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Ali's Notes

DUTT SAHAB, DIL MAT TODO
I don’t know whether I am repeating what I said many years ago but I very strongly feel I must because what I said then has still not made any impression and I want that impression to show results - soon
Why has the man who has taken some of the most dangerous human risks, ventured out on some of the most risky expeditions and missions, walked, literally walked with the threat of death as his companion, walked through raging fire of all kinds, mostly fire from the heart, fire, followed and tracked by bullet-wielding terrorists, scared of doing what he knows best, loves best, loves to make best, make films. Why is Sunil Dutt, undoubtedly, one of the greatest Indian filmmakers who has gone away from his first love, making films, and decided to give all his time fight grim battles against the ravages of cancer and AIDS, in support of the spastics, the prostitutes, against the spread of any kind of diseases that are ravaging the world, the helpless and even the heartless (read criminals) battled for peace through the streets of fire in the Punjab where one man was going all out to tear another to shreds and had turned to barbarism, battle through the lanes and bylanes of Mumbai set on fire by men and women who had sold their souls to the devil on the rampage, battles to encourage our soldiers on all kinds of fronts, his emotional battle to free his only son, Sanjay, from a vicious net he was trapped into, scared to shout out in his rich voice "start camera, start sound, start action". Why is director Sunil Dutt who has made trend-setting films like Mujhe Jeene Do, Reshma Aur Shera, Yaadein, Yeh Raaste Hai Pyar Ke and Yeh Aag Kab Bujhegi on one of the subjects which sets his heart on fire whenever there is talk about it, all his films, films which are trailblazers, films for which he sacrificed all that he had, suffered great blows, was branded a mad man, still scared of making a film today. Why is the man with arms of steel at 60-plus and a mind which never wavers not taking or even talking of taking that big step (making a film) again.

Today, he has an added advantage, a powerful actor in his son, Sanjay Dutt. They can sit together one night and think about what made them what they are. What else, but films? They must sit and come to a courageous conclusion and make a film which will teach and which will touch the hearts of millions (sorry, now billions) which is what every bleeding Indian needs today. One Dutt can work wonders. Two Dutts, one a strong father and another a bold son, who fears nothing, who has faced the worst, can work wonders which can give filmmaking a new direction.

So, come on Dutt Sahab, come on Sanju. What is stopping you from taking a step which will be accepted by millions not only in apna Bharat Mahaan but in several other countries in the world.

You have never given up, Dutt Sahab, come what may. You cannot. You will not be able to. You may not be forgiven if you don’t take this step in your life. There will be a vast void in a rich life, the very thought of which makes the heart weak, on the verge of breaking.

AAO JO RATI BEHN
My dear Rati, I knew it was too early for you to give up when you did. Give up, get married quietly and settle down to a quiet life, a perfect Mrs Rati Virwani, trying to push back a glorious past into oblivion. But something within me always told me that you couldn’t go away so early, that you couldn’t go away without giving us your best as an actress. You had just about started coming into your own when you decided to go away and that was one thing which hurt well-wishers like me. But I am and always will be an optimist. I knew it was very difficult for the rich Mrs Virwani to come back to films but I always hope against hope. I never gave hope for you as an actress. I saw the first signs of your interest in acting when Yash Chopra showed me some of your recent photographs of yours. They were indeed your recent photographs and frankly you were fascinating. You were as good as you were during those glorious days, when your great father (may his soul rest in peace) took great pains to see that you made it as a good actress. And he lived to see when you reached your peak and then shocked the world when he suddenly collapsed and died just days before your marriage. You went away and the only time we could see you was in some film or the other starring my good old friend Rati Agnihotri.

Time has passed, so much time has passed, Rati, have you realised it, Rati? An entire era flashed across my mind as I saw you raising your hand, smiling and waving out to me at the Lata Mangeshkar Concert in Mumbai. I didn’t know who you were till I saw you. It was you, Rati, my friend, an actress belonging to a good family, a great father, a great mother, some good sisters. What great times we had both in Mumbai and on outdoors. My cup of joy overflew for you when you were teamed with the Big B in Coolie. And I knew you were capable of reaching greater heights. But...

You have entered a new era, Rati, a new millennium now. I know you have signed some very good films and the way you look and the way you have maintained yourself will force filmmakers to flock to you wherever you are and I am sure they will not know what to do with you. And I know the humans who will get the greatest complex looking at you are all those "little girls" who were just born when you started your career. You are capable of doing many more things, changing many more lives, making the scene much more brighter. Thank you for coming back, Rati, so what if it’s a little late? Thank you Mr Virwani for giving us our Rati back.

