Anirban Chakrabarti, the heralded Bengali actor, is currently hogging the limelight on Hindi TV with Sony SAB‘s new detective comedy, Eken Babu. The show, which was a big success on Bengal television years back, is now airing on Sony SAB after being dubbed in Hindi. The show spotlights the quirky, razor-sharp Bengali sleuth, Eken, whose unassuming personality hides a brilliant mind. This was appreciated as one of Anirban’s best works.
We at IWMBuzz.com got to talk to Anirban Chakrabarti about his thoughts on the iconic Bengali show running on a Hindi GEC.
Says Anirban, “Bengali-speaking people are not only in West Bengal and India, but they are situated all over the globe. Eken Babu received love and adulation from all over. The web series and film have been loved, and the character has been a hit. Now, the show is coming in Hindi, for those people who are not fluent or are not aware of this language. This decision of Sony SAB to present the successful show in Hindi is a step forward to take the show to a bigger audience. More people will be able to enjoy the show. We are excited for the series now.”
On his expectation for the show in Hindi, Anirban says, “We are keeping our fingers crossed. We have got immense love from the people in Bengal. Now, we are waiting to get the love and appreciation from the rest of the Nation. This is a new kind of show which is a combination of humour and suspense. This kind of combination is not very common. My take is that people will love it.”
We asked him whether he feels confident about the Hindi viewers accepting the show, and he says, “Every language has its own charm. Eken Babu is a Bengali character; his way of interaction is so much Bengali. I hope the same charm can be translated into Hindi, so that it works wonders. There can be problems when the content loses its charm during the translation process. But I am confident that the channel has worked on handling this issue.”
Talking about the much-loved character of Eken, he states, “The biggest charm of this character Eken is that he appears to be childlike, easily distracted, but at the same time, he observes everything that is happening around him. He has the combination of childlike curiosity, bad jokes, his love for food, and of course, his intelligence.
Ask him whether he had any inspiration when he started playing this character, and he says, “When I was approached for this character in 2018, I was not aware that this character existed. There were other characters that were popular like Byomkesh Bakshi. Playing Eken made me discover his different layers. When I was very young, there was a show called Karamchand. That was a huge hit. So that was the only reference that I looked at when I worked on my character. However, I put my own ideas into the character, and I must say that I have evolved as I learnt more about the character as I played him.”
Talking about the takeaways and challenges from the character Anirban, stresses that “This character is always full of life. You can never see him grumpy. He takes failures too with a smile on his face. This is one thing I tried to imbibe in my personal life. When it comes to challenges in the role, there is a chance for it to be monotonous. I had to search for new elements in the character, and this was the challenge I worked on.”
All the best!!
