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Vishal Bhardwaj: I'm not anti- national, but I'll comment on what's anti-human
Handling a confrontational story set in Kashmir means walking a tightrope between catering to jingoism and risking the 'anti-national' tag. Vishal Bhardwaj explains how he balances that in Haider.
After you finished Haider, and started the phase of promotions, three Kashmir-centric events of a fairly high visibility happened. One, the floods, and the relief operations, within which you had episodes such as Yasin Malik's asking people to not take the Army's help. Two, Bilawal Bhutto declaring that he would "take Kashmir back" - yet again proving that the easiest way for a politician to trend online is to make one grand declaration on Kashmir. Thirdly, Nawaz Sharif and Modi speak at the UN General Assembly and the usual expected statements on plebiscite and exported terror are exchanged. Kashmir perspectives tend to be very fixed - 'traitors', 'motherland', 'terror', 'brutality', 'saviours', and such catchphrases start playing in all debates. How do you view or consume these developments differently after having spent this much time understanding the Kashmir story?
Actually, it's important to see it in its reality. What I have attempted to do is observe the life of a common family in Srinagar. And my film is set in a period, in 1995, when militancy was it at its peak. What a middle class family in Kashmir goes through in a time of conflict. How a family that doesn't belong to either side, that wants to live a normal life, how that family gets sucked into all this is my story. Politics is a backdrop, a very strong backdrop, but finally I am exploring the story of a family. Mujhe jo lagta hai, ki jo abhi tak hamari filmein mostly Kashmir pe bani hain, humnein almost always baahar se jaa kar dekha hai. We haven't seen it from the other side. What is the viewpoint of the people who have lived over there, what they have gone through - that has not been taken up. Sometimes we see it from the view of an intelligence officer, sometimes from the viewpoint of a journalist, sometimes it could be the story of a South Indian lady who is attempting to find her husband. That is the way the filmmaker likes to access what he thinks he can actually be closest to. I did not want to do that. Which is why I hadn't taken this up earlier, even though I'd wanted to make a movie on Kashmir for many years.
Why?
Because it's a conflicted state. It is a human tragedy. And a filmmaker is always interested in reflecting the times he lives in. For the past 25 years, I have grown up in the shadow of these conflicts - first Punjab and then Kashmir. Punjab finally stabilized, and perhaps people expected Kashmir to, as well, and there is a thought ki militancy ki age hoti hai, 10 years, it will finish. But it has been more than 20 years and the militancy in Kashmir is not finishing. I read the book by Basharat Peer, his memoirs of growing up in the 90s, and I found a lot of insight in that. So I took him up as my co-writer, we adapted Hamlet to that, and that's how my Kashmir film finally came into being.
Suppose you were called to take part in a TV debate on Kashmir, and asked to comment on local people being asked to boycott help from the Army by the likes of Yasin Malik amid very heated opinions. What would you say?
I don't think these questions were there in the first two or three days when the situation was really bad. They began to come up later. When things are really tough, I don't think it is about who is an Armyman and who is a separatist. It is about the basic value of human life and of saving that life. I think that sort of debate is an afterthought. I am not sure of who said what, but I think it was an afterthought, that question. In reverse, I remember seeing TV and Mirwaiz Umar was on TV and they were somewhere in Kashmir University, I think, and they were saying we need more boats. And at that time I think it was very insensitive on the part of a journalist who asked Mirwaiz, now do you feel gratitude towards the Army? I mean, what a time to ask that! Isn't it insensitive for us to ask that? Dekhiye hum aap ke liye kitna kar rahe hain. Aap unko apna maante hai na? Phir ehsaan jataane ki zaroorat kyun? And the thing is that the Army, which is actually doing the work, is not making a show of doing a favour. The Army has blinders - it keeps out of politics, does its work and goes back. Problem shuru hoti hai when politics enters areas such as flood relief and then the media tries to sensationalize things. These are times to win people over, not score points. And from what I have seen, there is a lot of respect for the Army there, it has done a lot of work.
