Director's Special

Deepa Mehta

Water will have to wait till September
Manisha Koirala has gone on record accusing you of backing out of your commitment to sign her on for Water?
I had a dinner appointment with her regarding the role. She didn’t turn up. I had spoken to her about the appointment and then later confirmed it with her secretary. My Hindi translator and dialogue

writer Anurag Kashyap and I waited for her to turn up. Besides, she didn’t want to shave her head. What could I do then? She seemed like a nice girl. I don’t know what happened. It didn’t happen. Why not just move on? It seems so irrelevant to talk about it now. I wrote her a letter explaining my situation. Whether she’s doing Water or not is not even relevant in the grand scheme of things.

Shah Rukh told me you’d offered him both 1947 and Water.
Yes. I think he’s so good. I’d love to work with him at some point of time. But we work differently. I understand that as a star, he has numerous commitments to fulfil. I needed my leading man to be fully committed to my project. It was just eighteen shooting days, not a lifetime. May be one day I’ll work with Shah Rukh. I want to see his Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani. I want to see Aamir in Mela also.

How do you react when people in the Mumbai film industry say ‘She keeps looking for all the controversies’?
Sometimes I feel like crying. They don’t know me. What do they mean by saying I was looking for it? How did the financial losses, the loss of fortitude and motivation of my crew help me in any way? Did it help me to lose my main location? How have I benefited from being in the abyss where I have no film on my hand? These people who say I orchestrated the publicity must be very cruel and insensitive. I don’t even know any of them!

Some of the protestors seem to think you should apologise for making Fire.
Forget it. I’m not the least apologetic about Fire. If they want me to say sorry, it’s too bad. They ain’t gonna get it. Why does everyone remember only Fire? Why they have forgotten my Sam & Me, Camila and 1947-Earth? It’s very convenient to remember only Fire. I didn’t create the controversies over Fire either.

Some politicians have referred to Fire as an anti-woman film.
It’s so ridiculous. These are men who are totally drenched in patriarchal beliefs and who like their women to be supremely submissive, the more so the better for them. These men have suddenly become feminists, and depict Fire as an anti-woman film? Isn’t that too much to swallow? It didn’t matter whether people liked Fire or not. Everyone is free to like or dislike a film. But at least give everyone that freedom. Don’t label a film before it’s made. I’ve put Fire behind me. I can’t even remember which scenes from Fire these people are talking about.

Are people digging up Fire to stop you from making Water?
It’s very convenient for them. Because the two lesbians in Fire were called Radha and Sita. I’m not seen fit to make a film about Hinduism or Hindu culture. On another level Fire and its director are seen as a threat to the Indian male. They find the very idea of a housewife having options other than a conventional marriage, very challenging. Since they cannot come out openly to express their reservations, they have labelled me anti-Hindu. Male audiences in India would have been much more comfortable with Fire if the housewife had run away with a man, any man.

They say your screenplay for Water denigrates the widows of Varanasi by showing them as prostitutes.
It isn’t even shown on screen. We never see my young protagonist Pao with another man except the man who wants to marry her. People like Govind Acharya claim to have read the script. But it isn’t a novel. They needed to have some idea about how a screenplay is written before understanding it.

You admit that you had a tough time with Water because you made Fire?
Absolutely. It wasn’t just a tough time. It was a horrific time. Nobody should go through what we have. We didn’t do anything illegal. But we are the ones to be punished.

Kashi has suddenly become a hot spot for shooting Hindi films.
If they can make use of it, why not? I guess the hell we’ve gone through has served as a fertiliser for other filmmakers. And if this had happened in any other part of the world, the film industry would have banned the city. They would have never gone to shoot there. The mentality here is, ‘Each one for him or herself’. There’s so much uncertainty in the film industry.

Are you happy with your choice of Akshay Kumar as the male lead in Water?
I can’t imagine anyone else as my protagonist Narayan. He’s a very nice guy. No matter how much one denies it there’s an innate snobbery in the metropolises whereby if one cannot express irony and cynicism one doesn’t belong. Irony and cynicism are a very western concept and Akshay doesn’t indulge in them. Have you heard Akshay’s script ideas? One day he’ll make a very good filmmaker.

