I've more than 50 hits in Bengali cinema and it's a great feeling to have them released separately in the form of albums that are independent of the movies.
Without the huge budgets, mainstream Bengali cinema falls flat on its face.
Aakhir' stars Sanjay Suri and Bengali actress Rituparna Sengupta. It's very close to my heart and the most realistic work I've ever done.
Everywhere I go today, people talk about Bengali cinema. I completely refuse to accept that Bengali filmmakers are not making good films.
I've done a lot of Bengali films with heavyweights like Rituparna Ghosh, Buddhadeb Das Gupta and carved my niche with both commercial as well as art films.
Cinematically, anything like 'Khawto' in Bengali cinema hasn't happened. Yes, you get such films in Hollywood, a few in Bombay. In Bengali literature, you get such stories in the works of Samaresh Basu and Buddhadeb Guha.
I was looking to be a part of commercial cinema and that was when I signed 'Jodi.'
There are quality films being made in all languages, whether in Hindi cinema, Bengali or the south. Bollywood doesn't represent Indian cinema, per say.
Some felt my looks would not go down with the Bengali audience. They felt I was not photogenic. Others felt I was just what Bengali cinema needed when there was lack of glamour for heroine roles and there were few leading ladies around.
Like Narendra Modi-Amit Shah's jodi in Delhi, Sanjay Tandon and I have a jodi in Chandigarh.
I'm obsessed with all things Bengali, man. I love fish, my maid is Bengali, I acted in Bengali and Bangladeshi films.
Being a Bengali, I have kept in touch with the cinema of my mother tongue.
The day Bengali cinema lost touch with literature and started aping the south, the middle class audience stopped going to the cinema halls and later the larger audience too stopped going.
Whenever I get married, it will be a Bengali wedding. If I won't have a Bengali wedding, my mother won't come. She has warned me. So, I am going to have a Bengali wedding for sure.
I got my name, fame, identity and even my National award from Bengali cinema.
Bengali movies are a great form of cinema too. Interestingly, they work with lower budgets.