Mayhem on tracks as Saif magic rolls

Pratim D. Gupta

Siliguri, Oct. 30: “Saifji, aaj ek baar mil li jiye, kal ho naa ho…”
The first-day shoot of Vinod Chopra Production’s Parineeta at Siliguri belonged to the people — frenzied fan adulation dictating the direction and the pace of proceedings.
Director Pradeep Sarkar couldn’t have had a more eventful start to his screen adaptation of the Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay classic, set in the 1960s (not 1913). While he has shot some indoor sequences in Mumbai, this was the first schedule with the stars in this part of the country.
“It has been quite a day,” admitted the man behind the monitor, even as he canned the last shots in the late afternoon.
With a “call time” of 3 in the morning, the shooting team always had a long day coming. Apart from the song sequence on the toy train, Sarkar’s men had to capture a couple of other station shots at Sukna.
The morning shots went well but as news of the “Hindi film shooting” spread, the Saif Ali Khan effect took over.
Everyone wanted to get close to the Hum Tum man; many just broke out into the Chak de dance; some had cameras in hand to capture the special moment…. They had all stationed themselves in and around the train stretch between Sukna and Tindharia stations.
As the engine started rolling, they kept following the three-coach train, often making the shoot a mission impossible.
“We have to keep Saif by the window in the song sequence, so we can’t possibly hide him from the crowds,” huffed a member of the 150-strong production crew, hitting the narrow and winding Hill Cart Road in 25 cars and vans.
The song sequence has Saif (who plays the male lead of Shekhar) sitting inside the train and reminiscing about his lady love (Lalita, played by Vidya Balan) with one of the lilting Shantanu Moitra tracks playing in the background. Saif spent a large part of the day listening to the song on his personal stereo and getting the lyrics right.
When the train pulled up at Tindharia station in the afternoon after a brief shooting spell at Rongtong station, chaos reigned supreme. While Saif played it cool sipping his orange juice, the fans went berserk even forcing a mini lathicharge of sorts.
To top it all, a couple of technical snags were discovered on the train and precious moments were lost trying to get the engine and the shooting on track again. When it actually did restart, the light had started failing and only a few shots could be canned.
“Schedule? What schedule?” joked Sarkar, about the delay on Day One, the detailed storyboard with hand-sketched images in front of him as he kept instructing his director of photography. “We have to meet in the evening and reschedule for the rest of the days,” added the adman-turned-director.
For leading lady Vidya, it was an off day, as she stayed locked up inside the vanity van waiting for her turn — which never came. She does feature in a song sequence and will be a major part of the shoot on Sunday. And if the Saif sensation is something to go by, Dia Mirza’s descent on Monday, for a guest appearance, is sure to send the Siliguri mercury soaring.