'As Long As People Get To See Good Theatre The Cause Lives'

M.S.Sathyu, to many Hindi moviegoers is the man who made Garam Hava.Period. Perhaps no other director is so identified with one single acclaimedfilm as he is. Based on a short story by Ismat Chugtai, Garam Hawadepicts the plight of a Muslim family in Agra during partition, and for manyremains the definitive film on the aftermath of the partition. Released in 1974,the film won the National Award for Best Film on National Integration, an awardinitiated the same year. Sathyu went on to win the Padamshree in 1975 and notmany know that he has since made seven more feature films in Hindi, Urdu andKannada; over fifteen documentaries, and around 25 advertising films.

At 71, Sathyu’s latest venture is the play bakri.com, a politicalsatire. Written by Sarvesh Dayal Saxena, Bakri resurfaces at regular(rather, irregular) intervals in new avatars under Sathyu’s direction withreferences to contemporary political developments. This time, it returns afterabout 5 years, with -- yes, you guessed it right -- references to thetahelka.com scandal (though that was a last minute addition as the play had beenconceived before the tapes got out).

bakri.com is one of the 12 plays staged at Prithvi Theatre in Bombay onMay 6 as part pf the annual annual IPTA theatre festival. Rehmat Merchant caughtup with him in Bangalore before the 71 year old director left for Bombay toparticipate in the festival. Excerpts from the interview:

What is the play bakri.com about?

The bakri in the tittle is a myth. Mahatma Gandhi had apet bakri that got lost after his assassination. Some politically motivatedpeople, thugs actually, catch hold of a bakri and claim that it is Gandhiji’sbakri, which they discovered  in a village totally neglected . They want to buildan ashram for it and want money for that. They fool the people and collectmoney. These thugs come to power by exploiting the symbol of the bakri.Ultimately, youngsters and the educated people revolt against this regime.

I have put up over 200 shows of Bakri in Bombayitself. Every time the play is revived we attack the ruling government and thecontemporary situation. During Emergency, Indira Gandhi was the target. Now itis the communal policies of the present government. NDA is an eyewash, justopportunists who want to be in power. BJP are the rulers as you can see in theway Jayalalitha and Mamta left. We are attacking the present government’spolicy where Ayodhya becomes so important. They don’t want to equate what theydid to the Babri masjid with what the Taliban did. Now they blame others: thingslike congress was in power. Actually Advani made speeches, gave orders, and nowis denying it.

Why bakri.com?

We wanted to revive the play and were wondering what to call it.We decided to call it Bakri.com, since in this age IT seems to be the buzzword When we conceived the play the tahelka tapes had not been aired. Butnow we have included references to the defence scandal. Bakri always has totalrelevance to what is happening. Every time we parody the present politicalsituation by playing around with the original script.

Considering its topicality what kind of reaction do youexpect?

We don’t know what the reaction will be. The music is good,the actors are good. There is the take off on tahelka.com. I was planning to dothe play in Kannada in Mangalore. Mangalore is not very familiar to me.I didn’tknow that many members of the cast were VHP members. The main characterKarmaveer got elected as president of some shakha. Suddenly they were asking whythis orange flag? I learnt there were plans to sabotage the play. The main leadwouldn’t turn up for rehearsals. I decided to change the lead. But he had hiscoterie and nine others were with him. We just cancelled the play. In Bombay theartists are politically with us. There are references to Ayodhya, and we havemade fun of George Fernandez, Mamta, and the PM.

Ever make fun of the Left?

Yes, we do. Not in this particular play. But we have donethat. A politician is a politician. You should have a sense of humour. Vajpayeehas seen the play’s earlier version. Once he had came to see another of myplay Motiram ka Satyagrah, a satire by Premchand in Bombay. It was thetime of the Lathur earthquake and he was the opposition leader. After the playwas over, we went with hats for collecting donations. He didn’t have any moneyin his pocket, the friend who brought him gave him Rs 50 for the collection.When we met me later he said, "Asp ne kisii ko bhii nahii chhoRaa is playmein" He has the sense of humour to appreciate it, though we had made fun of himin the play.

What would you say is the present sate of Left parties inIndia? Do you think that the Left can make things right?

Of all the parties, the Left alone can make things work as they aretotally secular. There are no corruption charges against them. Indira Gandhi,Rajiv Gandhi ... and now BJP -- the self-professed clean party -- has gone into thedefence arena. The alternative is a Left oriented party, they are cleaner.Though there seems no immediate possibility.