READ: Haider: Vishal Bhardwaj took months to compose Bismil
You are setting the story in 1995, and you are shooting in Kashmir for that story in 2014 - when it has moved ahead about two decades. How much of a change did you notice from 1995 when you spent time in Kashmir now?
Elections have happened many times since then. Militancy is much lesser than what it was at its peak. And the common Kashmiri is fed up. Their business has been very badly affected amid all this. I think they want to live a normal life - yeh mujhe laga.
When a filmmaker makes a movie where the concept of 'Hindustan' has a key role to play, isn't it easier to make something like a Gadar - no shades of grey, the hero effortlessly uproots handpumps and wins against everyone because he's a hot-blooded patriot? If a movie, in trying to tell both sides of a story, has shades of being 'anti-India', it's likely to cause angst as well as censor troubles.
How do you walk that tightrope? How does a creative individual work his way around the jingoism of the mass audience?
I'm also an Indian, I'm also a patriot, I also love my nation. So I won't do anything which is anti-national. But what is anti-human, I will definitely comment on it. That is what I have done in the film as well. I am definitely not anti-national, I am only against what is anti-human. I have had not a single objection raised to any scene, any dialogue in my film being cleared (by the CBFC).
Surely you would have expected some objections, given the nature of the topic?
Yeh toh hum assume kar ke chalte hain. Aajkal ki film is the easiest punching bag. Anyone wants publicity, all he has to do is file a PIL against a film. Meri toh koi film release hoti hai toh mujh pe chalees cases hote hain. Jin previous films mein kuch controversial nahi thaa un mein bhi hua, is mein jab release hogi tab pata chalega kitne hote hain!
Are we getting increasingly hyper-touchy and sensitive, or is it that publicity-seeking by slamming cinema is becoming an art form?
Dono hi cheezein hain. A film is the easiest way to gain publicity.
Aren't societies supposed to get more evolved and mature with time?
Why is the reverse happening here? I really don't know, but so many basics aren't taken care of in our system. The begging mafia exists at every traffic light in our country. Isn't the government aware that most beggars don't beg for their individual needs but are controlled by a mafia? Isn't the government aware that if you have to buy a flat, you have to pay 40 to 50% in black? Everyone knows that. What is being done about it? A person like me, if I have to buy a flat, I have money only in white, what do I do? I have to turn my white into black to make the purchase, I have to consult a CA who will tell me how to turn white money into black! Disgusting! Hamara yeh attitude hai na, ki jahaan tak hamara personal kaam nikal raha hai, society gayi tel lene. If giving a hundred rupee bribe gets me a berth to sleep at night in a train, we will all give it, I will also give it. This is part of our psyche. We are getting to be a morally corrupt society. Maybe the next generation will be able to change something, I can't see it happening very soon. These are just my personal views, though.
You've said earlier that "I needed a place with a political conflict" as a setting for this movie. Punjab has also had a bloody and violent phase. Naxalism is today rated as a greater internal security threat than Kashmir. Did it occur to you to place your Hamlet in either of these locations?
Naxal topic tha mere dimaag mein kaafi time tak. Prakash Jha nein in the meantime own kar liya Naxalism ko (laughs). Many movies got made on it. And then the risk is that audiences can begin to respond like "arey yaar ek aur aa gayi", they can get put off.
You also said that we have not made any mainstream movie on Kashmir in all these years. Isn't that true of most of our political questions and our political personalities? We have not made any mainstream movie on Nehru, we have not made any mainstream on Patel - if we did, we would have had to explore the questions of accession, plebiscite, wouldn't we?
