KOLKATA: Actor Priyanka Chopra’s production house has approached the Visva-Bharati to help them in the making of a Marathi-Bengali biopic on the platonic elationship between Rabindranath Tagore and Annapurna Turkhud.
Annapurna was the daughter of a family friend, based in Maharashtra, who had taught him Western manners before his UK trip. On Annapurna’s request he had given her the name ‘Nalini’ and immortalised her in a poem.
Vice Chancellor, Swapan Kumar Dutta, confirmed that he has received a letter from the production house.
“Whenever we receive such a proposal, a special committee examines it thoroughly. We have asked for the details of the story and the script of the proposed film, ‘Nalini’,” Dutta said.
“The committee will go through the script and we will have to see if it sticks to the facts,” Dutta said.
Asked how comfortable he was with the idea of a film on the subject, Dutta said, “Tagore can’t be called as someone’s property. But then, any work on him demands certain sensitivity on the part of the makers of the film,” he said.
“If someone works independently, it is his/her responsibility to ensure authenticity. However, if someone approaches us for help in writing, we need to be cautious,” he said.
The director of the proposed film, Ujjwal Chatterjee said his film is on the platonic relationship between Tagore and Annapurna.
“We will portray this relationship entirely based on historical facts and in the most sensitive manner. We hope Visva-Bharati will agree,” he said.
“We plan to shoot in several places – Santiniketan, Tagore’s ancestral home at Jorasanko in Kolkata and in some places of Sholapur and Kolapur in Maharahstra in order to recreate the effect of the places visited by young Tagore en-route to London,” he said.
The film will be narrated from the point of view of a young student, who visits Santiniketan in 2017 and sees a picture of Annapurna captioned ‘Nalini’, and from here the sequences unfold, Chatterjee said.
“Casting is in progress,” he added. (AGENCIES)
Follow our WhatsApp channel