Basu has been there for twenty years in Bengal. Then there isKerala. Even in a parliamentary set up the Left could exist. Internationally,Cuba is still there. The imperialist forces try to kill all Left forces. But theUS can do nothing about Cuba that is so close to its shores. It shows that thesituation is not all that hopeless. Shortcomings are there in West Bengal. It isnot ideal, but much better than other parties. Some industrial policies wentwrong, they failed in the Mandal business. But land reform was a success.Education was a success in Kerala. The Left parties have more concern for thepeople, others are just sloganising: garibi hatao and the Kashmir policy etc. is justmere talk. Kashmir has been a poor state for 54 years and we are still talkingabout the Shimla Agreement. Nehru adopted Russian policy because it made sensefor India. If we have failed in nationailising banks and the public sector isnot profitable, let us correct the drawbacks, not disown the policies. Having aMinister for Disinvestment is like having a minister for potholes.

Are you referring to the possible adverse effects ofglobalization and WTO?

Globalization is happening the world over but we don’t haveto give up indigenous knowledge and accept everything en block. We know how achicken has to be cooked. Let us import technologies in which we are backward.Cheap material from China that is flooding the market will kill our ownindustry.

Coming to films, what do you feel about this year’sNational Award controversy?

Controversies are a part of awards. Lobbying, politicalpressure, are always there. I don’t see anything wrong in this year’schoice. Lajmi is a good filmmaker she would have picked a woman’s point of view,which would not have suited the BJP. That’s why it could have been droppedearlier. Later it was called back and Raveena got the award so she must havedone a good job. Mac being her uncle is nothing new. Charu Hassan was jurymember when Kamal Hassan won the national award. He sat outside during thevoting for best actor. When I was on the jury Tabu got it though there was a lotof lobbying for Rekha.

What do you have to say about the trend of castingmainstream glamour girls like Raveena and Karishma by parallel filmmakers? Is ittrue that are you opting for Urmilla in your next film?

I am not opting for Urmilla,  the market is opting for Urmilla.The marketability of any project is important. The producers want a name that sells.She has done a deglamourised role of a saree-clad girl doing some social work.In Satya, her name was used, not her image. She was not dancing in minis. Similarly, Karishma’s name was used in Zubaieda. I don’t knowhow much of her image was used. Market demand is the reason why a Rehman has todo the music. I can work with a lesser-known musician too. But they are notsaleable. I myself am not a saleable director. My producers are taking a risk ofcrores with me.

The market angle doesn’t apply to the hero though. In Zubaeida,art camp favourite Manoj Bajpai plays a prince. It stretches one's imagination abit too much to swallow him as a dashing prince for whom a pretty girl abandonsfamily, child, and society...

People do say that. He is a good actor. But he doesn’t havethe looks. Somebody said that he should have the looks of a Kabir Bedi to lookconvincing as the husband of Rekha and Karishma. I wanted him to play an autodriver in my film. But he said that he wanted to change his image and run aroundtress. He feels he has had enough of working class roles. Then after that fourof his films flopped. So may be the public is not accepting him in a glamorousimage. He tried but obviously it doesn’t work..

What is your proposed film about? What is it called?

The film will be called Neecha Aasmaan. It is the storyof a space scientist with ISRO. Circumstances bring her to jail in Bangaloreand she gets very close to an auto driver. It’s a real story. The boy is aDalit, and the girl is from an upper caste. The story juxtaposes a scientificcommunity and its technological advancements with a society where five thousandyears old prejudices still exist. The idea of a Dalit auto driver and a Ph.D.girl who is involved with an aerodynamics launch is not acceptabale. The autodriver is a misfit: he comes from a very down to earth background and suddenlylands in such places. He is an odd figure and it is not easy for him even toadjust to such a different set up. But he has certain internal qualities thatattract the girl to him. Then there is another male scientist who comes fromAmerica and is very anglicised.

What was the response to Garam Hava like when itwas released?

Initially it was not well received in Agra by the Muslimpopulation as we have shown affairs between cousins. Also Advani had written in Organizer,one of their publications, that the movie was sponsored by Pakistan.But when he met me he said he had not seen the movie and it was somemisunderstanding. You know how politicians are. Some felt that for whateverreason that the movie was pro one country. The couplet in the end wasincluded to counter such sentiments and make our stance clear. They are by KaifiAzmi and I felt they worked well.

"Jo duur se karte.n hain toofa.n ka nazaara,
unke liye toofan yahan bhi hai, wahan bhi
Mil jaaoge dhara me to bun jaaoge dhara
Yeh waqt ka ailaan wahan bhi hai, yahaan bhi."

What does the couplet mean in this context?

