Bedo has still not come to terms with the tragedy. “I am still trying to figure out what to do with my life. How will I spend the rest of my life without my boy? For the last two years I’ve been focusing on the film. Whenever I’ve a free moment I’ve to fight back the guilt of knowing that I couldn’t save my son. If I wasn’t making the film then I’d have been in LA and maybe this tragedy wouldn’t have have happened.”
Bedo looks back on the journey since the bereavement with amazement. “I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t have Chittagong to make. I’ve dedicated Chittagong to Ishan. Shonali and I wanted to cast Ishan as the main protagonist in Chittagong. The character suited him. Finally he didn’t play the role. But he was the film’s biggest supporter. No one could dare say anything bad about the film when he was around. The film ends with him. At the end I’ve sung a song titled ‘Ishan’ which Prasoon Joshi wrote. I had to sing for my boy. It fits in beautifully with the theme. Ishan in Bengali means that first storm in the summer that takes away all the decay and stagnancy. That’s what my film is about. When Prasoon sent us the lines I immediately decided to sing it. My composer Shankar Mahadevan encouraged me. He said no one had the right to sing it as much I did. I agree.”
Now there is a memorial screening of Chittagong for Ishan on 3 October. “We wanted to do it on 13 September on Ishan’s death anniversary. But we aren’t ready. I’d like Mr Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya-di, Abhishek and Aishwarya to be present. When I had decided to make Chittagong I had gone to Jaya-di to seek her blessings. I am trying to live my life the way Ishan would have wanted me to. But it isn’t easy. Someone up there decided to take my surname (Pain) too seriously.”
