Pulakesh Bhowmick

A dream debute
How does it feel when the first work you do on television fetches you an award? Ask Pulakesh Bhowmick who made one episode for STAR Bestseller and Govind and Ganesh won him the Screen Videocon Award for the Best Thriller on Television. "It funny. I was barely five feet tall when I won my first trophy. A cup for a football game we won. And the way I felt then was exactly the way I felt when I walked up to collect the Screen Award. I was completely overwhelmed. I held the trophy up the way I had all those years ago and my family and friends laughed at me," the producer confesses recalling his BIG moment in the spotlight.

Pulakesh started out as an actor in an off-beat film Ek Thi Gunja. It didn’t bring him a flood of offers and he was jobless for a long time after his first release. Then when he was almost ready to pack his bags he was spotted by Dinesh Bansal and cast in Kurukshetra. This was a new beginning for the struggler who decided to make a career in television. It was his mentor Bansal who suggested that he should get into television production and Pulakesh started freelancing for a couple of production houses.

While in Mumbai, he stayed with his sister and her husband, Sujit Sen, who is a well known writer. "They guided me, brought me up like their own son," he says gratefully. "My brother-in-law is a source of great inspiration and a big help in getting me this serial." It was Sujit who took him to the STAR TV office and introduced him to Sheilaja Kejriwal. Pulakesh outlined the story written by Sujit, and was given the go-ahead to shoot this one episode in Calcutta.

"Calcutta is a city of extreme emotions. Communism, marxism and fanaticism are all a part of everday life and the backdrop for our story. Vrajesh Hirjee came up with a brilliant performance. And my entire crew comprising of Amlan, my cameraman, Pravin Prabhakaran, the editor, Sudipto Chatterjee, a creative genius from Calcutta, Meera Goswami the production designer and of course, Indranil Goswami, the director, helped give expression to what I had in mind," he explains.

This once avid footballer has a classical singer for a mother and a father who was a police inspector who enjoyed poetry. His brother Palash Ranjan Bhowmick was a well-known theatre personality in Calcutta and is now an ace photographer. So its not surprising that Pulakesh was drawn to Mumbai’s wonder world.

Encouraged by his first success, Pulakesh is now all set to get into big time production. He’s planning an interesting drama for television. A thriller is also on the cards. And may be a film too at the end of the year. And with lots of support from his family and director friend Indranil Goswami, Pulakesh is confident of making his mark."I have an opportunity to prove myself and I’m going to make sure I make the best possible use of it," he says with supreme confidence.

Lopamudra Bhattacharya