Meghalaya beauty on screen

The beauty of Meghalaya’s hills is featured in a Bengali film that was released on August 2. Samsara, produced by three Shillongites Utpal Das, Bobby Dey and Bivash Chakravarty (Indrajit), and directed by Kolkata-based Sudeshna Roy and Abhijit Guha, is the story of three friends played by Ritwick Chakraborty, Rahul Banerjee and Indrajit. The film was first shot in Kolkata for 11 days and later it was shot in several rural locations in Meghalaya. The shooting spots, mainly in Sohra and Umnsning, are exceptionally enchanting. All the sites were meticulously chosen by the directors and it is a laudable work as Meghalaya is an album of natural beauty. In the 1960s, renowned director Ritwik Ghatak shot his film ‘Meghe Dhaka Tara’ in Shillong. The beautiful landscape, the dense pine forests and the river flowing between two hills as viewed from Reid Provincial Chest Hospital in Jhalupara were breath-taking. Meghalaya has the potential to be the protagonist in any story. Its beauty is yet to be explored to the fullest by the film industry. It is a great achievement for the trio to produce a movie that glorifies the state. (Contributed by Uma Purkayastha)