Tanushree, what was the genesis of the idea of the film?
Tanushree: At first, Baksho Bondi wasn바카라™t a film at all. It was a dream I바카라™d had바카라”about my Maa at our old house바카라”the ones which had a roof without a parapet. It was around Kalboishakhi바카라”when it usually rains in Kolkata. It바카라™s about to start raining, and Maa is running to gather all the clothes as fast as she can. She was afraid I바카라™ll fall, so she바카라™s also holding me. Meanwhile, we바카라™re also getting trapped among the flying clothes. From this hectic moment, it suddenly becomes a beautiful one when it rains and we all embrace.
When I met Somo (Saumyananda Sahi) at the Film & Television of Institute of India, we connected over the films we loved. I told him about this dream, which I바카라™d written down. That was the beginning. We started off with the intent to explore how my Maa managed to do everything that she did and, as a result, explore how mothers in general are able to do so much.
Somo: The script went through many iterations바카라”there were many dreams that eventually didn바카라™t make it to the final film. But as the lead actress Tillotama (Shome) likes to say, the ghosts of the many dreams, drafts stayed on. The residue of these dreams and drafts have somewhat made it to her final performance in the film. There바카라™s a wealth of experiences and observations that Tanushree brought to the film. It바카라™s shot where she grew up (in Barrackpore, West Bengal); it바카라™s in her locality. The film also had some of my experiences while growing up바카라”I had a friend, whose father thought he was God. He would disrupt classes sometimes, but the son바카라”who was about eight to nine at the time바카라”was very protective if someone laughed at his father. Often, he played the role of a parent to his own father. At some point, the father got run over by a train after he tried to stop it. It was a strong memory I had about the family, and I tried to explore the pride my friend had in his father, the marriage, and to imagine this family unit seen from inside, with love.
When did you know that the idea was a feature film?
Tanushree: After we became parents ourselves. Somo and I started writing the film around then. There were a bunch of things we wanted to explore바카라”the residue of violence; mental health, not from a clinical angle, but as something more personal and emotional. We were trying to understand as we wrote the film, and the short film format felt too little in terms of time to explore these complicated ideas. We might have written thousands of drafts of the film. We were talking about how it feels to be parents and how it can only be understood by actually becoming parents. Our child was born in 2016, and it transformed us as people. Suddenly, questions which were huge began to make sense from an emotional point-of-view. That gave us much more assurance about what we wanted to explore in terms of themes and subjects within the film.
Somo: We didn바카라™t have a story idea when we began. We had images, dreams as our inspiration바카라”that image of a woman on a bicycle, which is a very common image if you go to Barrackpore. Most women who go to work use a bicycle. There바카라™s no parking lot near the railway station바카라”it바카라™s a bicycle stand. When we were writing, we didn바카라™t write dialogue, we didn바카라™t write a story arc. Instead, we focused on scenes. We knew the plot points that would be the fulcrum of the film, but we were more interested in the moments in between the two plot points.
In the mainstream market, where everything is apparently blown to smithereens, there are no 바카라˜safe바카라™ bets anymore. So, as a producer, you may as well place your bets on a film that you like.
Naren & Shaunak, when you바카라™re pouring money into an independent film in India, do you consider it a for-profit undertaking?
Naren: It always starts with a certain degree of faith. There바카라™s optimism, and a pragmatic way of looking at the system where such a film can be a profitable enterprise. That바카라™s why we tried to find a newer model of production, where people바카라”based on the script, and the body of work that both Tansushree and Somo represent바카라”were eager to come on board. I think all of us were optimistic that this film had something at its core that was extremely strong.
We have 15 producers on board for this film, which speaks to the difficulty of mounting an independent project. Having all these people allowed us to spread the risk because filmmaking is an expensive undertaking. Distributing the risk makes it that much more feasible, but also having these many producers on board also allows the film to draw that much more from the varied expertise of individuals바카라”whether actors, directors, colourists바카라”they all bring their wealth of experience. It helps in taking a finished film and finding the best way to distribute it and finding its audience. One does see value in it and the people you바카라™re collaborating with.
Shaunak: What some of us are finding is that if you바카라™re able to mount a 바카라˜good바카라™ film, it바카라™s also strangely pragmatic. In the mainstream market, where everything is apparently blown to smithereens, I don바카라™t think there are 바카라˜safe바카라™ bets anymore. So, one might as well place one바카라™s bets on a film that one likes.
As happened with my last film, the festival route is the fastest way to find global distribution. At a time when most of our mainstream friends are bemoaning the lack of certitude about what works and what doesn바카라™t, so even if one didn바카라™t have a Berlinale in one바카라™s kitty, the horizon of the market feels stable enough if the film itself is good. And like in this case, since the molten core of the film was the script and the directors, we had faith in them as consummate professionals. So, there were none of the doubts that one has when it comes to first timers (usually craft-based), given their immense craft muscle. Also, Naren바카라™s tremendous acumen as a producer allowed us to reach this point with 15 producers. Having a legion of producers for this film means that our risk exposure was mitigated. And now, contributions have been expanded in not just monetary form. Therefore, it was never quite as scary as one would imagine because we had skin in the game바카라”spiritually and creatively.
Naren: If you look at the last couple of years, films like Girls Will Be Girls (2024), All We Imagine As Light (2024), these are good films. They바카라™ve found distribution at a global level and also back home. They바카라™re profitable films. If you have faith, you can make a good film and it will find an audience and make money.
Was Baksho Bondi always in Bengali? Did you consider making it in Hindi to make it accessible to a larger audience?
Tanushree: No. It was always in Bengali. A lot of the exploration in the film is very personal. I바카라™m the proud daughter of a father who we lost early. It was very late that we understood he had been battling depression all his life. We always wondered why life was so hard, even though my parents had had a love marriage. And it was only towards the end that we realised why things had been so hard for my mother, and what my father must have gone through. I regret not realising it earlier, but I바카라™ll always be proud of all he could바카라™ve become if we바카라™d understood him sooner. I wanted to give something back to my parents; Somo was my ally...Naren never asked us to make the film accessible, he truly gave us all the freedom we could바카라™ve wanted.
Tatsam Mukherjee is a film critic and culture reporter. He is currently based in Bangalore
(This article is a part of Outlook's March 11, 2025 Women's Day special issue 'Women at Work', which explores the experiences of women in roles traditionally occupied by men. It appeared in print as 'Labour of Love바카라™)
