Let the tiger be!

 (An edited version of this piece appeared in TOI, Pune, on June 24, 2024)

As a wildlife and birding enthusiast, I take every opportunity to escape the dystopia of our concrete jungle and find refuge in green spaces. My outings have always been deeply rewarding, for the forests are full of blessings. I’ve seen hundreds of butterflies descend, angel-like, under dense river-side canopy for mud puddling and witnessed plum-headed parakeets flock to a leafless tree dotted with hollows that make up their nests. When a paradise flycatcher suddenly crosses your path, its long white tail flying like a streamer, the moment feels touched by magic. The trees have stories to tell too - the ghost trees (Karu) of Central India light up like spirits in the moonlight, the Sal forests of Corbett tower over like gentle green giants, the crocodile bark trees have water running inside them (a few strikes at the wood are known to send a gush flowing out) and oh, the meadows, with their dewy grasses and deep secrets! The jungle offers peace to anyone seeking it.

Yet, this peace is shattered the moment the tiger enters the scene. The singular, targeted chase for the tiger is the very anticlimax of the excitement one feels when this gorgeous big cat shows itself, as a part of the bigger jungle story. The forest, a slow reveal full of drama and little subplots around every corner, is rendered a big blur by safari vehicles zipping through the mud tracks in the mad rush for the tiger. At one point in my recent trip to Jim Corbett National Park, the famous Paarwali weaved her way through the grasslands, her agile body shining golden in the morning sun. Hordes of tourist gypsies began crowding, predicting her movement and when she’ll hit the road “for a head-on shot”.

She did eventually come to the mud track. By then, forest guides and drivers, spurred on by excited, competing tourists, had lined up their vehicles bumper to bumper on the road. The tigress, mother to cubs whose playground currently is the Dhikala grassland, looked on nervously at the man-made traffic, putting one unsure foot after another till she found a clearing. For those few moments, in her own mighty kingdom, she looked diminished. It was a heartbreaking sight.

The recent picture of a tiger from Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve, lost in a sea of tourist vehicles, tells a similar, distressing story. Everyone deserves to see the tiger in its natural habitat, but could we please step back a little? Follow the rules, maybe? This mad quest to get ‘just a little’ closer to the animal amounts to harassment of a beautiful, wild creature. The forest department, when willing, can often curtail these excesses, as we witnessed in Nawegaon-Nagzira Tiger Reserve just a few days ago. They efficiently rationed out safari vehicles in batches of 3 to see a tigress and her cubs cooling off in a water hole. The forest staff, perched on a machan in 44 degree Celcius sun, kept an eye on the watch, motioning the vehicles to move away once they’d had their fill. But, as wildlife biologist Neha Sinha tweeted, “The government can’t be everywhere, practically speaking.” The buck stops with us, the tourists. “…We need to speak up when there and stop others. This is really about keeping voluntary standards.”

 We owe the tiger respect and some space. Let’s show some grace to this graceful animal. Let it just be.

Father Figure

(Putting up the unedited version of Sachin Khedekar interview that appeared in Pune Mirror on 24 Sept, Sunday. Pic courtesy: Nikhil Ghorpade)

Sachin Khedekar is in a happy place right now. It’s almost as if he’s dropped the weight of serious, heavyweight roles that he’s famous for, relaxed his shoulders and allowed a lighter side of him to show up, surrendering himself to a few new, young directors who’ve dared to see him in a softer light. From essaying the roles of historical stalwarts like Subhash Chandra Bose and B R Ambedkar, to playing powerful patriarchs in films like Astitva, Mi Shivajiraje Bhosale Boltoy, Ajcha Divas Majha, Kaksparsh, the actor is now exploring gentler shades of masculinity with the recently released Muramba and upcoming Baapjanma. It has been, he agrees, a journey of liberation. “I have been bogged down with roles which placed a lot of burden on my shoulders. It went against my personality. However, over the years, these roles sort of rubbed off on me. They enriched me and I was a changed man,” Khedekar traces his evolution from an easy-going person to an actor whose stature was magnified by the meaty roles he depicted.