Banane kahaan dete hain, bataiye? Indira Gandhi par nahi banni chahiye film? What a graph! What a beginning, middle, end! Bananey denge? Nahi bananey denge. Phir hoga ki jaise woh chahte hain, waise... Take Nehruji ki story. Kitni colourful life hai, kitni committed life hai. Aadmi swaraj ke liye fight kare toh kya colourful nahi ho sakta? Lekin you can't make a film like that - yahaan toh laathi utha kar maarne ke liye pehle taiyyar rehte hain!
But even the movies that are made - do our audiences consume them? I recall meeting Laxmi Sehgal in Kanpur when Benegal's Bose: The Forgotten Hero released, to ask her what she thought of her portrayal in the movie. She hadn't seen it - it wasn't running in a single theatre in the city! Why don't movies on political issues or political biographies work here?
See, there's another side to it. Nobody knew the Tamil actor of Roja - but the film was a huge hit. I don't think it's always about whether it is political or not. It has also got to do with the storytelling. Aap mazedaar film banaiye pehle. Is kism ki filmein - yeh laddoo ke andar kadwi dawai chhupa ke dene waali baat hai. Upar se laddoo lagna chahiye. Jaise munh mein poora rakha, jab ab thook bhi nahi sakte - tab...! Woh laddoo toh lagna chahiye na. Agar chamcham nahi hai, chandi ka warq nahi laga hai, toh phir Kanpur mein nahi lagegi film! Mainstream mein reh kar yeh karna is a very difficult task - but that's the only way to reach people.
Aapki Kashmir ki dawai Shakespeare ke laddoo mein hai?
(Laughs) Ji, main Shakespeare ke kandhe pe rakh kar goli chalata hoon!
What's the identity crisis a filmmaker like you faces when he has to balance Box Office returns and your sensibilities - how much dawaai, how much laddoo?
These questions come up, in every film. But I don't do things for others. I make the film for myself. Mujhe kal sharm nahi aani chahiye isko dekhne mein. If I have a doubt about that, that's when I put a stick out and stop it. And I hope that some others will relate to my sensibility. And there must be enough people who share that sensibility for the producers to come back and put money in my movies. I make myself the audience. If I will look back at something I have done five years down the line aur mujhe sharm aayegi - main woh nahi karta.
After you finished Haider, and started the phase of promotions, three Kashmir-centric events of a fairly high visibility happened. One, the floods, and the relief operations, within which you had episodes such as Yasin Malik's asking people to not take the Army's help. Two, Bilawal Bhutto declaring that he would "take Kashmir back" - yet again proving that the easiest way for a politician to trend online is to make one grand declaration on Kashmir. Thirdly, Nawaz Sharif and Modi speak at the UN General Assembly and the usual expected statements on plebiscite and exported terror are exchanged. Kashmir perspectives tend to be very fixed - 'traitors', 'motherland', 'terror', 'brutality', 'saviours', and such catchphrases start playing in all debates. How do you view or consume these developments differently after having spent this much time understanding the Kashmir story?
Actually, it's important to see it in its reality. What I have attempted to do is observe the life of a common family in Srinagar. And my film is set in a period, in 1995, when militancy was it at its peak. What a middle class family in Kashmir goes through in a time of conflict. How a family that doesn't belong to either side, that wants to live a normal life, how that family gets sucked into all this is my story. Politics is a backdrop, a very strong backdrop, but finally I am exploring the story of a family. Mujhe jo lagta hai, ki jo abhi tak hamari filmein mostly Kashmir pe bani hain, humnein almost always baahar se jaa kar dekha hai. We haven't seen it from the other side. What is the viewpoint of the people who have lived over there, what they have gone through - that has not been taken up. Sometimes we see it from the view of an intelligence officer, sometimes from the viewpoint of a journalist, sometimes it could be the story of a South Indian lady who is attempting to find her husband. That is the way the filmmaker likes to access what he thinks he can actually be closest to. I did not want to do that. Which is why I hadn't taken this up earlier, even though I'd wanted to make a movie on Kashmir for many years.
Why?
