Actor Sushant Singh Rajput and filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee enjoy a tram ride in Kolkata—ASIAN AGE

The best way to learn to know a city is to check out its landmark historic icons. So this satyanweshi, with a wanderlust, first took a tram-ride from Kolkata’s Esplanade or more precisely the Dharmatala Tram Depot on a muggy afternoon and then reached the palatial Burdwan Raj Estate at Bijay Manzil on Diamond Harbour Road in the southern end of the metropolis.

Clad in a crispy cream kurta with green stripes and a pair of tight white pyjamas, closely fitting his long slender legs, the sought-after Bollywood Turk Sushant Singh Rajput walks in at the press-conference hall with much poise and a dignified silence. Touted as the next big thing on planet B, especially after delivering a critically-appraised performance in a stellar role from Abhishek Kapoor’s Kai Po Che, this talented dancer-actor already boasts of a couple of plum projects comfortably tucked under his belt. Well, bagging the realistic filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee’s much talked-about ambitious project Byomkesh Bakshi is only an icing on the cake. Not to mention that such authorbacked kirdaars certainly augur well for a newcomer’s CV.
Soaking in the city’s old world charm for the past 5-6 days, Sushant has been exploring Bengali culture and traditions like an observant detective. Seemingly quite subdued and introspective, the actor warms up to the “taur tarike (ways) and tehzeeb (etiquette)” of this part of the world. Intelligently talking less and watching more, the young performer looks all set to traipse into the hearts of all die-hard Byomkesh Bakshi adherents.
While come September, the Yashraj Production release Shuddh Desi Romance (cast opposite Parineeti Chopra) will see Sushant cavorting in a small-town rom-com with a whiff of desi perfume sprayed in it, this year-end, the quintessential Bengali private-eye avatar from yet another pet-project of the YRF stable will get to roll on the shoot-floor.
Ask the Shanghai director to opt for the erstwhile TV hero (read superhit daily soap Pavitra Rishta’s Manav) as the protagonist of his forthcoming ambitious venture, and he instantly rattles of: “Aur koi mila nahin. (Because, I got nobody else for the casting)”, only to jest in the next moment: “No am just kidding (smiles)!”
“See, I wanted a fresh young detective of barely 22-23 years of age who is straight out of college and has just started consolidating his foothold as a satyanweshi (truth-seeker). Sushant I know as an actor, he doesn’t show off his histrionic efforts, which is a great admirable quality in him. He is subtle in his ways and internalises the character he is given to portray on screen. He is a natural performer. To transform a 21st century heartthrob into a man belonging to period of 1942 is indeed a creative challenge,” elaborates Dibakar.
Aiming to hold up the canvas of a romantic Calcutta (now Kolkata) of early 1940s, the director intends to take his audience on a time-travel and reflect the bygone age post Second World War, when the city was in the throes of a political turmoil. “That Calcutta was much more innocent than today’s Kolkata. Given that romantic premise, the film will follow a noir genre,” suggests Dibakar. It is interesting to note that other best-selling whodunits have conspicuously cut down on the female sex. From Holmes to Poirot to even the home-grown Feluda by Ray have been severed off from any ties with the fairer sex. But eminent Bengali litterateur Saradindu Bandyopadhyay, the creator of Byomkesh, had enough guts to incorporate a love interest by introducing a continuous woman character in his suspense stories.