Shyam Benegal hunts for Netaji trivia in railway yard

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">KOLKATA: Shyam Benegal''s penchant for perfection has led him through the corridors of Presidency Jail, the vast repository of Netaji Research Bureau and Asiatic Society and finally to Eastern Railway''s vintage coach workshop.<br /><br />Shooting for <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Netaji - the Last Hero</span>, which the maestro calls his patriotic mission on celluloid, Benegal has zeroed in on five vintage coaches and steam engines of the Howrah-Delhi-Kalka Mail on which Netaji escaped the country.He had boarded the train at Gomoh railway station in 1941.<br /><br />The coaches will be shifted from the Howrah locomotive shed, where they are currently kept, to a non-electrified section in Rampurhat-Naihati section in the Howrah division by the end of next week.<br /><br />Eastern Railway General Manager Sunil Sengupta held a brainstorming session with Benegal to chalk out the schedule to decide where Marathi actor Sachin Khedekar, playing Netaji, would shoot for the scenes projecting the legendary leader''s escape.<br /><br />In quintessential Benegal fashion, the film maker began shooting for the mega venture on Netaji''s birth anniversary on January 23 and is expected to complete it by the time the nation celebrates his next anniversary.<br /><br />Since the old silver Volkswagen on which Netaji made the ''great escape'' was no longer serviceable, the film maker has found another look-alike to suit the plot.<br /><br />"I have a very clear plot in mind -- the last five years of Netaji''s life that we know of, minus all this controversy over his death. The film will talk about his entire life but in flashbacks," he said. <br /><br />Picking up talented Bengali actor Jishu Sengupta to play Netaji''s nephew Sisir Bose was easy but choosing the lead cast wasn’t.<br /><br />Benegal chose Khedekar from a large number of actors and was satisfied with his find only after he sported an artificial beard.<br /><br />The film maker, who will be in Kolkata for three weeks shooting in a meticulously crafted set at the New Theatre Studio, the Raj Bhavan and a few jute mills, is already enamoured with the soft, natural light of the city, which he says reflects well on the screen.<br /><br />The depth of his personal research on the subject was amply demonstrated when Benegal heard with rapt attention the Netaji Oration 2003 on the eve of his birth anniversary on January 22 delivered by Arjun Appadurai, son of S A Ayer, minister in Netaji''s Provisional government of Azad Hind.<br /><br />The director''s daughter Pia, who is designing the costume for the film, has stuck to cotton and khadi with minimal jewellery and cotton block printed saris to create the period look.<br /><br />After completing the Bengal shoot, Benegal will fly off to Uzbekistan to shoot Netaji''s Kabul episode.<br /><br />Benegal said Netaji''s dissapearance from Taihoku airport in Japan would not be part of the movie. "But I feel that it does not make the work incomplete in any way since my movie stands for the spirit and values which the man epitomised."<br /><br />The crew will finally pack up in July of this year, Benegal said. </div> </div>