Srijit Mukherji tells us why Basanta Bilap is one of his faves

Like the simple rice and dal with fried potato crispies is inevitably the memory of home in the pantheon of French and Tex Mex and Italian and Chinese and Mughlai cuisines,

Basanta Bilap

is my modest, witty, romantic and innocent Bengal sitting in a self-effacing corner with the intimidating classics of World Cinema. And hence, I have had people snigger when it makes it to my top 5 list of Bengali films. It is not made by the Holy troika of Ray-Ghatak-Sen, or the criminally underspoken of giant, Tapan Sinha. Neither it has been made by one of the mainstream magicians like Ajoy Kar, Tarun Majumdar, Arabinda Mukhopadhyay, Salil Dutta, Pijush Bose, Agradoot or Agragami nor by the modern masters like Rituparna Ghosh, Aparna Sen, Goutam Ghosh, Budhdhadeb Dasgupta or Koushik Ganguly. In fact, the person who made it, Dinen Gupta, the ace cinematographer-turned-director who worked for Ghatak, he claimed that though technically he was the director, a huge portion of the film is improvised.

And it shows. Because such an unbridled and outrageous onslaught of joie-de-vivre in the dialogues can hardly be scripted. And through this romcom ride, the film gives us a slew of side-splitting lines, hilarious situations and memories of so many cloudy hours of my life, which were lit up by them.

Kire, chokh tokh merechili? Na kakababu bhabun, kondin aapnaake nie chole jaabe! Achcha pendaa kaar bawlen toh? Jawtobaar bolchi Lalu, Lalu! Ora toh strike koreche! Ke Kakima? Hatao that old cadaverous lady! Ekbaar bawlo, aami Uttam Kumar! Oi ektu flu moton! Boli kawto phorsha dekhecho tumi? Aapni bawddo impolite! Sigh. What unimaginable fun. And why am I missing that fun so intensely today you ask?

While the genius of Soumitra Chatterjee was in how he received the mayhem around him, Basanta Bilap truly belonged to possibly one of the greatest comic trio in cinema, the maverick masters of slapstick — Anup Kumar, Robi Ghosh and

Chinmoy Roy

. And the night before last, the Divine Casting Director pulled off a coup by getting the trio back together again for possibly a satirical take on Brohma-Bishnu-Mawheshwar. Rest in giggles, Chinmoy Roy. I will not call you Uttam Kumar because you don’t need to be. You will be a part of our living memory forever in any case. Through Sidhdheshwar. Through Basanta Bilap.

— Srijit Mukherji