Kolkata: After ‘Mary Kom’, based on the famous Olympian's life, captured the imagination of cine-goers, a movie partly based on the life of Asian Games gold medalist Pinki Pramanik, recently hit theatres.
Director Raja Banerjee, who has made debut with ‘She’, said that it is a blend of fact and fiction, though not necessarily in equal measure, and he named the protagonist accordingly as Rinki.
There are some similarities with Pramanik's life. The real life athlete considers sprint to be her life. It is the same for Rinki, Banerjee said.
"I had spoken to the athletics fraternity in the state and some office-bearers of the state Olympic body as well to get the facts, besides sourcing materials from newspaper reports and TV interviews," he said.
Pramanik, 29, was earlier accused of rape by her live-in partner, who accused her of being a man.
The former athlete was arrested and had to undergo a gender determination test. Last year, the Calcutta High Court dropped all charges against her.
Banerjee, who had assisted veteran director Basu Chatterjee on the ‘Byomkesh Bakshi’ television series and Abbas-Mustan on Shah Rukh Khan starrer ‘Baadshah’ (1999), however, said the film could not anyway be equated with sports biopics like ‘Bhag Milkha Bhag’ or ‘Mary Kom’.
Actor Kamalika Chanda, who played the fictional Pinki in the film that released last Friday, said, "I had to gain weight as the director had told me I should develop muscles the way a female athlete does by injecting steroids."
Chanda said she had also done weight training and practised sprints days before the shooting under a physical trainer and maintained a diet chart."
Actor Rajesh Sharma, who was last seen in ‘Tanu Weds Manu Returns’, played Rink's mentor in the movie.
