New Delhi, Feb 04: Veteran filmmaker Mrinal Sen shrugs off suggestions that he got the prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke Award rather late in the day but says that even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wondered how it took so long.
"What can I say? It is for you to judge", was all that the doyen of parallel cinema said when quizzed.
Sen said in a lighter vein that the award would help him convince his wife that she has really married a great man.
He said that he told the Prime Minister the same thing when he rang up to congratulate. The Prime Minister, he said, quipped that then it was a good thing as he had not been able to convince his wife that she has married a great man.
The octogenarian film maker said that when the Prime Minister telephoned him he also wondered as to how the honour came so late to him.
Asked as to what are his immediate plans and which film project he would now be undertaking, Sen was not forthcoming. He merely said that he has not retired and pointed out that Satyajit Ray also made films after he was bestowed with the top most award named after father of Indian cinema.
Bureau Report
