Mamata may write lyrics for upcoming film

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is also an acknowledged painter and poet, is now turning lyricist for a film on girl trafficking by cinestar-turned-MLA Chiranjit.

The popular actor, who won the last Assembly election on a Trinamool Congress ticket, said 'Didi' had expressed readiness to pen the lyrics for one of the songs of the film.

"Let's see how things progress," Chiranjit told PTI.

Asked what made him approach the Trinamool Congress chief as the lyricist, Chiranjit, son of late cartoonist Sailo Chakraborty, said, "Didi has tremendous ability to connect with the masses through her words... And also she has an aesthetic sense reflected in her sketches, painting and poems."

The actor revealed that Mamata had also encouraged him to write the script which is based on a real life story he learnt from people in Barasat, his constituency in the outskirts of Kolkata.

Having directed the film 'Bhoy' in 1996, in which he acted too, Chiranjit said he was now in the process of writing the script for his second directorial.

The MLA said it would be a film within a film where a moviemaker while documenting the plight of a trafficked girl becomes involved after vainly trying to remain a detached commentator.

Chiranjit hinted that he would himself act in the role of the documentary filmmaker and did not wish to reveal the rest of the cast.

A matinee idol in the 80s, Chiranjit said his stint as an MLA helped him discover the squalid condition common people lived in at Barasat and elsewhere.

"Children in my constituency don't go to school, but their parents have cable TV connection in their modest homes where they watch gyrations of a Bollywood/Tollywood star," he said at the launch of a compilation of short stories by Reshmi Mitra, film journalist-turned director of action flick 'Macho Mastana'.