So it was a refreshing surprise when Varun Narvekar approached him to play a sensitive, emotionally engaged father in his debut Muramba. “I don’t know how he saw that side in me and I don’t know how he convinced me but I followed that text very closely. Nipun(Dharmadhikari, who debuts as a director with Baapjanma) comes with a different set of sensibilities. Playing Bhaskar Pandit was another high as an actor,” says Khedekar of his character in Baapjanma.

A story of a father, a busy, self-absorbed man who fails to notice his children have moved away from him till loneliness hits him, the film goes about dislodging the parent from his pedestal, making him communicate with his children as individuals, to find a place in their lives once more. “Bhaskar  is a careerist, disciplined person with little time for anything else and one day, he decides to chuck it all and make amends. But of course he can’t change overnight. What impressed me is that Nipun could write this slow, difficult journey of a man completely rooted in today’s times, with a lot of humour. He builds up this huge drama scene and then writes this one line that makes it light as a balloon,” he says, palpably excited about the young blood in the Marathi film industry and the possibilities they offer to ‘senior’ actors like him. “After 30 years of working even I’m looking for people who can look at me in a different light. How does one grow as an artiste otherwise? Artistes like Varun and Nipun are assets for the industry and we should nurture them,” Khedekar says.

Riding on the wave of three releases (Muramba, Prasad Oak directed Kachcha Limbu and Baapjanma) this year after a dry spell, and rejuvenated with new creative collaborations, Khedekar is looking forward to push the envelope as an actor even further. Now that he’s portraying mellower men on screen after presenting many ‘men of the world’, does he ever see himself challenging the ideals of masculinity by playing the role of a homosexual, especially when Marathi cinema is exploring sexuality on screen? “That would be the ultimate breaking bad. It should be very interesting,” he says, aligning with British actor Colin Firth’s quote he recently tweeted. “If you have any prejudices based on religion or race or sex or nationality or anything like that – well you’re in the wrong profession completely,” Firth quotes his drama school principal. “I have always believed that as an actor who’s working on the character’s mind, if you’re not open to ideas and different views, nothing will seep in,” Khedekar believes.

That’s one reason why today’s social media scene, where views and counterviews flit about a polarised cyberspace, disturbs him greatly. “The social media offers both sides to issues. They think we are putting out two sides so you have to select one. But I don’t want to select anything! Can there be a being like that? An actor’s being should be like that,” he says, also reflecting on some of his roles getting claimed by different political outfits. “I have no political ambitions at all,” he tells us on a day that Kamal Hassan joining politics is making news. In fact, Khedekar thinks endorsing any particular ideological position undercuts his place as an artiste, who has to absorb and convincingly bring different characters’ beliefs on screen.

 However, there are issues he personally feels for that he would like to endorse through his profession. “It’s the little things really – like following traffic rules, paying taxes. Why can’t we do it? It will make us a better country if we do it. If I’m offered a film where I can endorse these concerns, I’ll be happy,” says Khedekar. Till that comes his way, however, he’s happy having fun in Golmaal 4 and Judwaa 2. “I’m a professional actor at the end of the day. 70% of my work has been in Hindi films after all,” he signs off, but not before underlining that right now, quality remains the stronghold of Marathi cinema.

Not just Mrs Aamir Khan

(Published in Sakal Times on June 23)
Kiran Rao is distinctly her own self — enormous talent, intelligence, warmth, simplicity all packed into one small frame. After directing the much-acclaimed Dhobhi Ghaat, she is now presenting Anand Gandhi’s debut feature film Ship Of Theseus. In a free-flowing chat with Renu Dhole, she talks about her passion for cinema, bringing up son Azaad and co-existing with mainstream Bollywood

It’s great that you’re backing a film that would’ve found it hard to get a release in India, given the fact that the audience here is not exposed to alternative, independent voices like Anand’s. But a lot of the press around the movie is now calling it Kiran Rao’s Ship of Theseus. When you associated yourself with the film, did you ever fear that your name would overshadow the filmmaker’s?

