Nayak is a remarkably nuanced portrait of the life of a cinema superstar that is as powerful today as it was fifty years ago. Actress Sharmila tagore, who also starred in the movie, said in a press release, ” Nayak is a very important film in my career as an actor. This novelization of its brilliant original screenplay, fifty years after the film was made, is testimony to Satyajit Ray’s enduring genius as a storyteller.”
The story follows actor Arindam Mukherjee on his way to Delhi aboard to receive a national award. In the restaurant car of the train, he encounters Aditi Sengupta, editor of a magazine for modern women. Aditi is not star-struck like her co-passengers, but decides to interview Arindam to gain more subscribers for her magazine. During the conversation, which unfolds over the next twenty-four hours, Arindam slowly sheds his carefully put together image of glamour and easy living, revealing his insecurities, fears and haunting regrets, and a phantasmagoria of old relationships, severed friendships and betrayals engulfs him.
Bhaskar Chattopadhyay is an author and translator with ten published books in the last four years. His translations include the anthology 14: Stories That Inspired Satyajit Ray and his original novels include Patang, Penumbra andHere Falls the Shadow.
Published by HarperCollins India, Nayak: The Hero will be out on April 25, 2018.