The Journey of Lost Glory- Netaji Pathagar
Topashish Bhattacharya shares his experience of making the documentary Netaji Pathagarh which recently was screened and awarded in Indus Valley International film festival.
I was initiated into the habit of reading books at a very early age of my life, during which I was introduced to a library located in our neighbourhood in Shillong. This Library named after the legendary freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was a great source of reading and learning in our locality. During my childhood when there was no internet, this library opened up a whole new world before me. At a later stage when I had to leave Shillong for my further studies and my career I would get very less time to catch up with reading new books. However, the reading streak stayed with me and I would manage some free time to look for books and read them. I realized that Netaji Pathagar was instrumental in making me an avid reader, naturally I held this Library very close to my heart.
It was during the time of pandemic when I came back to Shillong my reading schedule became quite regular. One day as I was discussing books and films with a close acquaintance Ratnadip Da, the subject of Netaji Pathagar came up. I was pleasantly surprised to know that Ratnadip Da, though based in Bangalore, was a member of Netaji Pathagar. In the course of that conversation he suggested to me to make a Documentary to convey its contribution in the sphere of reading and learning to the larger audience. I was immediately attracted to this idea as I too sincerely wanted to acknowledge the role of this Library in our society. Though at that point I had very little knowledge about film making yet I took it up as a challenge. I knew that it was a formidable task and a lot of ground work needed to be done. I started preparing and in the course of that preparation I watched a few documentaries, made notes and also spoke with few Documentary film makers to receive some inputs about this art. Once I was ready with the necessary ground work, Ratnadip Da took up the task of writing the script.
When the script was ready I stated working on the visual prospects and completed the shooting in a week’s time. It was after the shooting that the real challenging and difficult phase of work started. First of all I had to arrange a background score for the Documentary, so I went to Delhi and met a music director. I had to explain the entire screenplay and based on that we had to make the music. I sat with him and after many brainstorming sessions we came up with the background score. Once the music was ready I had to work on voice narration. As the film maker, I wanted a blend of emotions ranging from a note of joy to a certain measure of melancholy to be fused into the narration. I requested my senior friend Suranjana Di to do the narration to which she agreed. As per my suggestion, Suranjana Di recorded the script late at night to avoid intrusion of any background noise or sound. After this part of the work, I had to begin with editing part of the film which would render the final impression of our Documentary. When 70 percent of the work was done the editor suddenly left the project. This unexpected problem gave me nightmares and I was very disheartened. However, I took everything in my stride and contacted another editor; so we started again from the beginning and completed the film.
Finally, our hard work paid off and our film was ready. On the 15th of August 2021 our film was released on EAST INDIA STORY.
Well after that it is all history. Today I proud to inform you that this documentary has been awarded the best documentary award in the recent Indus Valley Film festival held in Chandigarh in the month of September – October.
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