Aparna Sen and Shabana Azmi have been friends for 30 years. In Aparna’s new film Sonata, they play furiously fastened friends who have lived together as flatmates in Mumbai for 20 years.
Shabana effusive and generous as always, says she is grateful to Aparna for giving her the best role in the film.
Aparna who plays one of the lead roles in Sonata, laughs at Shabana’s gratitude.
But surely that’s a technicality that could easily have been dealt with through playback singing? Aparna says an emphatic ‘no’ to that. “No, no, playback singing is a complete no-no for international audiences. They look at the tradition of playback singing in Indian cinema with very sceptical eyes. So no to playback singing.”
And a big ‘yes’ to female bonding in Sonata.
Shabana and Lilette Dubey were the natural choices for the two other roles. For the third protagonist’s part, Aparna cast herself. This is the fourth time Aparna is directing herself. And she looks ravishingly beautiful.
“Thank you. I never know how to react to compliments. But tell me, was it just my looks or have I acted well also in Sonata?” asks the veteran actress, who made her debut in front of the camera at age 12 in Satyajit Ray’s Samapti, and never looked back.
“It was fun doing a full feature in song form. There of course we had to have playback singing because there were so many actors and not all of them could sing.”
From the beginning of her directorial career, Aparna has been seesawing between English and Bengali films. Some of her most relevant films like her debut in 36 Chowringhee Lane have been in English.
She is anxious about Sonata.
Aparna made changes in the original play.
Aparna ends the film with a reference to 26/11 terror attack on the Taj hotel. “It gives the film a political context. It connects the characters to a world outside their own private world.”
The film ends with Shabana and Aparna staring wide-eyed at images on television from the 26/11 devastation.
“All their mutual differences are forgotten when given the larger issue. They become one during the time of this national crisis,” says Aparna as she readies for the premiere of Sonata in Mumbai. Her daughter Konkona Sen and grandson have come visiting. For now, she is just another happy mother and grandmother.
Albeit a yummy mummy and a gorgeous grandmother.
(This story is from The Quint’s archives and is being republished to mark Aparna Sen’s birth anniversary.)
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