Mumbai, 05 March 2023 (UTN). Dibyendu Bhattacharya is seen as a Mangalorean Udupi Shetty Anna, Dance Bar owner in Amazon Prime Video’s latest series Main Monica. The actor, who has known for films like Black Friday, Dev.D, Goal among others, and OTT projects like Sacred Games, Jamtara, Criminal Justice, Undekhi, Aar Ya Paar, Maharani 2, Rocket Boys among others is now earning praise for his performance in this latest web series. Dibyendu talks about his experience of making Main Monica.
“Main Monica is a unique title. It’s a name taken directly from R D Burman’s popular song Monica oh my darling . The show is about the whole world chasing the enigmatic beauty Monica who is the talk of the entire town. It seems that each and every person wants her”. Dibyendu further says,” The plus point of the show is that the writers Ranjeet Chitrakar, Amber Wasi, and Paromita Ganguly are the producers themselves. This way the production and creative calls are taken in harmony.
My association with them goes a long way back since 2018 when they were at the stage of conceptualizing the project and narrating the character of Mangu Anna to me,”he adds. Dibyendu plays the role of Mangu Shetty aka Mangu Anna, who runs a dance bar.“Mangu Anna’s dance bar isn’t running well and that’s when he meets Monica because of whom the business gets back on track. Mangu has a past where he was once a dreaded gangster and now has mellowed down and settled to run the dance bar and live life peacefully.
Not only is he struck by Monica’s beauty and charm, but he also has immense respect for her as she associates her with Goddess Laxmi who has brought prosperity to his business. The feeling he has for Monica is of love, respect, and awe and this is justified with his one liner ” acche ghar ki hai woh“. Mangu is a Mangalorean who speaks Tullu or Mangalorean language. “My prep was all about speaking the language and catching the essence of it. I have a few friends who are Shetty and I talked to them.
I did language-oriented prep work myself. For mangu I had many sit downs discussion about detailed nuances of Mangu’s character with Amber, Paromita and Ranjeet about small habits, past history of the character, what he wears and what he eats and the details helped me Instill realism in the character as this was a kind of role that I hadn’t done before and was looking forward to.,” he says. Sharing a memorable incident from the set, Dibyendu remembers something that happened while they were shooting outdoors.
It was one of those days when he was busy with work and was dressed as Mangu Anna.
“I was sitting in front of a house in Charkop, Kandivali, and waiting for the shoot to start. A transgender was walking by and complimented me smiling, ‘Anna bahot acche lag rahe ho, bahot jach rahe ho. Aap bahot tarakki karoge’. She showered her blessings on me. This touched my heart and is a rare incident that I will always remember.” he adds.
Mumbai-Reporter, ( Hitesh Jain ).
