Silchar’s Saptaraj Chakraborty directs promo for Netflix film 'Haseen Dillruba' feat classic cast of the CID

Growing up as a 90s kid, it’s hard to find someone who hasn’t watched or even heard about the iconic crime thriller television series of Sony Pictures Networks called CID. Starting its journey in 1998 and running over a marathon period of over 22 years, the CID show and its characters have become household names among Indian families. Some of the evergreen characters of the show like ACP Pradyuman and Inspector Daya have been etched into our minds so deep that even after the show’s conclusion back in 2018, a huge swathe of social media pages and memes still feature those two iconic characters. The show also holds the record in both Guinness Book of World Records and Limca Book of Records for uncut shooting for 111 minutes for the episode named ‘The Inheritance’ during October 2004.

But for Silchar’s Saptaraj Chakraborty, working with the likes of such legendary actors like Shivaji Satam and Dayanand Shetty, who played the iconic roles of ACP Pradyuman and Inspector Daya in CID respectively, is like paying homage to the cult of such a long-running television show. Netflix has recently released a thriller film named ‘Haseen Dillruba’ which stars top Bollywood names like Taapsee Pannu, Vikrant Massey, Aditya Srivastava among others. The film was released on July 2 and to promote its release, Netflix India had posted a promotional video that features the core cast of the CID show, i.e, Shivaji Satam, Dayanand Shetty, Aditya Srivastava and Narendra Gupta, the latter two of who played the roles of Senior Inspector Abhijeet and Professor Salunke respectively in CID. And this promotional video for ‘Haseen Dillruba’, which boasts of such mighty names from the Indian television industry, was directed by Silchar’s very own Saptaraj Chakraborty.

The video features Aditya Srivastava in the role of Inspector Kishore Rawat, who is a character from the film ‘Haseen Dillruba’. He’s investigating a murder mystery where the victim’s wife is the prime suspect, and to solve the mystery he seeks help from his ‘former colleagues’ of the CID. The entire video is shown where four of them connect on a video call to discuss and trying to unravel the murder mystery. While talking about the experience of shooting this promo video with such a star-studded cast, Saptaraj says, “When I was approached to direct this video, the concept was ready and when I realised that I’d be getting to work with such big names from the industry, and especially ACP Pradyuman (Shivaji Satam), it was too good an offer to refuse. As a 90s kid, CID used to be a household name while growing up, and the late 90s – 2000s was such a time, when the show was hugely popular, and even across India as well. Naturally, I grabbed this opportunity with both hands and I can say this with confidence that it was one of the best working experiences of my life till date.”

Although the characters in the promotional video of the film didn’t use their CID names, for the obvious reason, yet one couldn’t help but notice the usual quirks and mannerisms found in all the characters of the video which references their characters from the CID show. #TheUltimateKaunspiracy video then shows four of them brainstorming in the video call to solve the murder mystery, and Shivaji Satam is then seen exhibiting the usual known mannerisms of ACP Pradyuman as helps them unfold the mystery. “I was pumped up to work with such big names from the industry. And as a significant part of my childhood was spent watching the CID show, the whole experience was like revisiting my childhood days and reliving them. As a person, all of the actors were so humble and forthcoming. Especially, Shivaji Sir was always open to listening to others and helped us during the shoot. Possessing such vast experience and knowledge of working in both the television and film industry, it was an ultimate experience to get to assemble them once again and get to work with them”, said Saptaraj about his experience of working with the cast of the CID show.

Saptaraj has been living in Mumbai for the past 7 years, before leaving his hometown of Silchar. Here, he lives in the Shillongpatty area and he did his engineering from Jaipur, Rajasthan before moving out to pursue his dream of becoming a director. Over the years, Saptaraj has directed many promotional videos, advertisement campaigns, trailer videos, and short films as well. ‘Mehmaan’ (2018) is a ZEE5 short film featuring ace Bengali actors like Raima Sen, Saheb Bhattacharjee and Koushik Sen, was directed by Saptaraj Chakraborty.

Saptaraj keeps on emphasizing the importance of getting the opportunity to work with such stalwarts of the game. “People these days anticipate for FRIENDS Reunion or reunion of some other popular TV show. But we thought why don’t we have our own classic CID reunion for our viewers as anybody can easily relate to that. Even after the conclusion of that epic show, its influence and craze are still evident in the form of social media posts where we still often come across CID memes. Whereas, when CID started back in ’98, forget about Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, even Internet was at its nascent stage in India back then. But 25 years later, its popularity and cult are witnessed even to this day. And I’m just grateful to be a part of its reunion and getting to personally know and work with such legendary names”, said Saptaraj Chakraborty.

The film ‘Haseen Dillruba’ is directed by Vinil Mathew and is available for streaming on Netflix.