Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; March 16, 2018)

While Aamir Khan’s last few releases have gone on to be money-spinners, one of his earliest films, Raakh (1989), remains among the most underrated gems of Bollywood. Instrumental in bringing smaller films to cinema enthusiasts, the on- demand screening service 1018mb is bringing the crime thriller back to silver screens, 29 years after its release. In a premiere of sorts, the film will be screened tomorrow at a suburban theatre.

Turns out, revisiting the Khan-starrer was filmmaker Bejoy Nambiar’s brainwave. “Raakh is actually one of the films that made me want to be a filmmaker. It is a movie which was way ahead of its time and had such a distinctive directorial voice. A film like this is of great interest to cinema enthusiasts,” says Nambiar.

He reveals that he will also be moderating a session with the film’s director, Aditya Bhattacharya (right), as part of the premiere. “The reason why I chose to be part of a question and answer session with Aditya is because I am such a fan and I have never had the opportunity of discussing it [the film] with him. I have so many questions on my mind.”

Depending on the response, screenings will be held in metropolitan cities like Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Bangalore and Chennai. Quiz him if they have reached out to Khan to be part of the premiere and he says, “We haven’t formally invited him yet. He is busy with a shoot in Rajasthan. But it will be great if he can make time for this.”

Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; November 3, 2015)

When Basu Bhattacharya confided in Sangeeth Sivan's father that his son, Aditya, wanted to direct a film, cinematographer-director Sivan immediately offered to loan him his equipment, which included lights and a Mitchell camera, and his sons, Santosh and Sangeeth. Sangeeth was a capable production guy with contacts at Prasad Lab in Chennai which got him rolls of high speed Agfa film for free which Santosh, a talented cinematographer, put to good use, reeling off one brilliant four-minutes, 400-feet shots after another. He even did the dissolves and superimpositions in camera, having experimented on this earlier with his brother on the documentaries they had worked on.

"Babla (Aditya) and Nusrat (Aamir Khan's sister) would write the script all day and we would shoot through the night. The last shot would be taken as day was breaking and the last Rs 200 would be spent on chai, samosas and jalebis," recalls Sangeeth, adding that one day, Pankaj Kapur wanted a packet of cigarettes. "The money was over so I scrounged around and managed to put together the Rs 80 needed. The next day, he returned the money to me, saying I could pay back what I owned to everyone in tens and twenties having watched me beg and borrow."

He recalls shooting at Bandra with Pankaj waiting on a bike under a lamp post. He had to strike a match which cast a glow on his face. "He gave us take after perfect take without the match blowing out despite a strong wind from the sea. It was only later that he revealed that he'd strike three-four matches together knowing he wouldn't be caught out in a long shot," says Sangeeth.

Aamir was shooting for Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak simultaneously and would turn up whenever he had an evening free and the rest of the team who had bunked out at Basu's bungalow for two months, would spring into action. Even though they could only shoot when co-producer Asif Noor who had a shop in Bandra sold a pant or a shirt, the shoot went off smoothly. None of the crew got paid and even Aamir used his remuneration for the promotions. Raakh was ready before QSQT but as they had promised, they waited for Aamir's uncle, Nasir Hussain's film to release first. It was a blockbuster and they were rewarded with a steady stream of distributors. But many of them got scared off when they discovered that it was a dark, three-hour plus film with no masala. The ones who stayed insisted on its length being trimmed down. "Babla who was out of the country, warned that not a single frame should be cut," reveals Sangeeth. "But Asif managed to convince him."

Then, Sangeeth and the film's editor, A Sreekar Prasad, sat down to re-edit the married print which had already been mixed, ensuring there was no sound jerks. Aamir, who knew the script well was consulted on the cuts. "On one occasion he told us to edit a scene that had him crying without glycerine. But on second thought, he felt the high-performance shot should be retained. So we had to put back what had been cut twice over," he laughs.

Sreekar won the National Award for editing, Pankaj for best supporting actor and Aamir got a special jury mention.

Roshmilla Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 15, 2014)

Irrfan Khan admits that Ashoke Ganguli was one of the most difficult characters he has played and while working on The Namesake, he was often groping in the dark wondering how to make this unobtrusive first-generation Indian immigrant settled in the US, memorable. He even got into an argument with director Mira Nair over the pronounced Bengali accent, reasoning that a professor, whose job was communicating with his students in English, would have got rid of the accent in three decades. And then he met novelist Jhumpa Lahiri’s father, Amar Lahiri, a librarian at the University of Rhode Island, who spoke exactly the way Mira wanted. “I taped him, without his permission, and listening to his voice, I slowly began to form a picture of Ashoke in my mind,” the actor reminisces.

Ashoke is a reticent character who didn’t express much and Irrfan admits he didn’t expect him to make much of an impression on the audience. He didn’t see the film in New York, Toronto or Venice. In fact he didn’t see it for a long time and was pleasantly surprised when Aditya Bhattacharya called him to say he had no words to describe the film. Curiously, Irrfan asked him about Ashoke and Aditya replied, “He’s the character you come out of the theatre remembering.” That struck him as odd since Ashoke dies early in the film. So, when in New York he saw the film for the first time and was overwhelmed by the response.

“One lady was crying in front of my photograph, another came up to thank me. Parents who saw it immediately called their children to recommend a watch and vice versa. After it came to India I got a lovely message from Sharmila Tagore who had taken my breath away in Apur Sansar saying, ‘Thank your parents for giving you birth.’ It was amazing that a film could strike a chord across generations and continents,” he muses.

For Irrfan, what makes the film memorable was the first day of shoot. They were shooting on the outskirts of New York by the sea. He was five minutes late and Mira was really angry because they had to wind up before 11 am and move on elsewhere. The scene in question required him to walk with his son to a place from where there is nowhere left to go. It’s a long walk with a limp and on reaching the end Ashoke realises that he’s left his camera in the car and tells Gogol, “Click a picture in your mind.” That line reminded him of the times when he’d gone into the jungles with his father and had to capture a moment in time in his mind’s eye. “And believe me, that image stays on your mind for years because you have clicked it with your eye and experienced it with your heart,” he asserts, adding, “Some moments, like some movies, are unforgettable.”