There was that concern, yes. I was worried that might happen. But it was short-lived. Anand has a unique voice. I may be better known, so perhaps it’s easier to connect my name to the film. But once you watch the trailers, once you reach the theatre, you’ll see that this is completely his film. I can’t take away from what is entirely his credit. My association with the film wasn’t planned. I just happened to see the film and it turned out to be such a beautiful, complete film, you can tick all the boxes — novel idea, great cinematography, great writing? Check. Check. Check. It has a very strong philosophical core that the audience can unravel in their minds over time, that perhaps demands repeat viewing. It’s not for easy consumption. You’ll have to step out of your comfort zone to engage with the film. I knew this is the kind of film that needs nurturing. I initially doubted the difference that an individual could make, and my ability to do it as well. But whatever little goodwill or celeb quotient I have, I thought the film could make use of that.

Now that you’ve stepped into it, do you plan to carry forward your support for meaningful, independent cinema in any serious way?

I’ve not planned to do it in any long term way. I’ll see the outcome of this, first. Also, I have such a limited bandwidth, being a mother and a filmmaker wanting to tell stories myself. But if the need arises, if there’s something really great that needs to be supported and nobody is doing it, I’ll definitely do it.

You are giving this film a limited release, but the online ‘vote for the film in your city’ is a an interesting strategy. Do alternative films need alternative methods of distribution?

Definitely. Filmmakers also have to realise is that the scenario is changing. We need to look beyond theatrical releases and explore other avenues of exhibiting films like online distribution. For someone sitting in Jamshedpur, there should be other options to see good films than torrent downloads; and it’s patronising to assume that good cinema is received only in big cities. Also life has changed so much. People sometimes even miss watching a film that they really want to, in the theatres. And then it’s gone in a matter of weeks. Films, like books, should have a longer life and the filmmaker should be able to earn from it for a long time. I realised that more people watched Dhobhi Ghaat on flights rather than the theatres. So we can’t shy away from these alternatives. Also, getting a big release is very hard — there’s a big machinery that goes into it. And not all films can bring in the box office numbers in spite of being good films. It’s actually been a passion project for me — finding alternative exhibition spaces for different kinds of cinema. There are so many preview theatres, halls that are lying dormant. Could we make use of such spaces — clubs, theatres — where you pay a small amount and enjoy good films? We need to explore that.

You speak so passionately about cinema. Does motherhood, which is equally emotionally consuming, ever conflict with your love for films, your aspirations as a filmmaker?

It’s a tricky thing you know. Life is certainly richer, happier because of my son. Had I not loved films so much, I would’ve probably spent all my time with him, taking him along to enjoy the beautiful greenery in the monsoon. But I realise that I won’t be a happy person if I did only that. Films are what drive me. So I’m trying to see how to balance it out. But if it comes to a toss-up, I have no doubts which side will win. I’ve not gone there yet. Luckily for me, this is not a 9 to 5 job. And I have the infrastructure at home, with my husband and mother in law…I can leave him at home reassured that he will be taken good care of. But yes, writing is difficult. It’s difficult to find that space in your mind again, to immerse yourself completely into something, to leave everything behind. You wonder if you’ve begun to lose that edge — that’s a fear with all of us. So in October last year, I got back to reading old books, trying to find ways to get the writing started. But with motherhood, all these things, these spaces in your mind, turn into mush — though it’s a happy mush.

Do you ever see yourself directing a film without writing it yourself?

I’ve begun to think that is a possibility now. The writing has to be superlative enough to make me want to direct it — and that’s rare. Also, I’ve realised that I don’t make films to just make films. I make films so that I can write, I can immerse myself in music, I can think about how to shoot it. It’s a coming together of all the things that I love about the creative process.

When it comes to writing or directing, your sensibilities remain very unconventional vis a vis mainstream Bollywood. Is it difficult to retain them when you’re surrounded by company that represents everything you are not?

I remember feeling a bit out of the mould initially when I was exposed to this company. But I would observe and learn from this exposure to different people. It wasn’t that difficult. Being in strange company went on to add layers to my understanding of human nature. Also, I have to say, it did change my attitude to the mainstream. I was a hardcore film school person dismissive of the mainstream. But I have come to learn that different things drive different people. And of course, age has made me more understanding of different people in the industry. I am however critical of the fact that there is not enough rigour, not enough engagement with the craft of filmmaking that’s practised in the industry. People are in awe of 3 Idiots because it had great content and did so well commercially. But Raju spent 2 years working on the script. You have to give it that kind of time. Most people in the industry I feel are happy to make movies without giving it that kind of time and thought.

