Minister-actor Bratya Basu relives 80's boyhood in Abby Sen

Actor-state Minister Bratya Basu feels connected to the vibrant 80s when he was a boy stepping into adulthood and can't come out of that phase fraught with the memory of stealing a glance at a neighbourhood girl, taking the first puff and watching group theatre with elders.
"When Atanu (director Atanu Ghosh) approached me for the role of an 80s' entrepreneur in 'Abby Sen' there was a flood of memories. The decade of the 80s is my decade," Bratya told PTI.
"It was the time when I moved from school to college and then university. It was the transition phase," he says.

Dwelling more on the era, Bratya says, "The change of season of that time, the smell of the air, the memories of love and estrangement everything remains special to me. The sudden feeling that I got one morning that I have grown up and no more a kid. We had our own way of growing up in those days sans social network and chats. Abby Sen will for sure foster that nostalgia among all those having gone through that phase like me."
Bratya, who recently was the central character in stageplay 'Bomb' on 1908 Alipore trials besides other productions including one based on 'rebel' Rabindra Sangeet exponent Debabrarta Biswas years back, feels his tryst with theatre in those times moulded him in the later stage.

"I started watching productions of Theatre Workshop, Ramaprasad Banik, PLT, Nandikar from those days and got initiated to the theatre movement gradually. Certainly these references come to the fore in some way or other when I enact a character of that era," he says.

Dwelling more on his character, he says, "I play an unsuccessful channel owner who makes a futile bid to start a private channel. Remember, satellite tv was at its infancy in those times."
Director Atanu, whose Anshumaner Chhobi on the life of a national award winning actress had won laurels, says since Bratya was growing up in that era he naturally could relate more and looked his part while Abir (Chatterjee) and Raima (Sen), two protagonists strived hard to get into the skin of the youngsters of the 80's especially in terms of hairdo and dialect and succeeded as well.

Produced by Friends Communication, which had also churned out critically acclaimed Filmfare Award winner Rukpatha Noy and Natoker Moto, 'Abby Sen' will be released by this November.