Dibakar Banerjee

OT: How have your travels influenced your movies?

Dibakar Banerjee: I’ve been travelling with my wife all over India and abroad for the past seventeen years. Travel is free steroids for your brain — it expands the mind — without the side effects. My films are about Indian towns, small and big. And my relationship with them is based on bus rides, auto and cab rides, walks or just sitting and staring at people at public places. These experiences have shaped me and must be shaping my films.

OT: Your last holiday? And last work trip?

Dibakar Banerjee: My last holiday in India was to Goa. Abroad, I’ve recently been to the Cotswolds, Oxford and Scotland. Work-related travel has taken me, in India, to Latur and Baramati in Maharashtra and, abroad, to New York.

OT: Is there a holiday you’ve been longing to take?

Dibakar Banerjee: The trek up from Cuzco to Machu Picchu in Peru is a dream trip I’ve been plotting for a while.

OT: Are you an avid shopper? What’s the sort of loot you bring back from your holidays?

Dibakar Banerjee: My wife scours for art, crafts, antiques, music, textiles and craft jewellery. I hold the bags.

OT: You’re a Delhi boy. Your favourite restaurants in the capital? Now that you are in Mumbai, where do you love to eat?

Dibakar Banerjee: My favourite tables in Delhi used to be the Rampur Kitchen and TK’s Grill at the Hyatt. Rampur has sadly closed down. In Mumbai, it’s Kebabs and Kurries at the ITC Grand Central, where I practically live. Having said that, most of my favourite food is simple and cooked at homes all over the world.

OT: Do you think there is still some part of Delhi that is hidden from tourists?

Dibakar Banerjee: Sarai Rohilla. It’s an amazing mix of tacky modern and crumbling medieval so common to all old Indian inner cities — now sadly forgotten. Shops, homes, eateries, a railway station, gambling joints, junkies, tuition classes, beauty parlours, fragrant kachoris, malai chai, all jostling for space within fifty yards of each other.

OT: Is there a location you’re dying to film in?

Dibakar Banerjee: There are several: Rajasthan, the Cyclades in Greece and Venice — for the alleys, not the canals.

OT: What sort of books do you read when travelling? And what are you reading presently?

Dibakar Banerjee: The kinds that pack easy and don’t tear. I’m currently reading Orhan Pamuk’s Snow and The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics.

OT: Any travel disasters? Your worst trip?

Dibakar Banerjee: The disasters usually happen when you land in India. Like the time a priceless Turkish handicraft carpet — the last piece of its kind — went missing at Delhi airport. The baggage handling official on duty felt compelled to inform us that it was not his duty to look after our luggage. I was about to let loose my choicest Punjabi expletives when I found it quietly tucked under a shaft below the conveyor belt. Maybe someone wanted it more than we did.