Srijit Mukherjee’s Hindi debut Begum Jaan, a big hit in its original Bengali version Rajkahini, was a failure in Hindi.

Srijit has an explanation. “This thought of representing the entire country through these women, I think that, was slightly contrived in a setup which backfired. I think I should have stuck to the original. Yeah, the language would have been Hindi, but, you know, the milieu should have been what was there in the original.”

Srijit feels Begum Jaan, unlike the original, was not spontaneous. “I think I planned it too much. This is to say, the original had a certain spontaneity to it, a certain organic nature. I thought I would tailor it to suit pan-India sensibilities. It didn’t, I mean, it didn’t require that. Because, in any case, there hasn’t been any film on the eastern side of the Partition.”

Srijit recalls, with much pleasure,...