For the whole nine minutes of Charulata, the viewers are in a trance. The video starts with a woman going through a diary of cartoons and photographs as a man works in the background. The story suddenly cuts to the past, to the woman in the photograph, her life and love story happening in the Kolkata of the 1970s — the Emergency period. The song Athirezha Mukile begins in Sudeep Palanad’s magical voice and you get transported to their world, experiencing their love, passion and longing, withering in the pain of loneliness. Shruthi Namboodiri’s musical Charulata, which the makers call ‘a humble attempt to reminisce Satyajit Ray and Rabindranath Tagore’, is nothing short of visual poetry.
“I am glad about all the responses,” says the director Shruthi, whose has come up with the concept and lyrics of Charulata, which hit YouTube on Sunday. What came as a surprise for the viewers is the cast. None of them were actors, but familiar faces — danseuse Parvathy Menon, lyricist Hari Narayanan and musician Bijibal who play Charu, Amal and Bhupati respectively. Ray’s 1964 eponymous film set in the era of Bengal Renaissance is an adaptation of Tagore’s novella Nastanirh (The Broken Nest) but Shruthi’s is set in the Emergency period. Ask if she intended it as a mix of Tagore and Ray, Shruthi would deny. She says, “Mine has only the three characters adapted from the original. The story is entirely different. This is our tribute to Satyajit Ray.” The original plan was to release the song in 2017, the 25th death anniversary of Ray, but the shooting got delayed.
Charulata, brought out under the label Bodhi Silent Scape, is Shruthi’s third musical collaboration with Sudeep, the first two being Baale and Manu Malayalam, for which he composed music. “We are both at ease, working together. We share those special creative vibes where we complement each other very well. We have a great team — cinematographer Manesh Madhavan, editor Praveen Mangalath and a wonderful cast,” she says.
How did she decide on casting non-actors? “Because these three are the exact faces I was looking for,” says Shruthi, who approached the three, all of them her friends, with the idea. Parvathy was quick to accept, because she was impressed by Baale. Hari and Bijibal needed a little coaxing, but finally, they too agreed. And now, Shruthi knows she couldn’t have found better actors. “They were the perfect choice,” she adds.
The song was originally made for a film when the makers said they wanted a poetic song like Baale, but under the theme of love and longing. The film failed to take off but Shruthi and Sudeep couldn’t let go of the song and after a lot of brainstorming, they zeroed in on Ray’s Charulata. As always with Shruthi’s musical, feminineness brimmed in the visuals. She calls her works a ‘silent revolution’. “What I intend to say is said through my works with subtlety. Read it the way you like; the interpretation is left to the audience,” she says. She has already started her next — a docufiction for Bharat Bala Productions. After that, it will be another of her productions, but something different. “May be a documentary or a non-fiction work,” she concludes.