Who among the filmfolk in Mumbai have expressed support for your right to make Water?
Kulbhushan Kharbanda. Sanjay Dutt also called. I thought it was so thoughtful of him. Shah Rukh Khan expressed some support. As did AR Rahman. But that’s it. No one else from the Mumbai film industry has called or expressed solidarity. In Calcutta, Aparna Sen and Mrinal Sen have been incredibly supportive. Isn’t Aparna Sen gorgeous? She and Shyam Benegal have written wonderful letters to the relevant authorities in my defence. It’s th Bengalis who proved that they care. In Mumbai they didn’t seem to give a damn.

When do you intend to make the film now?
Some time in September. Right now Akshay and Nandita don’t have the dates. Shabana too is not available. Poor Nandita! She is getting wigs made for her other parts. Both Nandita and Shabana have gone out of their ways to be accommodating and supportive. What happened in Varanasi was a scary experience for all of us.

Do you think they were serious at any point of the crisis in Varanasi about causing you personal harm?
I don’t think so. I didn’t feel physically threatened. But they threw our sets into the Ganga.

Your producer Ajay Virmani has now pledged to donate one-third of the Water profits to the widows of Varanasi.
That’s really generous of him. Provided there are going to be any profits at all (laughs). That the film is going to be made is for sure. We went by the book. But I guess justice has nothing to do with the law. I’ve suffered so much. We can even make a film on my experiences. But they’ll never allow it (laughs). The Uttar Pradesh government should compensate us for the losses we’ve suffered, if they have any sense of propriety. But I guess it’s all gone.

So you feel you will never get back the money you lost?
Yes, it is all gone. What Kamal Haasan said to me was really nice. He said, no matter what happens one shouldn’t lose one’s artistic innocence. That was such a wonderful thing to say when everyone is saying the opposite.

Did you have a fall-out with Jhamu Sughand over Water
It’s completely untrue. I don’t know where it started from. Anyway, my present producer Ajay Virmani has been wonderful. Do you know, all of us have deferred our salaries until the film is made? It’s the least we could do after the losses Ajay has suffered. Now we have to make major changes in the way we work before we resume shooting. We’re worried that even if the film is made it may not be allowed to be released in India.

Well if it isn’t, you have a whole international market to release the film and get your investment back.
The international market for my kind of films isn’t sizeable. People in India think there’s a huge market outside India for my films. But right now the international market for my kind of films is really at a low.

But films like Taal and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam have broken records overseas.
Thats a different market, a different audience. That’s not the market for Water. My 1947-Earth didn’t do well in the NRI market. The Indian viewers abroad have the same preferences in movies as the Indians in India. In fact, they are far more conservative in their tastes. I think we just broke even with 1947-Earth abroad.

And Fire?
That too broke even. I haven’t seen a single penny in profit from Fire. In India, Jhamu Sughand says he lost money on Fire because of all the hungama. I sold the right of Fire in India for twenty lakhs to a private investor from Delhi named Chetan Seth. I needed the money desperately to complete the film. The investor agreed to give me twenty lakhs in return for the Indian distribution rights of Fire. At that point in time, I didn’t know what the fate of Fire was going to be, so I agreed. Later Chetan Seth sold the film to Jhamu.

You really undersold yourself. Didn’t you?
I didn’t know better. I was just a filmmaker who wanted to complete her film. Twenty lakhs sounded like twenty crores to me.

Do you regret your lack of business acumen?
Sometime I wish I had a bit more money to make my life easy. I’m not complaining. I’m not interested in a posh lifestyle. I’m fine the way I am.

How do you think Water will be received abroad when it’s made?
Well the only two foreign language films which have done well in recent times are Like Water for Chocolate and Life Is Beautiful. The others just didn’t register at the American box-office.

Do American and European viewers still baulk at the thought of viewing a Hindi language film?
Apparently they do. With the exception of Satyajit Ray they still think all Indian films have songs and dances and that they have nothing to do with real life. Still films like Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay, Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen or my Fire and Earth got a fairly good response. In fact my Earth was better received than Fire.

Why’s that?
To understand the relationship between the two daughters-in-law in Fire the foreign viewer had to understand the Indian context. Only then it made sense. But the theme of communal persecution in Earth had universal resonances. Audience could relate it to Albania, Bosnia, Auschwitz or even the Palestinian divide. Oh yes, Earth was far better received than Fire.

What are your immediate plans?
Right now I just want to return to Toronto and get the karajia out of my system (laughs). Then I’m coming back to shoot Water.

Subhash K Jha