Because it's a conflicted state. It is a human tragedy. And a filmmaker is always interested in reflecting the times he lives in. For the past 25 years, I have grown up in the shadow of these conflicts - first Punjab and then Kashmir. Punjab finally stabilized, and perhaps people expected Kashmir to, as well, and there is a thought ki militancy ki age hoti hai, 10 years, it will finish. But it has been more than 20 years and the militancy in Kashmir is not finishing. I read the book by Basharat Peer, his memoirs of growing up in the 90s, and I found a lot of insight in that. So I took him up as my co-writer, we adapted Hamlet to that, and that's how my Kashmir film finally came into being.
Suppose you were called to take part in a TV debate on Kashmir, and asked to comment on local people being asked to boycott help from the Army by the likes of Yasin Malik amid very heated opinions. What would you say?
I don't think these questions were there in the first two or three days when the situation was really bad. They began to come up later. When things are really tough, I don't think it is about who is an Armyman and who is a separatist. It is about the basic value of human life and of saving that life. I think that sort of debate is an afterthought. I am not sure of who said what, but I think it was an afterthought, that question. In reverse, I remember seeing TV and Mirwaiz Umar was on TV and they were somewhere in Kashmir University, I think, and they were saying we need more boats. And at that time I think it was very insensitive on the part of a journalist who asked Mirwaiz, now do you feel gratitude towards the Army? I mean, what a time to ask that! Isn't it insensitive for us to ask that? Dekhiye hum aap ke liye kitna kar rahe hain. Aap unko apna maante hai na? Phir ehsaan jataane ki zaroorat kyun? And the thing is that the Army, which is actually doing the work, is not making a show of doing a favour. The Army has blinders - it keeps out of politics, does its work and goes back. Problem shuru hoti hai when politics enters areas such as flood relief and then the media tries to sensationalize things. These are times to win people over, not score points. And from what I have seen, there is a lot of respect for the Army there, it has done a lot of work.
READ: Haider: Vishal Bhardwaj took months to compose Bismil
You are setting the story in 1995, and you are shooting in Kashmir for that story in 2014 - when it has moved ahead about two decades. How much of a change did you notice from 1995 when you spent time in Kashmir now?
Elections have happened many times since then. Militancy is much lesser than what it was at its peak. And the common Kashmiri is fed up. Their business has been very badly affected amid all this. I think they want to live a normal life - yeh mujhe laga.
When a filmmaker makes a movie where the concept of 'Hindustan' has a key role to play, isn't it easier to make something like a Gadar - no shades of grey, the hero effortlessly uproots handpumps and wins against everyone because he's a hot-blooded patriot? If a movie, in trying to tell both sides of a story, has shades of being 'anti-India', it's likely to cause angst as well as censor troubles.
How do you walk that tightrope? How does a creative individual work his way around the jingoism of the mass audience?
I'm also an Indian, I'm also a patriot, I also love my nation. So I won't do anything which is anti-national. But what is anti-human, I will definitely comment on it. That is what I have done in the film as well. I am definitely not anti-national, I am only against what is anti-human. I have had not a single objection raised to any scene, any dialogue in my film being cleared (by the CBFC).
Surely you would have expected some objections, given the nature of the topic?
Yeh toh hum assume kar ke chalte hain. Aajkal ki film is the easiest punching bag. Anyone wants publicity, all he has to do is file a PIL against a film. Meri toh koi film release hoti hai toh mujh pe chalees cases hote hain. Jin previous films mein kuch controversial nahi thaa un mein bhi hua, is mein jab release hogi tab pata chalega kitne hote hain!
Are we getting increasingly hyper-touchy and sensitive, or is it that publicity-seeking by slamming cinema is becoming an art form?
Dono hi cheezein hain. A film is the easiest way to gain publicity.
Aren't societies supposed to get more evolved and mature with time?
