Darjeeling unlimited

Fri Jul 08 2011: 
The film industry is back to romancing West Bengal’s favourite hill station.
Ranbir Kapoor and the Barfee crew may have found the love they received in the hills of Darjeeling a bit too overwhelming. They had to pack up and leave because the crowds were unmanageable, but it seems that Darjeeling is back in the good books of film crews. 
Back in the 1960s and ‘70s, the likes of Rajesh Khanna, Zeenat Aman and Sharmila Tagore would regularly camp at Darjeeling in order to shoot song sequences. In fact, there was a time when it was said that you couldnot visit the hill-station without bumping into Rajesh Khanna (remember Mere sapnon ki rani?) or Sharmila Tagore. Thanks to Aradhana and Anurodh, the idea of visiting a hill-station like Darjeeling suddenly became a middle-class aspiration.  Before Yash Chopra discovered Switzerland and introduced us to the snow-capped Alps and the idea of romance there with actresses dancing in pastel chiffon saris, Darjeeling’s tea gardens were the hot favourites. The last Bollywood biggies to shoot here were Shah Rukh Khan, who shot portions of his home production Main Hoon Na at the famous St Paul’s School in 2003, and Saif Ali Khan, who shot a song sequence for Parineeta. But then the hills became a little hostile and a little out-of-reach, because of the Gorkhaland movement. Now that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has signed an agreement with the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha to resolve the age-old Gorkhaland issue, the Queen of Hills seems to be back in action with filmmakers. 

The Bengali film industry, Tollywood, has had an especially close relationship with Darjeeling. In his 1969 film Kanchenjunga, Satyajit Ray used the hill station almost as a character. In the Aparna Sen-Soumitra Chattrejee film Baksha Badal too, the hill-station played a prominent part in the unfolding of the story. In 2008, Anjan Dutt based his relationship thriller, Chowrasta, in Darjeeling, using the scenic beauty as a foil to narrate a story of love and deprivation.
Tollywood is back to romancing its favourite hill-station. The music launch of Anjan Dutt’s latest, Ranjana Ami aar Ashbo Na, was held there a fortnight ago. Portions of Kaushik Ganguly’s Laptop, were shot there too. “I spent my formative years here, so it is natural that I keep coming back to shoot here,” says Dutt.
Anurag Basu, who is planning to shoot his Ranbir Kapoor-Priyanka Chopra starrer Barfee here, says, “There were some minor misunderstandings during the first schedule, which is why we decided to wrap up. We will be back in September. The script demands that the film be shot here,” says Basu. 

-indian Express