Lights, camera, action: A look at Saptaraj Chakraborty’s journey from Silchar Collegiate school to film direction in Mumbai

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If you went to school in late 90s or even early 2000s you have heard only one thing at home, “amar chele/amar meye boro oiya engineer ba daktar oibo”. You either become an engineer or a doctor and apart from that there was no other career option even in vivid imagination. If not doctor, engineer then a Peon or you even heard your parents saying, “tui to goru choraibe”.

Between Doctor/Engineer and Goru Choraibe, there is an entire universe which parents of that generation had no clue about and they are not to be blamed either, we had no example, Sachin Tendulkar is an example for aspiring cricketers, Lata Mangeshkar for singers, Sunil Ganguly for writers, but none of these examples had anything to do with Barak Valley, so parents thought singers, dancers, cricketers are not professions but only hobbies or at best an extra-curricular activity… there was no example to cite.

Today we have an example for generations to follow, he too was a kid of the same late 90s, studied in Collegiate School Silchar, then Adharchand for 11-12… after that he choose one of the two available career options, Engineering. During his engineering days new options opened up and today he lives in different imaginary world, world of cinema… We are talking about Saptaraj Chakraborty, Barak Bulletin correspondent met him at his office, which is set up by him and his friend and about 10 people work there. You enter the sixth floor of an industrial estate in Goregaon, Mumbai and then comes Atarkiya Creatives, Saptaraj’s workplace. The wall has quotes of several filmmakers on the desk, there were a few Apple Imacs, it was a Sunday Saptaraj opened the door himself and after a courteous welcome, we started to drill the filmmaker who just finished Shooting and Editing, Zee5’s short movie ‘Mehmaan’ featuring Raima Sen, Kaushik Sen, Saheb Bhattacharya.

All we wanted to know is how did this B-Tech from an Engineering institution in Jaipur land up in Mumbai, he reveals it all started with Windows Movie Maker, the most un-noticed software in every Windows computer. “It was my first few days of Engineering we were invited for senior’s birthday party. I heard everybody saying; call Vermaji apna RGV (Ram Gopal Verma) he will shoot. I later asked that Verma Ji why was everybody calling you RGV, he replied I am a big fan of him and I make films…” recalls Saptaraj. On their way back from the party to the Hostel the two fresher’s shared a brief conversation about each other and that was the beginning of what today is a business and creative partnership, the Vermaji is Shiva Verma, “He is like my own brother to me,” Saptaraj quickly adds.

Saptaraj and Shiva then started watching movies together, Shiva showed Saptaraj how filmmaking is approached, what are the aspects one need to cover and that was catching Saptaraj’s attention. He then made a slideshow using Windows Movie Maker and that was his first creative work. Back home in Silchar he never had anything to do with photography or videography, he used to play Tabla, paint and play cricket all as extra curricular activities. “I had scored good marks in Class 10, everybody did… and then my family was like, marks are good he will take science and become a doctor or and engineer. I took science, got admitted in Adharchand, tried Ramanuj too but there was some donation and all involved. 11-12 is like ocean, I realised 10 was just a pond and now I am swimming in vast and deep ocean, I some how managed to pass,” Saptaraj humbly mumbles.

He had also appeared for all the Engineering entrance examinations, but did not get selected in any of the institutions and then enrolled himself in GC College, pursuing B.Sc Chemistry honours. A year later a friend of his told him about an Engineering college in Jaipur, “Those days we had Edu-fests, where colleges used to send representatives to get new admissions, my friend told me my entrance examination rank can get me a seat there, I just wanted to move out of Silchar and grabbed the opportunity,” that’s how Saptaraj got into a Rajasthan Technical University and graduated as an Electronics and Communication Engineer.

During his first year of engineering, Saptaraj started spending time in educating himself about films, by reading magazines, binge-watching movies, joining several filmmaking forums on social media, “We were also making movies, we were shooting with Nokia N series mobile phone, writing scripts and recording dialogues. We had moved on from Windows Movie Maker to Adobe Premier Pro (editing software),” he recalls.

Saptaraj terms his Engineering days as film schooling, more than Einstein and Galileo he followed Quentin Tarantino and Steven Spielberg. One of his and Shiva’s short film ‘Butterfly Effect’ had got selected and was screened in Jaipur International Film Festival, that Saptaraj feels was one moment of appreciation. “I remember we shot it with a normal ordinary point-and-shoot camera, we used wheel chairs as track to pan during the scenes,” he recalls.

