Govind Nihalani must be credited with an exemplary film Deham (Body) which puts India on the site map of futuristic cinema. While some of his armchair compatriots have been merely talking from the pulpit about convergence, technology, etc. taking over our lives, Nihalani, a filmmaker with as much vision as edge, cutting of course, has gone ahead and shown the cinema community — in India and globally too — that yes India too can cull out a sc-fi film. Scheduled to be released in Mumbai on May 3, Govind Nihalani was privileged to have been able to showcase his film to a group of IT professionals, scientists and social scientists. The day after that Govind Nihalani spoke to SCREEN. Excerpts:

You screened the film to a niche audeince, how did they respond to Deham?
It was very positive and the film was understood as it should have been. The issues the film was dealing with got across to them very well, the comments that followed in the panel discussion indicated that they took the film seriously and also thought that the film was trying to engage itself with those issues in a genuinely serious and in-depth manner. What came across very clearly was that technology was moving very fast. The play ‘Harvest’ on which the film is based was written in 1997, today in five years’ time, technology has grown so fast, that what the film says will take place in 2022, people say will take place earlier. Technology is moving very fast — be it biotechnology or communication technology.

That was because you had the ‘ideal audience’; how do you think it will go down with the general audience?
I have no illusions about the fact that this film is not something people will go to expecting a fulfilled evening. This film is something that will engage the audience hopefully on an emotional as well as a cerebral level. And I don’t have any presumption that this film will satisfy everybody.

At one point organ sales were news and a concern; today it is genetic engineering and MNCs come to India for blood samples, etc. So when you see Deham it is very disturbing that in the next 20 years or sooner this is going to be our life.

Was your purpose to startle us?
I haven’t done anything in Deham, which wasn’t there in the original. The spirit and essence of the play is there. I have not tried to sensationalise it or over- dramatise it. When I read the play I had the same feeling, though it was a dark vision, but it was a vision, which made us alert to what could happen. We want to be prepared for the kind of issues and questions technology raised vis-à-vis the developing society, which has very little power of resistance. I found not only was this vision original, but put across in a manner which wasn’t at all sensational, and not dependent on heavy technology to convey the message but depend on simple human characters — a family.

Two things emerged out of the play when I read it. There was a time when you had armies moving into nations, then came the traders (East India Company), now technology has added a new dimension to the colonisation of man. Technology never comes by itself, it is always accompanied by a certain ideology, by the potential to influence thinking and change. Technology has very strong positive qualities just as it has negative if you use it wrongly. So you have to be very careful, as to what the import is going to be and how life is going to change, as technology has tremendous potential for change. With technology, the important thing that happens is that devices are developed to give you more and more comfort, give you more and more pleasure, increase your leisure time, then give you pleasurable activities for your leisure. So what is happening is that pleasure is the new means of capturing the societies which are poor, because they cannot afford that kind of pleasure.

In the film the mother is totally reduced to a vegetable, because the pleasures that she has been deprived for life — the pleasure of the image, the pleasure of the sound, the pleasure of the video — all render her totally non-resistant, when she sees the wrong son being taken away she doesn’t protest. Look at the rebel son. He was a gigolo and his clientele was from both genders, but he had the spirit of not being cowed down, he values his freedom, his ability to make his own choices more than anything else. He refuses lucrative offers from his clients only because he doesn’t want to get bogged down. Even a person a like that is seduced by the power of images, at the promise of pleasure. Developing countries have to be careful about it and the whole thing if we can’t resist it, we should make it work in a very positive manner. It says two things: (a) we have the power to say ‘no’, (b) you have to make decisions, you have the power to dictate your terms. But only if you are ready to take a little risk where you are ready to maintain and retain your dignity as a human being.

Like Kittu’s character Jaya?
She goes beyond, but she is a human being and she will not accept any compromise on her humanness. Jaya progresses from the wife who is struggling to survive to the person who is faced with a strong dilemma, isolation and then the proposition. She is trying to resist being dehumanised and being turned into a child-bearing machine, she discovers that she has a choice as a woman — but having passed that stage she also realises that she not only is a woman, but also a human being. And at no stage will she compromise on her dignity both as a woman and as a human being. Now this was the vision of ‘Harvest’ that fascinated me. I found it very original, very effective, and fresh and yet as you very rightly said very dark. It’s not a film where the characters walk into the sunset. But it is precisely what we need to discuss after you see the film.

Jaya comes across as the strongest character in the film. She doesn’t accept what technology has to offer at a compromise.
That is the point she arrives at during the film. In the very first scene, when Om says he’s going to this company to pledge his body and, he is not aware of what is in store for him. She says that: ’till the extent that you were selling your blood, I accepted. But now you are selling parts of your body, which I am not going to accept, so please don’t go.’ She is ready to make a compromise, she is a survivor, but beyond a point she’s not ready to make a compromise. Right from the beginning you have the seeds in this woman to go for all or broke. We know this, but we don’t know how suddenly she will discover the strength within her. She has lost everything. The mother-in-law is locked in a video couch, the husband has gone, and the husband’s brother has gone. She’s alone. She says: ‘I have discovered this new formula for living. Even if I lose my life. I have nothing left except my death and my pride.’ She says to the man (Virgil) and he says ‘Pride? That’s a poor man’s fancy dress.’ She says ‘okay I might die poor. But I will die knowing that such a powerful man couldn’t do a thing.’ So there are questions that go beyond technology. The message of the film is that those who produce technology must think of the society, the people at the receiving end. They should be treated more as human beings rather than so many consumers. This is a kind of warning bell for those who are producing technology. That you can function well only if you treat your consumer with humanness. That is the new equation.