Why is the reverse happening here? I really don't know, but so many basics aren't taken care of in our system. The begging mafia exists at every traffic light in our country. Isn't the government aware that most beggars don't beg for their individual needs but are controlled by a mafia? Isn't the government aware that if you have to buy a flat, you have to pay 40 to 50% in black? Everyone knows that. What is being done about it? A person like me, if I have to buy a flat, I have money only in white, what do I do? I have to turn my white into black to make the purchase, I have to consult a CA who will tell me how to turn white money into black! Disgusting! Hamara yeh attitude hai na, ki jahaan tak hamara personal kaam nikal raha hai, society gayi tel lene. If giving a hundred rupee bribe gets me a berth to sleep at night in a train, we will all give it, I will also give it. This is part of our psyche. We are getting to be a morally corrupt society. Maybe the next generation will be able to change something, I can't see it happening very soon. These are just my personal views, though.
You've said earlier that "I needed a place with a political conflict" as a setting for this movie. Punjab has also had a bloody and violent phase. Naxalism is today rated as a greater internal security threat than Kashmir. Did it occur to you to place your Hamlet in either of these locations?
Naxal topic tha mere dimaag mein kaafi time tak. Prakash Jha nein in the meantime own kar liya Naxalism ko (laughs). Many movies got made on it. And then the risk is that audiences can begin to respond like "arey yaar ek aur aa gayi", they can get put off.
You also said that we have not made any mainstream movie on Kashmir in all these years. Isn't that true of most of our political questions and our political personalities? We have not made any mainstream movie on Nehru, we have not made any mainstream on Patel - if we did, we would have had to explore the questions of accession, plebiscite, wouldn't we?
Banane kahaan dete hain, bataiye? Indira Gandhi par nahi banni chahiye film? What a graph! What a beginning, middle, end! Bananey denge? Nahi bananey denge. Phir hoga ki jaise woh chahte hain, waise... Take Nehruji ki story. Kitni colourful life hai, kitni committed life hai. Aadmi swaraj ke liye fight kare toh kya colourful nahi ho sakta? Lekin you can't make a film like that - yahaan toh laathi utha kar maarne ke liye pehle taiyyar rehte hain!
But even the movies that are made - do our audiences consume them? I recall meeting Laxmi Sehgal in Kanpur when Benegal's Bose: The Forgotten Hero released, to ask her what she thought of her portrayal in the movie. She hadn't seen it - it wasn't running in a single theatre in the city! Why don't movies on political issues or political biographies work here?
See, there's another side to it. Nobody knew the Tamil actor of Roja - but the film was a huge hit. I don't think it's always about whether it is political or not. It has also got to do with the storytelling. Aap mazedaar film banaiye pehle. Is kism ki filmein - yeh laddoo ke andar kadwi dawai chhupa ke dene waali baat hai. Upar se laddoo lagna chahiye. Jaise munh mein poora rakha, jab ab thook bhi nahi sakte - tab...! Woh laddoo toh lagna chahiye na. Agar chamcham nahi hai, chandi ka warq nahi laga hai, toh phir Kanpur mein nahi lagegi film! Mainstream mein reh kar yeh karna is a very difficult task - but that's the only way to reach people.
Aapki Kashmir ki dawai Shakespeare ke laddoo mein hai?
(Laughs) Ji, main Shakespeare ke kandhe pe rakh kar goli chalata hoon!
What's the identity crisis a filmmaker like you faces when he has to balance Box Office returns and your sensibilities - how much dawaai, how much laddoo?
These questions come up, in every film. But I don't do things for others. I make the film for myself. Mujhe kal sharm nahi aani chahiye isko dekhne mein. If I have a doubt about that, that's when I put a stick out and stop it. And I hope that some others will relate to my sensibility. And there must be enough people who share that sensibility for the producers to come back and put money in my movies. I make myself the audience. If I will look back at something I have done five years down the line aur mujhe sharm aayegi - main woh nahi karta.
Book Talk
Anupamaa
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