transports himself to a world of total fantasy, a completely different world in which he constantly interacts with famous actresses of Bollywood,” elaborates the actor.
We were talking in a chamber of some top officer in a government office in Kolkata. Prosenjit was sans make-up, wearing black-framed glasses and an ordinary beige bush-shirt. Subhadro, the director, was preparing for the next shot. He is a new director who won the National Award for his maiden film Prohor. The young man is quite organised and confident even while working with the top star in his second film. “Nitesh Sharma, who is producing Dunia, told me that he would not produce the film unless I agreed to act in it. He said that he felt I was the only actor who would be able to do this role. I agreed as soon as I heard the story,” adds Prosenjit. It is a niche film targeted at the international market and Prosenjit is confident that this is one subject that will remain archived in his portfolio of films 50 years from now.
The next film that he is enthused about is Bappaditya Bandopadhyay’s Housefull, in which he plays a film director who is a failure in both films and his personal life. “The story runs along two parallel plots. One focusses on filmmaking and the other has terrorist overtones. At one point along the way, these two strands merge and then the drama takes an interesting turn. Bappaditya has written the story himself. It deals both with filmmaking and terrorism and I am at the centre of both the narrative strands,” explains Prosenjit.
Then there is the now-prolific late bloomer Anjan Dutt whose film is inspired by Tarun Majumdar’s old hit Palatak. “I play a character that is not a character in the given sense but is a symbol of conscience. This is what pulled me towards the film though, I have yet to finalise the shooting dates with Anjan,” he adds. Last but never the least, is the character of Byomkesh Bokshi, the interesting detective of Saradindu Bandopadhyay’s murder mystery series that never loses its film appeal. Basu Chatterjee brought national attention to Byomkesh Bokshi through his television series where Rajit Kapoor played Byomkesh. “In this film, Byomkesh is not only a detective but is also a normal human being who falls in love with Satyavati, a pretty young girl he meets during one of his mystery adventures and finally marries. Rituparno Ghosh is directing the film and I am thrilled to be playing Byomkesh with Tapas Pal cast in the role of Ajit, who is also the narrator of the story,” says Prosenjit.
His bag is spilling over with mainstream films too. To name a few, there are Subhash Sen’s Aparadhi, Anup Sengupta’s Ladai and Mama-Bhagne and Swapan Saha’s Jamai. “There is a film to be directed by Haranath with a very interesting subject in which I play the father of a small kid. It explores the father-son relationship against the backdrop of a system that is in a constant state of flux,” he informs.
Prabhat Roy’s Hangover is a comedy. “I play the head honcho of a news channel who goes weak in the knees every time he sees a pretty dame, a middle-aged man who goes soft when he sees young girls. It is about the mid-life crisis that a middle-aged man goes through. This is a new turning-point in my career. I would like to work with young and new directors coming up with new subjects and challenging characters for me. It is a time of reckoning but also a time to look forward to, not look back,” sums up Prosenjit. He is working under Prabhat Roy after a ten-year gap. The last time they did a film together was Sudhu Ekbaar Bolo.