Being surrounded by mainstream Bollywood also comes with its own pressures. Was it difficult to be different, to hold your own, when all you are expected to do is augment your star husband’s identity?

I used to be amused at the kind of attention my clothes, my looks attracted initially. Fashion wags telling me how to dress, film magazines advising me what kind of films I should make — it used to amuse me. But then I understood that being the companion of a much-adored figure in the industry makes curiosity natural. It didn’t affect me deeply though. I of course realise the responsibility of being seen with Aamir — I have to maintain the dignity of public life. I can’t go and just do my own thing — I feel protective of his stature. But now I don’t mind dressing up and going out — why not? I’m enjoying it, as long as nobody is asking me to wear a gown! (laughs)

When do we see you directing next?
I’m working on a script, yes. But let’s see when it happens. Writing is a little slow now.

Words of wisdom

In an age where a large chunk of lyrics one is subjected to includes distinctly unpoetic objects like fevicol, zandu baam and the ilk, it takes a while to declutter and tune into the songs of Prasoon Joshi. His words make you breathe out...think tu dhoop hain, chham se bikhar. To be able to write songs about freedom, the irrepressible human spirit and faith that fuses the beloved and God into one, in today's world, must feel like a blessing to the poet-ad man- lyricist. “I do feel very lucky that I don't have to stoop to levels that make me uncomfortable. I'm able to do meaningful work that gives me joy,” Joshi says, adequately grateful.

The beauty of his imagery, he says, comes from a childhood spent in small towns. “I was born in the mountains. I have very fond memories of growing up there.” It is the innocence of nature he's seen so closely and the charm of an unfettered life that never fail to connect with his audience, he thinks. “However embroiled you become in your urban existence, at the end of the day, one yearns for sukoon (peace, relief). Everybody wants to come home, be with their family, children. The world has become very mechanised, but we will always want that organic connect with life. I feel blissful to be able to write about these things, and share it with others,” he says.

Joshi has now moved a step further, writing the script, screenplay and dialogues for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, a biopic on India's champion sportsman Milkha Singh. “I took two years to write the script. And I'd decided I wouldn't do the fourth thing for this film – write songs,” he tells us. But that feather too is already in his cap. How did he manage to do it? “On one level, it was easy, because I already was into the subject. On another level, it was a challenge because I had already written so much about it, what more could I say in the songs? So I took a break. I went into a different zone and wrote the songs quite late. I wanted the songs to add another dimension to the film,” he shares.

After giving so much of himself to the songs, doesn't it hurt that the lyrics sometimes are lost on the crowd if a film doesn't do well? “It surprises me, the way this equation works. I was disappointed when my songs for London Dreams, which I consider amongst my better work, didn't do well. But then, my work in Delhi 6 was appreciated in spite of the film not doing well. I think songs do have a life of their own,” he feels, adding, “Chittagong, for example, was a forgotten movie. But I got the National Award for my work in it. So I believe good work is good work.” He's also written songs for Satyagraha, Prakash Jha's next on the anti-corruption movement. “I had written the song Mashal as a response to the Anna Hazare movement and Prakash Jha picked it up for the film,” he informs. How the poet captures the angst, the young energy pouring out on the streets, in his words, should be something to look forward to. His tradition of bunking the trend, though, continues...

A grief like no other

Sonali Deraniyagala’s Wave is a difficult book to read. I had to put down this memoir of life after the Tsunami, several times, just to catch up on my breath.

The writer and her family – husband Steve, two boys Vikram and Malli, and parents – were vacationing at a beach side hotel in Yala, Sri Lanka, when they saw the “sea come in” for them. Not yet comprehending the strange sight, they fled towards the hotel entrance where a jeep was waiting to rescue them. Her parents left behind unwarned in the urgency of running away, the four were bundled into a jeep that could only go so far before the wave caught up with it. In an instant, everything was wiped out. When Sonali regained consciousness – sand in mouth, naked from waist down, badly bruised and barely able to breathe – the dream-like landscape of devastation hardly registered in her mind. There was no chance her boys could’ve survived, she knew.