STARS HAVE HEARTS
Who says our stars are not aware of all that’s going on around them or that they are busy in a world of their own, a dream world where reality has a place only when it comes to money and all the luxuries that come with money. No, no my friends, these stars, they care and literally go out of their way to help whatever cause owing to their status, their charm, their command, their love, their over-whelming power which is treated as the humble request by the millions of their fans. Some examples will satisfy all those who have all kinds of wrong and wild impressions about the stars who they have almost given up as human beings belonging to different jungle-like planets. No, no my friends they may have their frailties and fallacies but they will never fall when it comes to coming to the help of some of the most difficult causes, crisis and chaos that attack the poor, the downtrodden, the country as a whole. Just the other day Lata Mangeshkar donated Rs 20 lakh to UNICEF to help various causes deserving children and the girl child in particular. What stars like Rajnikant in the South and Mithun Chakraborty in Ooty are doing for people in their areas is difficult to imagine for chicken-hearted people like most of us. If you ask me, they are the true followers of Mother Teresa - give till it hurts. There is legendary Dilip Kumar who has always led his team of stars during the last 50 years to fight out and find solutions to fight every enemy who has attempted to attack the Motherland. The charity Dilip Kumar and his wife Saira dole out every Friday and Saturday outside their bungalow is a sad sight to see. They try their best to help the hungry, the helpless, the humiliated, the harassed in every possible way. The music directors Kalyanji-Anandji have helped in raising lakhs of rupees to face all kinds of calamities which face the people of "our country".

And why do we give up the younger generation who are generally mocked at and lambasted by the older generation for little or no reason at all, without knowing that they are moving with the times. Now there is Madhuri Dixit and a number of other leading stars who are going out of their way and away from their normal ways to help in spreading awareness among the poor against the monster called AIDS. And there is that one-man institution called Sunil Dutt who has even risen from his sick bed and rushed out to places of crisis and who has put his life at stake to find solutions to problems which could be solved by other government, social and police agencies but who goes all alone like a soldier to fight to the finish, to finish all that is wrong and put everything wrong right. It gives me great joy to see his much-maligned son Sanjay Dutt gradually following in his father’s footsteps. The non-stop, non-name-fame, noble service done to society by his great father must have certainly inspired him. Certainly, this Sanjay Dutt is not what he was some seven or eight years ago. And Sunil Dutt, like I have said again and again, is on his way to make it as a saint. And my saying comes from watching, trying and be a part of the hard work, the deeds, the care, the sacrifices and the pain and passion that he goes through in doing what he does - without any ambition, without any goals, without expecting any gratitude which, in general, is what the game of life is all about today, painfully .

KHALI DIMAAG, KHALI
DUNIYA
Something so shocking, something so sensational, something so absolutely mind-boggling, mind-mauling I have never heard of in any other country, anywhere. I was going through some exhaustive and genuine directories of the film industry, (the growing number of directories with more wrong numbers and telephone numbers than right ones.) And I was amazed to find the names of literally hundreds of artistes, the list full of actors, the big and very big producers, the great and very great directors some who are so talented that they have not made a film in years. The last film they had made, I know, was when they were toddlers in a race where only the mighty mattered, when their children believed their fathers were the only answers to Mehboob Khan, K Asif, Satyajit Ray and Bimal Roy.

They have spent most of their time walking around looking for work and I don’t know how they earn their next cigarette, their next beedi or tea and what they must be doing to keep their families alive, their dal-roti going. We have hundreds of registered and unregistered writers who believe they are the reincarnations of Ghalib and Manto, Ismat Chugtai, Rajinder Singh Bedi and Gulzar. When the truth I believe is that they are not worth touching the sleeves of those great writers or even cast a fleeting/stealing glance at their pens and papers on which their thoughts, their imaginations and their dreams flowed and gave the world ideas which would last till the world lasted. There are hundreds of lyricists who think putting two and two other words together with or without sense (mostly without sense) is great poetry. We have directors who say they need "just one chance" and they can change the face of Indian cinema and have still only reached some strange woods where they are groping in the dark. We have dozens of music directors who are magicians more than musicians. Musicians who have been given this feeling that music created anywhere in the world belongs to them and that they can make, break, mould, build or destroy the original. We have singers, both male and female who are screaming their lungs out but without any quality, without having the calibre (?) to come anywhere near the great Lata or Asha or Rafi or Mukesh or Talat or some of the greats generations before me that had the great pleasure to listen to. I go through the directory again. I see names of some great character artistes, male and female, some great technicians, all of them geniuses or claiming to be geniuses and yet with this huge bundle (?) of talent we have still not reached anywhere. How do you feel when some of the best films of your country are sent to some famous festivals abroad with high hopes and are sent back empty-handed because they are just that empty. Why? Why?? Why??? When will we improve?When? When?? When???