Thematically, the story is about the alienation that Muslimsin India experienced, post-Partition.There was a sense of insecurity; the Muslimcommunity was targeted against. Historical perceptions and prejudices can’t bewiped out easily. But basically Indians are secular. My film is aboutassimilation, not division. The film is rooting for Mirza to stay back. He hasto stay behind and fight. Going away never solves anything. Unemployment was notonly his son’s state but of all the boys sitting at the tea shop. In the lastscene, he lets his son join the morcha and he too joins the morcha. When Muslimsin India went to Pakistan they found that they were not treated as Muslims but Biharis, orfrom UP. Even Sindhis were looked down upon. The South Indians who went therecame back or went off to Dubai or somewhere. So wherever you go you could be atsome kind of disadvantage. Mirza belongs here: in the city of his ancestors.

Would you say that race is a more unifying factor thanreligion?

Religion is not a unifying factor ever; race could be said tobe a more unifying factor.

From being a factory owner, Mirza is later seen makingshoes and extolling the virtues of labour. From abstaining to join theshoemakers association strike we see him joining the protest morcha. As themovie progresses his capitalistic trappings decrease and not fully owing tosituations. Doesn’t that have strong Marxist overtones?

A lot of people have pointed that the morcha scene with itsred flags, the color red that is there throughout the movie etc. are Marxist signs.But I don’t think that the film promotes Marxism. I feel the film was more ofa social statement than political propaganda. Of course, we do show agitationslike the shoe makers strike, and the student movement. The student movementitself was a Marxist movement. Wider struggles and human concerns are alwaysassociated with Marxism. So the undercurrent is there throughout the film.But we are also saying that you can’t live alone. It is about belonging. Mirzais never meant to leave the country, he is an Indian. The Taj Mahal, the Agraleather business, that is all a part of his life.

How was it like directing Balraj Sahani in Garam Hava?

No actor has equalled his prowess, he was a consummateperformer. The role of Salim Mirza was special to him. There was a tragedy inhis life that had affected him when we were shooting. Balraj, like Mirza of thefilm, was very close to his daughter who he had lost. In the movie, Mirza’sdaughter also dies. I shot the father-daughter sequences in the manner ofBaljraj’s relationship with his own daughter. Very dirty of me. But that makesthe relationship very touching in the film.

What do you think of the films that followed Garam Hava more recently ... like Naseem and Mammo, and Earth, 1947 and Tamas ...on the communal situation in the country?

There used to be films on Muslims known as Muslim socials. But Muslims were not shown realistically.  They were mostly about nawabs, not a normalperson in everyday life. We tried to do that in Garam Hava. It was thestory of a people, not only just a community. Except for one scene you will notsee any character offering namaz. It was a conscious effort. Naseem andMammo are off shoots. They are good films but they were not as emotionallycharged as Garam Hava. It is an emotionally charged film, quitesentimental. The family ties are close: between father-daughter,mother-daughter, brother-sister. Intellectual filmmakers may call it crapbecause it brings tears to the eyes. I am not worried.

Tamas is a well-made film, more documentary style,very long though. But it has been treated as docu-drama. Earth, 1947 is apseudo and superficial film.

How active is IPTA now?

We are having our annual IPTA theatre festival at PrithviTheatre, Bombay in May. There will be 12 plays performed, bakri.com isone of them. In Bombay theatre-going set is active. Calcutta, Poona, inMaharashtra, state theatre is still doing well. In Delhi, this is not the case.

IPTA has been around for almost 60 years now. We have had ourups and downs, our troubled days. When the communist movement split in India itaffected us too. After all our members are politically involved and had to takesides. Naya Theatre was started by Dina Pathak, and a number of theatre groupscame up. The ultras thought in a different way. But the idea of a people’stheatre is more important, than the name by which it is called. As long aspeople get to see good theatre the cause lives.

The final question: why were you not able to make another Garam Hava?

Can’t reason it out, maybe sometimes you achieve your peak early. Byattempting to consciously make something good you can’t make it. Its difficultto say why Garam Hava has that kind of appeal. Though personally I foundmaking Sookha more difficult and challenging. The film is about the nexusbetween politicians, the administration, and the police and how they exploit thedrought situation for their own end, and forget about the people. It was made inKannada as Bara and is based on a story by U.R. Anathmurthy.

It is difficult to say what made Garam Hava work. There were so manyfactors that gelled: The actors and technicians were mainly from IPTA in Bombayand Delhi, even the students of Agra college in the film were IPTA members. Alot of the actors like A. K Hangal, Farookh Sheikh, Shaukat Azmi, and YunusPervez, made their debut with this film. Not many know that Tabu’s fatherJamal Hashmi is also there in the film. It was a bunch of first timers withpassion.