Bengali film to dwell on Narmada Bachao movement

Kolkata: Director Kingshuk De`s upcoming film `Nadi Re Tui` will focus on the Narmada Bachao movement.

The film stars magician P C Sorcar`s daughter Moubani Sorcar. Moubani says her character in the film is inspired by Medha Patkar. "Medha Patkar has shown the world that erecting barrages and dams are important when needed but you cannot play with the sentiments and livelihood of scores of people," Moubani said. The actress believes the Narmada movement was successful because it served the cause of the marginalised women in the tribal belt. "We wish to bring Medha Patkar for the screening of the film. We talk about human displacement but that is more of a slogan and do we really feel the pain of displacement of the marginalised by the name of development. But I would not dub ‘Nadi Re Tui’ as an anti-development film," Moubani said. Apart from the main social issue, the film follows a story pattern based on the unusual love story between a boatman and the character of Moubani, initially an engineer from the city visiting the dam and then becoming a social activist and the campaign face of `Nadi Re Tui` movement. "When the NBA movement was at its peak I was young and I keenly followed the agitation spearheaded by Medhaji. I found her `jibon darshan` (philosophy of life) very fascinating, very intriguing. Happy that a film is being made in Bengal inspired by her movement at last and I am her fictional screen self," Moubani said. De said his film "talks about the tryst between nature and woman, who embodies mother earth." The three feature-film old director said his understanding of the fiction and films `Titash Ekti Nodir Naam`, `Padma Nodir Majhi` perhaps helped him in delineating the script based on the story by Subhendu Choudhury. "There must have been some inspirations from these cult works in my film which talks about the river and how it is related to others and how they are all faced with extinction one fine morning and the story unfolds," he said. Thespian Soumitra Chatterjee essayed the role of a panchayat pradhan going against the administration`s diktat. "I liked the character," was all the veteran actor would say when asked. PTI