From then on, along the writer, we’re witness to a pain so raw and cruel, the repertoire of ordinary human experience seems unable to accommodate it. It is so far removed from the wailing and shrieking that we’re used to associating with suffering, it is shocking to see how quietly, insidiously it distorts and destroys, inch by inch, any sense of normality in the grieving person’s life. For a fellow survivor, a small boy who probably had lost his parents in the Tsunami, the writer has no sympathy. “I didn’t try to comfort him. Stop blubbing, I thought, shut up. You only survived because you are fat…Vik and Malli didn’t have a chance. Just shut up.”

A beautifully written, horrifying portrait of extraordinary personal suffering this book is, but step back a little and it is also a meditation on the nature of grief. Before it cuts you up to be more sympathetic to the crushing sorrows in the world, it makes you selfish, puzzled, angry, mad, distraught, suicidal. The writer goes through the whole spectrum of this bitter experience – not letting herself sleep dreading that she’ll forget her loss and will have to wake up to relearn the reality, locking herself up in a dark bedroom to avoid a world without her family, finding comfort in the suspended state of reality that alcohol and sleeping pills bring, attempting to end her life for only that seemed logical in the face of the bizarre disaster, raging against the new occupants of her parents’ house in Sri Lanka for taking away the memory of what was left of her earlier life…The darkness is relentless.

There’s no let up as she keeps revisiting Yala, to reaffirm what happened to her. Once there, she finds a sheet of Steve’s research paper. “It had survived the wave? And the monsoon in the months after? And this relentless wind?” It’s the first time Sonali allowed herself to sob. Thereafter, she went about recollecting pieces of her past life. And the narrative begins to breathe again.

It is only after two years that Sonali walked into their London home. She leads us in to the warm glow at the centre of her household. It’s one of the best passages illuminating a rich family life full of friends, laughter and sharing. You come to love the boys, getting to know how different from each other and full of promise they were. You keep step with Steve’s enthusiasm for work and life; you join in as they laugh over a family joke. And then, pulled back into a life full of their absence, you mourn it bitterly with Sonali.

It’s a dual life for her – one she lives with them in her mind, the other she lives without them. She does move on, picking up a job in the US, going back to Sri Lanka often, stopping over at London to meet their friends and imagining how Vik and Malli would’ve grown like their children. The lump in your throat never quite goes away.

The book ends with Sonali finding it in her to live with their memory, the picture of her family frozen in sunshine in her mind. Never again can I say Tsunami without thinking of Sonali and what she lost. Her sparse, unsentimental prose has had the profoundest effect on me.

Rings a bell

Sujay Dahake’s debut feature film Shala, based on the Milind Bokil’s novel by the same name, has managed to generate a curiosity that is heartening for an industry which sees only a handful of successes per hundred films it produces every year. The 25-year-old filmmaker capitalises on the universal appeal of the subject — the sweet nostalgia of the growing-up years in school — and makes a film that is bound to touch a chord with everybody.

Shala succeeds in painting colourful vignettes of school life — the classroom banter, the cliques and the rivalries, the tenderness of the first crush, the love-hate dynamics between boys and girls, various shades of student-teacher relationship, the tensions between adolescents and parents, the thrill of sports day and the anxiety before class tests and results, the loss of innocence and coming of age. Much of the evocative beauty of this film lies in the way the Spanish cinematographer Diego Romero shoots his frames; they’re rich and wonderfully textured.

The performances, especially by the leads Ketaki Mategoankar and Anshuman Joshi, bring a delightful freshness to the film. The young romance between them is handled with a lot of compassion and tenderness by the director.

This, however, becomes both the highlight and the limitation of the film. In vividly portraying the rise and fall of their heartbeats, their wild hopes and disappointments, the film ends up overemphasising the love angle. The other aspects of school life, the sub-plots involving other interesting characters, the era of Emergency that the film is set against, are overshadowed. The track tracing the much-gossiped relationship between the young and popular teacher Manjrekar sir (Santosh Juvekar) and the new, convent-educated girl in class, who eventually commits suicide, is abandoned unsatisfactorily.

