Chillers and thrillers are a fashion statement in Hindi mainstream cinema today. After Rajeev Khandelwal's Aamir comes another promising thriller called Via Darjeeling. Arindam Nandy, who honed his skills in advertising, helms this film.

The film is co-produced by Joy Ganguly, and presented by NFDC under the Moxie Entertainments banner. The other 'Bengali' identity the film boasts of is its unusual storyline that revolves around the concept of the adda -- or the long, informal chat sessions among friends. 

"I had written the original script in Bengali under the title Ashaade Goppo, a phrase metaphorically linked to tales drawn from imagination. Joy Ganguly liked the script but wanted to make the film in Hindi. The script then went through several name changes like Take 5 and All Tales but we settled with Via Darjeeling," says Nandy.

Via Darjeeling sees newlyweds Ankur (Kay Kay Menon) and Rimli (Sonali Kulkarni [Images]) visit Darjeeling on their honeymoon. The evening before they are to return to Kolkata, Ankur goes missing. The inspector in charge, Robin Bose (Vinay Pathak), hunts for Ankur but he is never found. A disturbed Rimli gives him clues -- she tells him about a fight Ankur had with a cabbie and a mysterious man who kept stalking them.

Two years later, Inspector Bose narrates this story to his friends on a rainy evening during an adda session. When he cannot give them definite answers to how Ankur went missing, each member begins to give his/her version of what might have happened. One suspects Ankur committed suicide while another says he was probably murdered. A third suggests that he was probably a con man who had his fun and disappeared.

During this adda session, the different versions begin to blend into problems in everyone's personal lives. And it brings the mystery to Kolkata one night, via Darjeeling.

"A story told by different people changes perspectives and colour as and when they are narrated. The storytellers' vocations and personalities come into play as they narrate someone else's story. This is the reason why stories that appear to be the same are not really so and do not really have a definite end," explains Nandy.

"The tributary of tales that our epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata are made of, are primarily oral in nature," he adds. "They have journeyed through tales, songs, paintings, murals, folk arts, and sculpture through the ages. This is probably why Rama of Ramayana and Krishna of Mahabharata blend into one another as 'avatar' of the same entity -- Vishnu. The roles
change though the face remains the same."

Via Darjeeling has already made its presence felt at the Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival held at New York. It was also screened in packed theatres in New York. "Though Via Darjeeling is multilingual with some English, more Hindi and a smattering of Bengali, it was encouraging to find many Americans, not just Indians in America, at the screenings," Nandy says. "They understood the film and got every nuance right."

The cast includes Rajat Kapoor [Images], Parveen Dabas, Sandhya Mridul, Simone Singh, Arindam Sil and Prashant Narayannan. Abhik Mukhopadhyay is cinematographer while the screenplay is the joint effort of Nandy, Ranjan Das and Siladitya Sanyal. Prabuddha Banerjee has done the musical score.

The film has been shot extensively on location in Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Kolkata and Mumbai.

Text: Trans World Features (TWF)