EXCLUSIVE: Tannishtha Chatterjee on ‘Rough Book’, her take on education and more

Actress Tannishtha Chatterjee, who always walked the unconventional way in her career, has acted in Anant Mahadevan’s upcoming release ‘Rough Book’. It’s a film which highlights the serious flaws in the present education system, through the eyes of a teacher who wants her students to learn and smell the true essence of education instead of being mere marks-making machines.

In an exclusive conversation with Bollywood Bubble, Tannishtha opened up on her film, her stand on education, censorship and more. Read on…

You are working under Anant Mahadevan’s directorial for the second time…
He is extremely disciplined. He chooses very interesting subjects. ‘Rough Book’  was a wonderful story and I really wanted to do it. Working with Anant ji is always great. If he says he will finish the shooting in 28 days, he might finish it in 25 days but never in 29 days.

Tell us something about your character in ‘Rough Book’…
I play a physics teacher. The story revolves around a physics teacher who looks at things differently and wants to teach physics differently. Physics is a subject which most students feel very scared of. A lot of times it just becomes all about mugging up theories and there’s no chance of application. She wants to change that. So, she takes the students to the basketball court, she plays the guitar and tells them about sound. She does experiments. She creates a vacuum inside a bottle and shows how a vacuum sucks things. So, she is not a textbook physics teacher.  The ‘D’ section has been given to her, and here ‘D’ signifies duffers (Laughs). Even students who were not interested in studying, develop interest. But somehow, the management does not like her ways. Because she believes in explaining things to them and not just meeting targets of syllabus. The film is about the whole conflict that she has with the kind of education system that we follow, how we don’t let the students flourish and choose their own interests.

The education system is highly commercialised. Do you think implementing such perfect ideas is even possible?
You know, nothing in this world is really perfect. Everything is so commercialised. But it all starts from education. Because, education is the basis of how we are influencing people’s thoughts and ideas. If I am training a doctor and if I am telling him, “You are investing 2 crore, you are investing so much for the machines. You have to get a profit from your clinic,” the doctor starts thinking like that. But if I tell a doctor that his basic aim is humanity, he will remember that only. Something is so very flawed in our education system; that’s where all the commercialisation comes from. All of us think like that. We don’t give respect to a person who does not have money. That’s such a flawed society! The person who does things the right ways is not respected, but the person who owns a Mercedes is respected. This all comes from education.

Do you think acting in content-oriented films back-to-back categorises or stereotypes you?
Commercial films can also have content. ‘Udta Punjab’ has a social issue. ‘3 idiots’ has a social issue. ‘PK’, ‘Munna Bhai’ had social issues. ‘Bajirao Mastani’ has a social issue, that is the love story between a Hindu man and a Muslim woman. Most films, unless they are sex comedies, have issues. Some treat it in a lighter manner so that it reaches the mass audience, some treat it in a more art-house manner. ‘Rough Book’ does not have big stars, but it is treated in a very light-hearted way. It’s a college space, students don’t like to study… it’s very relatable. It is treated in a commercial way.

Any commercial films on your card?
There’s an Australian film which is releasing on 5^th of August.  It has me and Bret Lee in lead. It is a romantic comedy. I think it’s more commercial than anything I have done before.

Do you think content-oriented films are gaining a wider reach, with the thin line between commercial and art-house cinema getting fainter every day?
I think, without content, there’s no film. You can have a few mindless comedies, but then the country is buzzing with problems right now. Since the last ten years, we are suffering with too many complexities. It’s only fair that artistes will express that. Cinema is a form of expression. In the past, the demarcation was not there. We had a parallel cinema movement, but commercial cinema in the 70s, 80s always addressed social issues. In the black and white era, all films were related to social issues. It is not true that commercial cinema never talked about social issues. It always did. It was something in between that something became too fluffy. And actually, that should also be there. All kinds of things should be there.

Being an artist, what’s your stand on censorship?
The lesser said, the better. Like all artistes, I also believe that this kind of censorship should not be there. There should just be certification. You make your audience aware about the content of the film and let the viewers take a call. In an age of internet where everyone is watching everything, even if you censor it, you will have an uncensored copy on the internet, after a month. There is no way you could restrict. It is ridiculous to try so. I think there is anyway no function that they (Censor Board) are performing, except of giving some marketing boost to certain films. If Censorship is there at all, it should be on the kind of pornography people make.  But no censorship is there.

And the beautiful conversation came to and end! In an age where the basic principles of education are at stake and the role of an education is being questioned with so many ifs and buts, ‘Rough Book’ is an honest effort to pinpoint where and how exactly the system fails the students and how we all, knowingly or unknowingly, act as catalysts to this slow death.

‘Rough Book’ releases tomorrow (June 24).

Also Read: TANNISHTHA CHATTERJEE: “NO SPACE FOR ME IN MAINSTREAM COMMERCIAL CINEMA”

Ranjini Maitra

Journalist. Writer. Reader. Enthu cutlet. Mood-swing machine. Day dreamer. Sandwiched between ‘live life fully’ and ‘lose some weight’. Mantra of life: Love and love more.