Avijit Ghosh (THE TIMES OF INDIA; June 15, 2020)

Actor Sushant Singh Rajput, who brought a riveting vitality to his performances in films like ‘Kai Po Che’, ‘M S Dhoni - The Untold Story’ and ‘Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!’, was found dead at his Bandra residence on Sunday. The 34-year-old actor’s Bollywood career barely stretched to seven years. But his impact and imprint were distinct, even as a person. In a tweet, Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan recalled his support during Kerala floods.

A highlight of Sushant’s acting career was the way he recreated the MS Dhoni persona for the 2016 biopic. The former cricket captain is one of the most ‘watched’ Indians in the country. Unable to reproduce the same gait or style of play would have made the performance feel hollow. But Sushant rose to the challenge.

Dhoni’s railway colleague Deepak Singh, who spent several days with Sushant during the film’s shooting at Kharagpur, was gobsmacked by what he saw. “The way he was emulating every mannerism of Dhoni, right from his batting stance, the helicopter shot and running between the wickets…he was a perfectionist,” he recalled.

Sushant also impressed with his interpretation of Bengali writer Saradindu Bandopadhyay’s detective protagonist, Byomkesh Bakshy. To prepare for the part, he would move incognito from Lalbazar to China Town to Bosepukur in Kolkata. Those involved with the project remember how he would drop at a roadside tea stall and observe how “Bengalis loved to sit cross-legged with the right leg perched atop the left one”.

Director Arindam Sil, who was the film’s line producer, said, “Initially, I wasn’t too convinced because of his height and smallish face. But (director) Dibakar (Banerjee) asked me to wait and see how he looks like the character…He fit into the character so well.”

Three more roles stand out in his short career: Sarfaraz, the intense Pakistani lover of an Indian girl, in the Aamir Khan blockbuster ‘PK’; the sacrificing Muslim porter of ‘Kedarnath’, and the father in ‘Chhichhore’ (2019), who redefines the idea of a winner to his son and brings him back from the brink.

Yet a career in cinema wasn’t his first choice. A bright student from Patna’s St Karen’s High School — he won a national physics Olympiad contest — he was ranked 7th in AIEEE. An astronomy enthusiast, he took admission in Delhi College of Engineering in 2003.

Chunnu Singh, a cousin, said the family settled in Delhi after the death of his mother in Patna in 2002. “His father Kamal Kishore Singh, a retired government employee, stayed with Sushant in Delhi when he went there for higher studies,” he said. But Sushant never finished the course. He first joined Shiamak Davar’s dance troupe and later Barry John’s drama classes. Success in television came in the role of a mechanic in ‘Pavitra Rishta’. His energy was more noticeable in dance shows like ‘Jhalak Dikhla Jaa’, which paved the path for Bollywood.

On the Bollywood firmament, Sushant flashed like a meteor. He had so much more to offer.

(Inputs from Mohua Das in Mumbai, Ramashankar & Faryal Rumi in Patna, Amaghna Banerjee & Sujay Khanra in Kolkata & Kharagpur, Priyanka Dasgupta)

Asira Tarannum (MID-DAY; November 4, 2014)

Bengali actress Swastika Mukherjee, who allegedly attempted suicide in May this year following a fight with her beau, finds herself in the midst of a controversy. She is accused of shoplifting at a boutique in Singapore where she was attending a film festival along with her filmmaker-boyfriend, Suman Mukherjee.

If sources are to be believed, she lifted earrings worth US$ 225 and the boutique owner, Apsara Oswal wrote to the Darpan Film Festival authorities suggesting CCTV footage in her shop had captured the theft. A single mother, Swastika is all set to make her Bollywood debut opposite Sushant Singh Rajput in Detective Byomkesh Bakshy.

Arindam Sil, executive producer of Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani who was also part of the film festival, said he has seen the footage. “The boutique owner is my friend. She informed the festival organisers about the incident and sent us the evidence. The CCTV footage shows her purchasing an expensive neckpiece and then going back to the display shelves. She tried the earrings, took the pair in her left hand and shoved the empty box behind another box. No police complaint has been lodged against Swastika. She fled from her hotel on Monday morning along with her boyfriend,” said Arindam.

Swastika is believed to have told Sreyashi Sen, the founder and chairperson of Darpan Film Festival, that she is innocent but would pay for the ‘missing’ earrings as she doesn’t want to be embroiled in any controversy.

When we contacted Sen, she feigned ignorance about the matter. “I have no comments on this and I request the media not to contact me for this,” she said.

While Apsara could not be reached, an employee at her boutique said, “I was not at work on the day of the incident but I know about it. We didn’t know she was an actress.” Despite repeated attempts, Swastika did not respond to our calls or text messages.

Roshmilla Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 15, 2014)

There are many rumours buzzing around Sujoy Ghosh these days, one of them being that he is reworking Satyajit Ray’s cinematic adaptation of the Sunil Gangopadhyay novel, Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest). The filmmaker admits that he toyed with the idea till he realised that it would not be possible to contemporarise the film since the social setting, the characters’ angst and their thoughts, were typical to the 70s and would not strike a chord with today’s audience. “And it wouldn’t make sense to make a period drama since we already have Ray’s classic,” he points out.

So, instead of attempting to remake Days and Nights in the Forest, Sujoy went ahead and wrote a story about friendship for director Arindam Sil. “It is an interesting screenplay which took my co-writer Partho Dasgupta and me a year to write and revolves around a group of friends discussing contemporary issues. It’ll be a Bengali film but has nothing to do with Aranyer Din Ratri,” Sujoy asserts.

Meanwhile, he is locking the locations—one of which will be Kolkata--for his next film as a director which he hopes to flag off soon.

It’s a thriller starring Vidya Balan and Irrfan Khan. Speculations are rife that Vidya’s character is modeled on Durga Shakti Nagpal, the civil servant whose drive against corruption led to her suspension and later reinstatement by the UP government and sparked headlines. “Utterly, absolutely rubbish, it’s a brand new script,” insists Sujoy. He’s equally quick to squash rumours that it’s not Kahaani 2 under a new name. “A sequel to Kahaani would be an exciting proposition but Kahaani 2, Kahaani 3, Kahaani 4, how long can I go on without getting bored out of my head?” he argues. “I owe it to myself, to my actors and to the audience to try and make a new and better film. I’ve been working on this script for four years,” he adds.