Swastika Mukherjee on taking part in a journalist in Durgapur Junction: ‘We live in a really chaotic, pathetic time’

(Additionally learn: Interview | Rituparna Sengupta on working with Sharmila Tagore in Puratawn: ‘She loves delving into issues which are new’)

On Durgapur Junction

The actor is hopeful that audiences will like Durgapur Junction, admitting that Bengali Cinema is in a superb house now. She says, “The hope is that the viewers involves theatres and watches our movie. I believe we’re in a superb house now, general, as persons are going to cinemas, and the movies which have launched within the latest previous are doing nicely. Every kind of genres are being tried. There is a Manikbabur Megh, which is such a private movie, after which we’ve got a Puratawn, so I believe persons are watching all types of movies.”

“Now with Durgapur Junction, the style is that of a thriller which audiences will love. Total, I really feel Indian audiences have a knack in direction of thrillers. I do not assume we’ve got labored in such a recent premise associated to medical and pharmaceutics-related tales. As an artist, I all the time attempt to carry one thing new to the desk,” she provides.

‘There’s such a mad rush for breaking information’

The actor opens up on taking part in Ushahsie, a fearless journalist primarily based in Durgapur, whose eager curiosity in politics and crime drives her to dig deep into one of many metropolis’s most controversial circumstances.

Is it a troublesome job being a journalist? She says, “I genuinely really feel that earlier than the appearance of social media, journalists had a very robust job. To search out out tales, when issues weren’t obtainable on the tip of your finger, I’m positive they needed to work approach tougher. Now, with social media, that has modified. The legwork has come to ‘fingerwork’ now, and we attempt to get all the data on the telephone fairly than really reaching out and checking… what’s lacking these days is the fact-check. It might probably’t all be rumour. The individual wants to essentially do the actual fact checking whether or not the incident has even taken place. There’s such a mad rush for breaking information with a whole bunch of portals attempting to get it first. However has the incident even occurred? I’ve seen in my very own expertise {that a} damaging information turns into viral far more than a constructive one. As soon as the misinformation goes viral and creates chaos, afterward even once we verify and say that the data was not proper, that bit shouldn’t be getting the identical traction. It’s a very unlucky time we live in the place we’re operating and do not care to look again in any respect.”

Swastika displays on her personal private journey as an actor and the way she has seen this shift. She says, “Once I began working 25 years again, there was a filter on wise, delicate, good journalists on what ought to exit within the open and what shouldn’t. There was a respect and duty, however at this time the place we’re, no one provides a f*** about whether or not that is wise sufficient to be written. I believe at this time there’s a competitors between who can open extra trash cans. It is usually such a stress on all of us the place one has to assume 5000 occasions earlier than I say or write one thing, as my phrases could be twisted.”

‘We live in a really chaotic, pathetic time’

The actor recounts two particular examples. “In a latest interview the place I had talked about, in a enjoyable and informal approach, that my daughter and sister are such enormous followers of Jeet (the 2 actors had been in a short relationship years in the past) and so they adore him a lot… the place my daughter retains telling me that she is not going to forgive me for not being with him. Now the portals which have picked this up say that my daughter disapproves my alternative for leaving Jeet. Then there are the feedback the place persons are shaming me and saying I did not deserve it. What I mentioned within the interview and what made it to the headline… there isn’t a similarity,” she says.

Swastika cites one other occasion, saying, “One other incident was when Anirban Bhattacharya and I had participated at an occasion, the place we had been studying letters written by stalwarts. Then one portal put my and Anirban’s photograph and picked up a line from the letter which had an expression of heartbreak and love. In a second, folks began cussing each of us, not getting that the quote was not even mine! It was written to Rabindranath Tagore. No person learn the article and we each had been slammed for one thing that each of us had nothing to do with. We live in a really chaotic, pathetic, disturbing time the place I really feel that as journalists, persons are letting go of their primary tasks.”

She provides, “Since I get to play an investigative journalist in Durgapur Junction, I felt that the job calls for much more stress, a number of people-pleasing, the place you may’t say this or that, and but you do not need to promote your backbone. But she desires to pursue that story. Ushashie doesn’t even get the help of her husband- he’s irritated and tells her that she is simply doing a job. What’s the have to protest? So, I’m positive that there are lots of people who’re going via the identical turmoil the place they need to say one thing and they’re being requested to close up.”

The actor was one of many few Tollywood celebrities who protested throughout final 12 months’s RG Kar case in Kolkata. “It’s true, the threats do come and we lose out on work. The handful of people that actually had been there through the RG Kar incident, confronted large backlash. This really occurs in actuality, worry of shedding work… we’re scared that it’s going to have an effect on our household, one’s security is jeopardized. It is extremely huge worth to pay,” she concludes.

Durgapur Junction additionally stars Vikram Chatterjee and Ekavali Khanna. The movie releases in theatres at this time.