Srijit Mukherji’s next

SVF Entertainment, which will collaborate with Srijit Mukherji to release his new film Yeti Obhijaan this year, has announced on Wednesday that the production company’s next project with Srijit will be a court drama on Ramendra Narayan Roy, the Prince of Bhawal Estate. Inspired by the famous Bhawal Case, Srijit Mukherji is developing a screenplay for the period drama which blends into a court drama as well. Talking about the film Srijit told Eisamay, “This court case is historical. How the case progressed and the judgement was delivered, inspired me to tell the story on the screen.” Ramendra Narayan Roy, the second prince of the Bhawal Estate - a zamindar in Bengal, spent most of his time hunting, in festivities and with women (Roy reportedly had several mistresses). By 1905 he had contracted syphilis, and five years later he went to Darjeeling, accompanied by his wife Bhibhabati Devi and a large retinue to seek treatment. However, he was reported to have died there in the same year, at 25. The reported cause of death was biliary colic and his body was supposedly cremated in Darjeeling the very next day after performing customary funerary rites. A decade later, in 1920, a sannyasi covered in ashes appeared in Dhaka and visited Joydebpur on April 12, 1921 on an elephant, finally disclosing that he was Ramendra Narayan Roy, the king of Bhawal. Srijit also informed that he is taking help to write the screenplay from two books, A Prince, Poison, and Two Funerals by Murad Fyzee and A Princely Impostor? – The Strange and Universal History of the Kumar of Bhawal by Partha Chatterjee. He also got his hands on the never-ending  printed court verdict of the Dhaka Session Court and Kolkata High Court to research on the matter. In 1975, Uttam Kumar played the prince of Bhawal in a Bengali film Sannyasi Raja. Srijit defies the idea that the film would be similar to the Uttam Kumar flick. Srijit is yet to disclose the names of the cast.