'Pink' is touching the lives of not only women but also men: Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury

Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury is well known in the Kolkata circuit as a cerebral director who has delivered award-winning Bengali films such as Anuranan and Antaheen, which explore complex relationships in a sensitive way and appeal to an urban audience. But the transition to Bollywood with his first Hindi film, Pink, has been an eventful one. Not only does the taut courtroom thriller, which raises tough questions about gender issues in Indian metros, have everyone talking about it, but it is also proving to be successful commercially, with worldwide boxoffice collections touching Rs 50 crore in just a week. Roy Chowdhury — Tony to his friends and colleagues — remains composed and unfazed. In an interview with Ishani Duttagupta over the phone, he attributes the success of Pink in a big way to Amitabh Bachchan and the ensemble cast of young and experienced actors who carried the film on their shoulders because they strongly believed in it. Edited excerpts:

You made your debut in Bollywood with Amitabh Bachchan. Was that a bit overwhelming?
Sir [Bachchan] came on board after Shoojit Sircar, the creative producer of Pink, narrated the theme to him. Since he was firmly convinced about the important social issues that the film deals with, he put his weight behind it.

Along with him, the rest of the actors did a wonderful job because they all believed in the theme. There was no time to feel overawed working with Bachchan — we shot it very fast in around 35 days and were like a close-knit family when we were shooting. It was, in fact, an intense and emotionally draining experience, with everyone giving creative inputs.

After a small hiccup on opening day, Pink has been doing well at the box office. Did you expect it to do so well commercially?
The commercial success is well beyond my expectations. But it proves that people are loving it and getting energised by the message that the film conveys. Personally, I have benefited in a big way from the hand-holding by Sircar. I had planned to make the film in Bengali, but Sircar convinced me to do it in Hindi to reach out to a larger, mainstream audience, despite the challenge of making my first film in Hindi.

Your creative producer Sircar is a well-known Bollywood director himself. What kind of a relationship did the two of you have? Did he steal your thunder in some way?
Pink is a collaborative venture created within a strong support system. I benefited a lot not just from Sircar but also because I was working with friends such as writer Ritesh Shah and cinematographer Abhik Mukhopadhyay, with whom I have worked for my earlier films in Kolkata.

The comfort zone was also created because all of us had a strong conviction in the film and we were telling a powerful story in a collaborative way. None of us alone owns Pink. For the whole team the film came first. While Sircar is a well known name in Bollywood, people in Bengal know me for my earlier work.

What are your future plans, after the success of Pink?
For me a film is a film whether Bengali or Bollywood. I have a Bengali script ready that I will work with after I take a month off. But I’d love to do another film in Hindi too, soon.

What ails the Bengali film industry?
Bengal has a lot of talent — not just actors, but also technicians. We need more distribution muscle. For producers to put in more money into Bengali films, we have to reach out to bigger audiences in India and the Bengali diaspora. It is a numbers game. Tamil or, for that matter, even Bhojpuri films are doing better than Bengali movies in terms of distribution networks.

You have been an ad industry professional. Does that act as a source of inspiration for your films?
I make advertisements for a living. For my films, I draw heavily from the people around me. Through my films, I explore relationships and look into my huge social network for inspiration. I travel a lot and keep my eyes and ears open.

With Pink, are you addressing a young urban audience?
I think the film is reaching out to a large number of people, and not just in big cities across India. Through its social message, it is touching the lives not only of women but also of men. I have received a lot of feedback from different people in India and overseas. The brief that I was given by my producers was: make a power-packed film and don’t be concerned about making money. That seems to have worked.

Did you face a dilemma in blending an aesthetically rich film with a strong social message?
The basic story was organically blended with the plot of a small incident suddenly blowing up into something big. Such things happen in people’s lives as well and it is embedded firmly in social realities such as moral policing that women face all the time in India.

From the genteel neighbourhoods of Kolkata to the dark underbelly of Delhi, was that a tough transition?
Though the story of 'Pink' unfolds in Delhi, it could have happened anywhere in India. Recently my daughter was refused a rented apartment in Mumbai because she is a single woman — the mindset is the same across the country. Of course, we did a lot of research for Pink across the country — not just Delhi, but also Kolkata, the Northeast and other places.