“I remember we shot it with a normal ordinary point-and-shoot camera, we used wheel chairs as track to pan during the scenes,” he recalls.

The college days were over, and Saptaraj went back to his house in Narshingtola, bang in the middle of recession, engineering graduates were applying for call centre jobs, few were even accepting offers where the salary was just Rs 3000. Saptaraj too had a job in the back of his mind, meanwhile he got a call from his senior who was making a feature film, and wanted both Saptaraj and Shiva to assist. When there is a chance of making your passion your profession you should not waste time is what Saptaraj believes and he immediately accepted the offer. Both of them then bagged assistant director’s title in feature film ‘2nd Marriage dot com’. “That gave me a real life experience of what filmmaking is all about. Me and Shiva worked as hard as we could and we were involved in everything and that’s where we learnt a lot and decided to shift to Bombay and take this as a full time career,” Saptaraj recalls.

Moving to Bombay (Mumbai) is no mean feat, it is a closed ecosystem which is dominated by the locally established communities, even Amitabh Bachchan is at times considered as an outsider in Bollywood, it is like a group of Assamese coming and running business in the heart of Silchar. The challenges are immense, to get a work one needs to toil hard. At the same time Mumbai has opportunities too, Saptaraj too had to face his challenges, “There were many dark days where you struggle, it’s an expensive place to live in… you come back home and ask yourself, should I do this or shall I just go back. Now if you want to succeed going back is not the option. You have to face your challenges chin up, we saw films are tough we started making music videos, ad films, corporate videos, short films, the idea was to keep doing work…” Saptaraj says.

There are many people who moved to Mumbai and went back as well, the dream is to make a feature film but to reach that dream one has to commit to all types of work available believes Saptaraj. He and his partner worked with Ram Gopal Verma for one of his upcoming projects and then they got a show for Zee5, Zee group’s online video on demand platform. The show is called Mehmaan, it features Raima Sen, Kaushik Sen and Saheb Bhattacharya, it is one of Saptaraj’s biggest breaks so far.

“I was at Suchitra Sen’s house for Raima’s look test, I sent a photograph to my mother and she was ‘wow’ how is the house like… Well it was a task and we took it as a task, yes they are all big actors, I grew up watching them, but they are humble too, it was a great learning experience. Back of my mind, is it really happening, am I shooting Raima, Kaushik question kept coming, I kept thinking I am a boy from Silchar, was sitting and gossiping in Narshintola every now and then I am directing these big stars… to not get carried away is the key,” He narrates.

Saptaraj today is a filmmaker and entrepreneur, he is living his dreams in Mumbai, but for that he had to give up his comfort zone, “Silchar is a lovely place, you have your own house. I lived in a joint family, was always at the centre of attraction, I could have lived an easy comfortable life in Silchar, but I wanted to create films to make a difference and hence I decided to come out of my comfort zone and toil it out, this is just the start we have long way to go, lot more to create,” Saptaraj concludes.

Saptaraj’s journey so far actually sheds light to a lot of darkness that we people of Barak Valley live in. We think to be a filmmaker we need to be one of the family member of some star and Cinema is a world driven by nepotism. But it’s not always true, a Silchar born engineer turned filmmaker too can direct Suchitra Sen’s grand-daughter and award winning actress Raima Sen or celebrity actor Kaushik Sen. Also we often think we need high-end camera to shoot videos, remember Saptaraj’s first film ‘Butterfly Effect’ was shot with a point and shoot camera. These are actually excuses that we console ourselves with, the fact is we don’t want to get out of our comfort zones and when we do, gems like Saptaraj Chakraborty, Bir Radha Sherpa, Novoneel Chakraborty emerge from within us.

Saptaraj Chakraborty, is son of businessman Sudip Chakraborty and classically trained vocalist Swagata Chakraborty. He has a younger brother Shobraj Chakraborty who too is into filmmaking and is a part of a band in Silchar.

Barakbulletin.com takes this opportunity to congratulate Saptaraj on his ‘Mehmaan’ break and wishes him best for the future; the publication would also like to congratulate the family and thank them for giving Barak Valley a son to feel proud about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3NWtVV9bUA&feature=youtu.be