Shoojit Sircar talks with Subhash K Jha about noted writer and director Aparna Sen as she celebrates her 80th birthday.
How well do you know the legendary Aparna Sen?
Aparnedi is 80? How beautiful is that! I had quite a few interactions with Aparnadi. I think it’s her aura. I’ll purely call it her guts and confidence, clarity with which she conducts herself. I think that’s so just wonderful and inspiring.
Your favourite Aparna Sen directorials?
Her films 36 Chowringhee Lane, Paroma, The Japanese Wife, Mr & Mrs Iyer, they’re very powerful subjects, very big statements, social subjects, treated cinematically, like 36 Chowringhee Lane and Paroma are still etched in my mind. She was quite daring in her treatment in 36 Chowringhee Lane.
I see echoes of her cinema in your films?
I think she’s been a pure inspiration and we look up to her. And of course, another very important fact that she just not only was a writer and a screenwriter and actress, but she was also always standing there for social causes and protested on many, many occasions.
Your wishes for her birthday?
I just want to wish her all the very best and I wish that someday, I hope I still have time, I’m going to work with her. And with such grace and guts, I think she’s been an inspiration to a lot of women, men in Bengal, outside Bengal and everywhere.
