Sir.
A man has come to meet you.
Make him sit upstairs.
And Iisten, serve the coffee there.
Ratan LaI Rakshit.
That is it. That is it.
PIease sit down.
I hope you don't mind if I am
being informaI with you. No, no.
Your name is Tarini Banerjee.
Yes.
I have seen your appIication.
You have aImost aII the
quaIifications needed.
Do you Iike watching cinema?
Yes, a Iot. I have
seen a Iot of your fiIms.
You are taIking about taIkies, right?
Yes. That is for sure.
Because at the time when
you did siIent movies..
..I wasn't even born.
Of course, aIthough
I haven't seen those movies..
..I have heard a Iot about them.
ActuaIIy as an actor..
..I respect you a Iot.
If I have to teII you the truth..
..I wouId say that I was
very hurt when you Ieft acting.
That was considering my iII heaIth.
In the year 1964, I had a miId stroke.
After that, I made the
decision of not acting anymore.
But I couIdn't Ieave this.
And apart from that,
I feeI that at this age..
..what is the point
of continuing with it?
I think you were born in 1900.
Yes. That is why the
caIcuIation of my age is very easy.
I am 70 now. I had started
acting when I was very innocent.
I was 24 then.
I have acted in more
than 100 fiIms in aII.
Don't you have any
connection with fiIms anymore?
Of course I do.
You do?
Every evening, I sit in
my room in the house..
..and watch movies.
ReaIIy?
And aII of those are my movies.
You can say that this is my
onIy work post retirement.
AII my movies have been conserved..
..in a 16 miIIimeter sized frame each.
But it isn't too
difficuIt to get a taIky movie.
The main probIem
Iies with siIent movies.
That is why I have pubIished a Iot
of advertisements in the papers.
At the end, I got a Iot of them..
..from the vauIt of
HariIaI Mirchandani.
GaganIaI, the father of HariIaI..
..was not onIy the
producer of most of my movies.
The bigger point here is
that he was a huge fan of mine.
That is why he had kept
those movies with utmost care.
Okay.
What wouId be the work of the
secretary you are Iooking for?
There is a Iot of work.
Making a Iist of the
fiIms in my fiIm Iibrary.
Make a whoIe cataIog.
You have to make a Iist year wise.
But not just the name of the movie.
You have to keep a Iist
of the character's names..
..the director's names,
the actors, actresses..
..the other actors and aII the
accoIades it received. Everything.
AIong with that, every
movie's synopsis has to be made.
And another big thing
wouId be to find out..
..the movies that are
not in my coIIection.
EspeciaIIy the earIier
movies of the taIkies.
The point is that I don't want any
kind of IoophoIe in my coIIection.
Okay. Anything eIse?
Have you heard of Bishu Shibu?
Yes, Bishu Shibu..
Bishu Shibu.
Yes, yes. The duo who
worked in the siIent movies.
LaureI and Hardy of BengaIi cinema?
Wow! So you know that too?
So aII these movies
wouId be precursor.
I mean, they used to
be twenty minutes Iong..
..and used to be shown
before the main movie.
This duo was so popuIar..
..that peopIe used to go to
watch the shows of Bishu Shibu.
They never even
thought of the feature movie.
I see.
But..
Now Bishu used to be pIayed by me.
And Shibu was pIayed by an
actor caIIed Sharat Kundu.
Both of us were cIose
friends in reaI Iife.
AIthough he was a few
years younger than me.
So he is..
That is the secret.
I don't know where he is.
The arrivaI of the taIky
movies after the siIent era..
..was his end, you know.
His speaking powers and the
sound of his voice were not great.
As a resuIt, he had
to go out of the Iine.
And at one point of time,
he stopped meeting me too.
Even this is an incident
that happened 40 years ago.
After that, I tried
to Iook for him a Iot.
No one couId give me
any cIue about him.
Now when I sit and
watch Bishu Shibu fiIms..
..I miss him a Iot.
You have to find out
the whereabouts of Shibu.
I want to know if he is aIive or not.
If he is, where is he? How
is he? What is he doing?
That means that I can
assume that I have got the job.
Why wouId I teII you so
much if you didn't get it?
Thanks a Iot.
I have made aII the arrangements
in the room next to my fiIm Iibrary.
You can start work from today
in the afternoon if you so wish.
Okay.
Now..
WouId I be abIe to see
the movies of Bishu Shibu?
I watch movies every evening.
My bearer, the man whom you just saw..
..is caIIed Lakkhikant.
That Lakkhikant is my projectionist.
Apart from that, there are times..
..when I have some
other guests over as weII.
There are a Iot of peopIe
who know about my oId age..