Though stereotyping teachers is common amongst school children, the characters of headmaster Dileep Prabhavalkar and teacher Amruta Khanvilkar deserved some fleshing out. Khanvilkar, in fact, exists purely to dress up fashionably and to be ogled at by testosterone-happy boys.

Also, when a film is set against a particularly significant moment of the country’s history, the context cannot but permeate the narrative. Shala, on the other hand, places the years of the repressive regime of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi firmly in the background, outside the walls of the school. The single instance where the larger political sentiment of the time seems to affect the lives of the students (in a scene where Joshi protests against the unjust behaviour of a teacher) feels like a tokenism.

But these flaws will surely be swept aside by the wave of emotion the film will elicit in the audience. The viewers’ choice award that Shala received at the recently concluded PIFF only proves this.

"It's difficult to make a good film today"

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron still lives on in our memory as one of the most remarkable films ever made. Kundan Shah speaks about his legendary satire and why he could not sustain that mark he made after his debut

Those who’ve seen Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron — the 1983 madcap satire that showed the victimisation of the common man at the hands of the corrupt, the rich and the powerful — are most likely to be disturbed by Kundan Shah’s unexplained disappearance from the movie scene. The director, who showed a remarkable spark of irreverence in his debut film, managed to make films that left no mark on the silver screen later (Kya Kehna, Hum To Mohabbat Karega, Dil Hain Tumhara, amongst others).

When I caught up with him at NFAI, in between sessions on the Uniqueness of the Indian script organised by FWA (Film Writer’s Association), Mumbai and FTII, he spoke to me about the reasons behind his absence from the contemporary film world and about his most definite work till date — JBDY. Here are some excerpts:

Why don’t you make movies anymore? So many of JBDY fans are eager to see your work again...
Nowadays, you have to write two scripts — one that will appeal to the commercial format of our times, and the other that you really want to write — even when it’s so difficult to complete one script also. Today it is very difficult to be honest and say the truth. That’s a problem for filmmakers in recent times. It’s difficult to make a good film, since you have to recover the cost of your film on the very Friday it releases.

JBDY completed 25 years two years back and the film has seen a revival of sorts. There’s a renewed interest in it — many people have written about it and it almost seems to have become some kind of a classic. Why do you think JBDY appeals to people even today, when the socio-political circumstances that contextualised your satire, have undergone a sea change?
Maybe it’s the pain ….that’s still reaching out...the pain that the characters in the movie feel.

But do people really relate to those characters anymore? While the audience in the ’80s could probably empathise with them, today, sympathy has replaced that emotion...
Probably...I’ve never thought of this actually. But yeah, perhaps that’s because audiences today are better off than the average people that the characters represented. They are a part of the system today..earlier, they were victims. Back then, we could identify our villians, now they have become faceless. Look at Vedanta — we live in a world full of Vedantas, there are many Dawoods today, corruption is everywhere. Are we a part of all this? — that’s the question we have to ask ourselves.

Naseeruddin Shah, who plays one of the lead characters in the film, has written in his reminiscences about JBDY that you, Kundan Shah, were never able to replicate the magic of that film later....
We tried making a sequel to JBDY. I wanted to make a completely political film. So I told everybody, let’s get over the first part completely. Let’s not have any hangovers. Let’s not try to replicate the experience of JBDY. But for various reasons, it didn’t work out.

Ravi Baswani, Nasser’s partner in unearthing crime in the film, passed away recently. JBDY probably gave him the best role of his life...
Oh, he was phenomenal. I remember there was this one scene where he’s waiting eagerly for a customer to walk in to his photo studio. He mistakes the first person who walks in for a customer. He doesn’t give that man a chance to speak and almost forces him to pose in front of the camera. That whole scene was so hilarious — we couldn’t get a straight shot! The camera kept shaking, because the cameraman just couldn’t stop laughing at Ravi’s histrionics. That, I think, was a great compliment to the actor in him.

What’s next for you? We hope you keep making movies...
(Shrugs) I’m thinking of what to do next. I have a few ideas, but let’s see when they work out.