June 26, 2025 03:11 pm (IST)
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Alakananda Roy will always remain my mother : Nigel Akkara
Kolkata, June 20 (IBNS) 'Muktodhara' actor Nigel Akkara, who got a new life as an actor after serving a prison term, misses meeting his 'mother' Alokananda Roy, the famous dancer who chose him among inmates in the jail for the play Balmiki Pratibha thus changing the course of his life.
"Maa always remains the mother. May be we don't meet so frequently like in the past due to my professional commitments as an actor. But we are always connected. She is in USA now and I am here to look after her household," Nigel, who was handpicked by the renowned danseuse for essaying bandit Ratnakar's role in Tagore's Balmiki Pratibha by prison inmates tells IBNS on the sets of Ekti Galpo Naa, a new-age Bengali film.
Nigel, who was facing serious criminal charges in prison, was released from jail in 2010 after being a cog in the wheel in Alokananda's ‘Balmiki Pratibha’ dance-drama in 2007 in which over 100 inmates took part in past several years and he played the main role where bandit Ratnakar is transformed into Balmiki, drawing parallels with real life.
Tracing his innings in film from Muktodhara in 2012, inspired by Alokananda's 'cultural therapy' initiative among prisoners, Nigel said, "That was my first exposure in screen. My first appearance before camera."
"Shiboprosad Mukhopadhyay and Nandita Roy, after seeing my performance in Balmiki Pratibha, had decided to cast me and I took part in workshop.
"I was new and fresh then as an actor, now I am 'bhejal," he joked.
On a serious note, Nigel said, "I think I have learnt and unlearnt a lot as an actor ever since. I did several small and big budget films - from Anyo Na, Anyo Apala, Yoddha and Rajkahini to name a few and I did roles with various shades.
"Now I am maturing as an actor. I am experimenting with myself doing different shades of roles. But don't know what is the road map for next five years. I wish to keep doing my good works," he said to a related question.
On doing films with heavyweights like Srijit Mukherjee (Rajkahini), Raj Chakroborty (Yoddha), as well as senior directors like Parthasarathi Joardar and Animesh Roy, Nigel said, "I don't look at it that way."
"I enjoy working with both school of film makers. Perhaps they do adhere to different patterns of work. It's not like you will under perform with some names and try to excel yourself with some others. For me a role is a is a role," he said.
About his relations with co-female leads Nigel smiled, "That has always been good. In Rajkahini I had worked with 12 female actors, many of them stars, and I bonded well with them. In my different films I had worked with stars like Mimi Chakroborty, Sayani Dutta, Sohini Sarkar to many others. And it has always been warm."
"I had also worked with Dev, Rudraneil Ghosh, Jisshu Sengupta and learnt a lot from them."
About his character in Ekti Galpo Naa, Nigel said, "I portray a hallucinating character who imagines his own world and refuses to come out of the cocoon."
"He is possessive about what he sees," he said adding co-actor Sayani Dutta enacts a bar dancer in the flick.
About his firm, which takes care of maintaining households and sanitising the same against a fee, Nigel said "I have been able to engage 60 persons in my company, offering many of them a new lease of life."
"My compaany has been referred as case study by a premier management institute," he signed off.
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