Tripura Literature Festival: ‘Stories of middle-class need to be kept alive’, says singer-director Anjan Dutt

Tracing his journey from Kolkata to Darjeeling and again to Kolkata, Dutt said his experience of staying in the hill station back in the 1960s framed his mind in more ways than one.

“I grew up in Darjeeling. There is a sea change between the Darjeeling of 1961 and today. The city had a lot less pollution then. I learnt to be modern, let go of dogmas, learnt that money is not everything, and accept the truth whatever it is. I came back to Kolkata in 1970. It was different, too dirty, a lot more polluted… I wasn’t liking it…

“But there were people from so many cultures in Kolkata – Chinese, Armenian, Bengali, and so on… I have seen names like Samuel Mukherjee or Abdul Choudhury since childhood… one city is a colonial resort and the other a cultural capital,” Dutt said and added that the mix of colonial structures and middle-class homesteads made him fall in love with Kolkata.

“I don’t like to go to Bombay (Mumbai) and make a Hindi film,” Dutt said. The artist remarked that he does not want to write or tell stories of people or places he doesn’t understand properly.

“You can find books being sold on footpaths in Kolkata and Paris alone. I might not have got a job… but I could get to know some important people, some writers, filmmakers, who made me fall in love with the city (Kolkata),” Dutt said.

Dutt shared with the audience that his dream was to become a serious actor but he became more known as a singer and has come to accept it.

However, he lamented that people can easily click selfies with stalwarts nowadays, “but do not respect them in the proper sense of the term.”

Talking about his books Danny Detective Inc, and Danny Detective 3: Ami Nakal Goenda, Dutt said he through his works has tried to engage with characters that have grey shades and a deep sense of melancholy.