Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; October 1, 2015)
After Sujoy Ghosh's short film Ahalya, featuring Radhika Apte and Soumitra Chatterjee, ad filmmaker Jaydeep Sarkar is set to release a 20-minute short, Nayantara's Necklace. Konkana Sen Sharma plays the title role with Tillotama Shome as Alka and it revolves around their growing friendship when they meet every afternoon at the bus stop waiting to pick up their kids. "Alka is a simple, salwar-kurta clad mother and, enamoured by the westernised Konkana, she aspires to be like her. The unlikely friendship between two diverse personalities later turns into as obsession," says Jaydeep, who shot the film, which is set in Mumbai, for over two-and-a-half days during the monsoon of 2014. "Konkana and Tillotama are friends in real life too and the charm that they have brought to the screen is spectacular."
There were extensive rehearsals before they started shooting. There were script reading sessions too with the actors. "With the inputs they gave us, my co-writer, Aparna Singh, and I made substantial changes in the script, two days before we rolled. It changed the story for better," admits Jaydeep.
He admits that the idea came to him from an article in a newspaper about a suburban family in Mumbai. "Tillotama and I have been keen to work together and this idea interested us the most," he says.
Gulshan Devaiah will be seen in a special appearance, playing the role of a South Indian IT engineer.