Deham also tackles the issue of genetic merchandising.
There’s a very interesting aspect to it. A person like Virgil who is going from body to body - getting his brain transplanted into a younger body. Technology is at a point where you can transplant brain form one body to another not just once but several times, he’s gone through two transplants earlier. But at the same time, he has the human desire to have a child, but not the experience, so he will send his semen to Jaya. Look at the ambivalence, the man wants a child and says there is nothing more joyful than having a child. But will not take the risk. The questions that are going to be raised tomorrow are as Jaya asks: You are this body but you are not Jeetu. She is ready to compromise to that extent. ‘It is Jeetu’s body but whose child is it? At the end of it I am willing to compromise and all I get is a mechanical process by which I am impregnated.’ Therefore she demands she would make the choice and wants ‘real hands touching me’. Those societies have lost the courage, to take a risk: ‘Your atmosphere is too polluted.’ It is these layers of complexities, ambivalences.

Have you stuck to the original play?
The play stands on its own. As a filmmaker I make the choices to make the theme more cinematic. I want to be true to the spirit of the play. Jeetu’s outside activities, the club scenes have been added. They have been hinted at in the play. The gay friends don’t exist. I wanted to picturise it as soon we might face a situation where a body becomes the currency for survival. Even today the body is being used sexually and trading organs. So I wanted to make a statement where the body becomes a currency. A play has its limitations but in a medium like cinema it can be visually created. So it’s not right to compare the play and film. What has to be seen is whether the spirit of the play has been retained in the film or not. Any work of literature I take up I understand the essence and ideology myself and if I find it agrees with my sensibility then I proceed with it. And before I actually start to write and transport to film I always consult the writer and discuss my interpretation of the work.

Is Deham a statement you are making about the issue of organs sale?
Deham is as you know based on the play ‘The Harvest’ by Manjula Padmanabhan. She wrote it on the theme of man in the new millennium, which was the theme of the competition organised by the Onassis Foundation. It was against the background of sale of human organs. The issue we are dealing with in the film and the issue at the centre of the story is the human body, as a source of harvesting. Different parts of the body being used as a currency for survival. Someone can sell the body, others can use the body. Like a gigolo who services both male and female clients. So the body becomes a centre here in terms of a currency. The other factor is how developing societies are going to deal with the onslaught of technology and resources of the advanced society. What kind of relationship are we going to have ? Are we going to be consumers, receivers of this technology and become just customers or consumers or do we have a choice? Or can we think of terms to accept the technology, because we cannot stop it.

The film is not anti-technology. The film is about raising the consciousness about the kind of effect technology can have on your personal life, on your body, relationships, lifestyle. So the film is dealing with these questions there are no straight answers for that we want to survive, we want to make use of technology the best way it can be done. The other element that emerges in the film is the new colonisation that is taking place. Previously armies conquered nations, then trade became a big context - like the East India Company. Now it is technology. In developing societies, where there is lot of deprivation at various levels, technology brings comfort/pleasure — that makes you happy, passive and receptive. Technology uses pleasure to enslave, and that is where we have to be careful, because when we become passive receivers we become no more than consumers. You have to assert your humanness and say yes, we are under developed and we will receive your technology but we cannot be treated like users but like humans.

How has Deham been received internationally?
The Film Festival London was excellent, people had no problem understanding the story. They were appreciative of the issues. London had a special show for students which is part of their taking good films to students for the festival - 350 students from schools and judging from the kind of questions that followed it was encouraging to see how the film went across to them — they didn’t miss anything, any of the nuances. The film goes beyond the boundaries of language, the culture (the film is based in an old chawl in Mumbai) , nationality and people can relate to it as though it can happen anywhere. If properly promoted and properly brought to the attention of audiences there will be viewers. It’s a niche film, one was aware of that even before the film was made. But the film has to be taken to the niche audience. Today when so many events, etc. are taking up media attention you have to really make your presence felt, so that the audience is aware of your film. The tragedy is that when we come to the tail end of a film like this we have nothing left to promote it, no budget left.

Hazar Chaurasi Ki Ma was based on a literary work...
A lot of my films have been based on published work - Tamas was based on a novel, it won three National Awards. Ardh Satya was inspired by a short story. Then I made three films based on three European plays/classics for Doordarshan.

But it’s not a very common occurrence in Indian cinema. Why?
Perhaps they don’t find them as vehicles for the popular genre. There you need more entertainment-oriented stories perhaps. And not issue based stories. All good literature that concerns some serious aspect of life and that is not perhaps suitable for commercial films.

You made Drohkal at the time when attention was on criminalisation of the police force. Ardh Satya too was a film of its time. And now Deham has its own topicality and concerns. Was it a conscious move to take up the then concerns and make it into a film?
As you have very rightly noted, my earlier work has always been inspired in responses to what was happening around me at that time. But when I read ‘Harvest’, Manjula’s book, I suddenly felt that seriousness of the concerns remains, yet it gives me the chance to deal with something with a different time area and at the same time the concerns were equally strong for our life, which may affect us in the next few years and were serious. To that extent it gave me a different direction and at the same time kept the continuity of my concerns.

I consider Deham as one of my important films because after this I can see inside me as a filmmaker, where I want to change direction, what direction I don’t know - I can see that restlessness.

—Piroj Wadia
pirojwadia@hotmail.com