Raima recalls…

Mona

A sex worker in Sonagachi, Kolkata, is what actor Raima Sen will be seen essaying next on silver screen.

Interestingly, when growing up in the City of Joy, Raima used to actually go to the red light area to teach the children of sex workers. In her upcoming film Bollywood Diaries, she plays Imli, a sex worker, who is confident of making it big in cinema regardless of her background. Playing Imli took Raima to her hometown and she couldn’t be happier, for she was spoiled silly on the sets. However, in her director KD Satyam, she found a hard task master, who was not easy to please. “For my director, every single thing needed to be perfect. It wasn’t easy, but I enjoyed the whole process,” shares Raima from Goa where she is on a short holiday before she gets busy promoting her film.

Mother Moon Moon Sen, Grandmother Suchitra Sen and sister Riya in the same field, how is it being in the family of actors?

“Well, it’s all good. When I am compared to my grandmom, I take that as a compliment,” shares Raima, who is happy that both Riya and she work in different kinds of films ensuring there is no competition and in fact, there has never been a case that the same film was offered to both of them. To hone her craft, Raima reads autobiographies of actors, her last being that of Charlie Chaplin. “It’s my effort to get into the mind of the acting giants and how life and work panned out for them,” says Raima, happy at all the travel that her work entails.

During the last decade-and-a-half that she has been part of the Hindi and Bengali film industry, she has seen them grow. “I am glad the way Bollywood has let content come alongside commercial potboilers. In Bengali cinema stories have always been beautiful, bringing films on national and international levels. Over the years, technology has grown but there is way more that it can do.”

A dream role? “I would love to do a period film…historic backdrops are impressive and there is great learning fromold texts,” she signs off.