Bengal sways to Bhangra beat in new age flick

In the first Bengali movie to be extensively shot in the green tracts of Punjab having featured a well-known Pakistan band, 'Bangla Naache Bhangra' dwells on the fusion between the two cultures, the young director says.
"Bangla Nache Bhangra, which literally translates as 'Performing Bhangra stunts in the Bangla way', is the first Bengali film having the raw earthiness of Punjab, the beat having the typical 'balle balle' flavor, and the locales shot in vast rural areas including places near the Indo-Pak border, The film will not be typical Veer Jara type but bear the sight and smell of the land of bravehearts," director Nandini Sharma told PTI here.

"We had even shot in the same location where the blockbuster on cross-country love Gadar had been filmed," the young director, whose debut multilingual film will be released on August 23, said.
Pointing out the flick will trod the path of new age, middle-of-the road Hindi plex movies having a young cast and youthfulness as USP, Nandini said "But here we are targeting both types of audiences, though essentially younger ones. The present day Kolkata youngsters, the party life in the metro, the pub culture, the coffee joints and boys-girls hanging out, the very cosmopolitanism of the city will come up alive but in the mainstream genre format," she said.

Popular Pakistani band Ragaboyz features in the film which is multilingual since Bengali, Hindi and English dialogues were peppered liberally.
"We have retained the present day dialect of Kolkata youngsters, which is no more essentially Bong but a heady mix of Hindi, English with even Punjabi thrown in as the city has different communities living side by side for ages and urban India mostly speaks in the same dialect these days. Ragaboyz also adds up to that factor of the pan-Indian sub-continent look and feel of the film," Nandini said.

"They play the modern balladeers, commenting on the happenings all around, and they are not essentially part of the main cast," she said agreeing when asked if the band is like the group of singers including Pritam coming up in different phases in the movie 'Life In Metro'.

"Like the bridge in disparate locations, from Kolkata to Punjab, the film talks on the conviviality between two different races, perhaps lookwise as much similar as chalk and cheese, but having retained the warmth, down to earthiness and emotion. That acts as the cementing factor," Nandini said.
"I am Raj, sharing the same lover boy name with many heros in Hindi films, but here I am more Bong than cosmopolitan which gives way as the surrounding and situations change as he is in the trail of Simran, the Punjabi 'kudi', debutant actor Sayan Ganguly said.
Having Tollywood actrors like Kharaj Mukherjee and Rajesh DSharma in the cast, the movie will be released on August 23.