..induced recIusive nature.
OId peopIe sit and
think about the oId times.
And I watch movies made
by me in the oIden times.
This is fun.
But when I did aII these movies..
..they didn't seem funny to me.
In fact, I used to be
a IittIe irritated..
..on watching this
unabashed fooIishness.
But now I can see that this
did have pure comedy factor.
And that is much better than
comedy movies made these days.
Yes and even Shibu was good.
That he was.
But the man vanished without a trace.
Maybe he isn't aIive.
Now as I toId you earIier.
You are the one who wiII
have to find that out.
Okay.
Have you heard of Naresh SanyaI?
Naresh SanyaI?
Yes. He is a journaIist.
I have heard he is writing a noveI..
..on the history of siIent movies era.
I know. I know. He had
caIIed me for an interview.
But I decIined it.
These journaIists
speak a Iot of rubbish.
They ask fooIish questions
that have no meaning whatsoever.
I can give
information about Sarat Kundu.
But before that, I have a request.
I know.
An interview with
Ratan LaI Rakshit. Right?
ExactIy. I cannot
convince the man in anyway.
Maybe he wiII reIent
if I teII him to do so.
Let me see. I wiII try.
Very good.
As since I have got
Shibu of Bishu Shibu fame..
..it wouId be
unfortunate if I didn't get Bishu.
That means..
I had taken an
interview of Sarat Kundu..
..exactIy four years back.
That means he is stiII aIive.
He was aIive even then.
But he is in a very bad condition.
After much ado, I got to know
of his whereabouts in a sIum.
Which sIum?
Goabadha.
Does he stiII stay there?
I don't know about the recent times.
But you can try to find out.
When did he Ieave this area?
Around 3 to 4 years ago.
Do you know why he Ieft it?
No, I am not aware of that.
Do you remember him?
He was a very interesting man.
He used to work in fiIms.
He used to teII us stories about that.
He used to Iisten to
him with utmost interest.
Thank you.
His bad voice was not the
onIy drawback that he had.
He couIdn't remember
diaIogues as weII.
Towards the end, he
used to work as an extra.
And not even a taIking extra.
The Iast time I saw him
in a studio area was..
..was around 6 to 7 years ago.
He couIdn't be recognized then.
Do you know of any pIace where
I wouId be abIe to find him?
You can go and check
out Natraj cabin once.
Where is that?
Benting street.
Yes, Sarat used to come here
reguIarIy at one point of time.
But he hasn't come here recentIy.
Did he do any sort
of work at that time?
I don't think so.
In this very shop, he had
so much pending payment.
One day, aII of a sudden,
he came here..
..and paid for
everything and vanished.
After that, he hasn't come here ever.
So when did this happen?
It was around 3 to 4 years back.
Come in.
Naresh SanyaI.
I wiII give you onIy fifteen minutes.
You can ask me whatever you want
to ask me in this time period.
I wiII take exactIy fifteen minutes.
Okay. Sit down.
Now..
I have coffee at this time.
WouId you Iike to have some coffee?
I don't mind.
Lakkhi.
Lakkhi.
Coming.
ActuaIIy I cannot write
without you about the siIent era.
Three cups of coffee.
Is he..Is he your servant?
He is my bearer cum projectionist.
But..But he is Sarat Kundu.
What?
Yes.
He is Shibu of Bishu Shibu.
Around 4 years back, I took
his interview in Goabagan.
What? What are you saying?
You can ask him.
Lokkhi.
Lokkhi.
You couIdn't recognize me.
It was just because he mentioned it.
What is this
condition that you are in?
What couId I do? TeII me.
I couIdn't get a chance Iike you did.
But..
But did you have to
take a bearer's work?
So I have worked as a cooIie.
Your work is aImost Iike
heaven when compared to that.
The day I saw in the advertisement..
..that you are Iooking
for the siIent movies..
..and you need a projectionist..
..was the day when I came here.
I have worked as a projectionist
in KamIa taIkies for seven years.
After that, I came here and got
the job of the bearer as weII.
My saIary increased.
I reaIIy Iiked it.
If nothing eIse, I couId see mine..
I couId watch the
movies that we did together.
We had so much of fun together.
We had so much of popuIarity.
I remembered everything, Ratan.
Since the time I have come here..
..I get to eat twice a day.
Before that..
But this cannot go on Iike this.
No, no, I am ready for that.
Whenever you ask me to..
Nonsense.
You wiII be my manager.
You wiII sit in the
same room as Tarini.
You wiII stay here.
We wiII sit and watch our
movies together in the evenings.
There was a point of time
when our duo was broken..
..due to unforeseen conditions.
Now we have united again.