Director Imtiaz Ali tells Saimi Sattar that stories have a way of finding the raconteur
The moon shines brightly. As brightly as only a full one can. The air, the monuments and the stones lying around are laden with stories of people who passed by them. And the ruins are willing to whisper these in the ears of anyone who is willing to listen. The area is said to be rife with Jinns. And then there is the mausoleum a stone's throw away, built unlike the one it inspired, by a queen for her beloved king. Across the road lies Amir Khusrau who wove an intricate and vivid web with his poetry that more than 700 years down the line continues to cast its mesmerising spell. Sunder Nursery, Delhi'’s newest recovered monument, is just the appropriate setting to narrate qissa, kahani and gapp, says the original rockstar, director Imtiaz Ali.
Dressed in a black t-shirt embroidered with the word sheer (sweet) in the Arabic script, with a grey zipped sweatshirt that seemed to match his salt and pepper hair, Ali exudes a Sufi-like calmness despite being up for a discussion in the next hour at the IXth Kathakar—International Storytellers Festival. Ali is a part of the festival for the second consecutive year and he came back for a reason. “I was fascinated by the audience participation. The show extended for more than two hours beyond the designated time. You gain so much confidence when you realise that the subtleties of the work that you’ve done is being spoken about by people who you intended it to reach,” he says.
However, it isn’t just the pleasant memories that tugged him. “From my childhood I was and still am a people gazer. My biggest interest is to look at people and interact with them. It gives me the basis for stories. There are dreamers from whom I can borrow ideas and memories. The interactions aren’t one-sided and give me an insight for survival and growth while adding a bounce to my stories,” says he.
However, it is a common refrain that the art of story-telling is getting lost in the din of social media and digital devices. Ali makes a point: “Too much of something makes the reverse rise. So if there’s so much device-oriented communication, there’s going to be that need of people to speak orally and communicate with each other as some sort of a therapy in order to relieve the tension and anguish caused by devices.” He looks up at his bodyguard, tells him to relax and asks us to dig into the kebabs that have been neatly placed in front of us before resuming the conversation: “Having someone to talk to was not a big deal when I was growing up. But now, for a young guy it is a rarity, a luxury. It is easier to find someone to have sex with but more difficult to find someone to talk to. Humzuban milna mushkil hai. (Someone who communicates and understands at the same level is difficult).” He gestures with his hand and it seems that the sounds emanating from the nearby stage too have paused to let that sink in.
He points out that oral storytelling was the oldest form of the art and even today, it is the most common. “When people narrate incidents, that is oral storytelling even though the listener doesn’t know if it is fact or fiction and doesn’t really care. Even when a husband and wife switch off the lights and talk about the day, that too is storytelling and fulfills a need which a device cannot. In Bangla, everyday talking is katha,” says the director whose first film Socha Na Tha released in 2005.
Through his films, Ali has been known to tell stories that are layered but at their heart lies a simple tale which can find a resonance in everyone. “I am on a quest for a good story but simplicity, not necessarily. I think in a certain way, I have seen life in a certain way and, because I am not a very cinema-literate person, I have no option but to present it in a certain manner. If that becomes simple so be it,” says Ali before asserting that he has to live with his films forever unlike the audience who might watch it once, twice or more. “This makes it imperative that the story should be engaging, meaningful and, in some way, transcending,” he says and one can’t help but nod in agreement, looking back at the journey of Ved from Tamasha or Geet from Jab We Met.
However, of all of Ali’s films, it is Rockstar (2011), the unusual tale of singer Janardhan aka Jordan with its Sufi core, which is often discussed to the bone at festivals and conclaves. The series of coincidences that occurred during its making are so surreal that they trigger goosebumps. “Jab We Met (2007), Love Aaj Kal (2009) and Socha Na Tha had tight scripts with cause and effect. But Rockstar was a loose cannon and things were moving with a certain emotion that had to be experienced in one scene in order for the next scene to happen. While shooting the first bit of Naadan Parindey, where Jordan is arrested by the police at the hospital and he goes wild, all that I had in mind was the sound of the drums composed by AR Rahman sir. A friend from Australia sent me poetry by Rumi which said, ‘the hunting falcon hears the sound of the drums, come home, come home. This turning towards what you love truly saves you.’ I didn’t understand it on the day but later it became the premise of Naadan Parindey. In the realistic realm of the world, coincidences do happen,” he says.
But that was not the end. It seemed that the 13th century poet was trying to insert himself in the film by being omnipresent. “We were nearing the end and another quote ‘Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field and I will meet you there’, was sent to me by another friend. It was at this moment that I realised that whoever this guy Rumi was, he knew more about the film than I did,” he says as the air around us is lulled into quiet as if paying its respect to the words of wisdom spoken long back and in a distant land. This, as we know, became the opening quotation with which Ali started the film.
Just like the Ranbir Kapoor-starrer, he believes that stories have a way of finding their tellers. “I didn’t have information or the knowledge to tell these stories. Stories have a way of finding me as I am sitting in front of a computer in a surrender mode. The best that I can do is not get in the way or impose my own ideas upon them,” he says.
Writing is often considered a lonely affair and Ali has written all the films that he has directed till date. “I don’t enjoy writing. I write the first draft feverishly. But then there is rewriting, fine tuning and outside influences like a Rumi quote till it is finalised. Filming is the next chapter of writing when there are hundreds of people on the set and issues like permissions not having come through, or fading light and more. You tell the story in the most concrete fashion at this time because it is recorded on the camera. It doesn’t matter what you have written before,” he says.
Ali says that a film usually starts when a writer imagines a scene or a character. “You imagine a girl missing a train and talking rudely to the station master but this imagination is incomplete,” he says as murmurs of Geet and Jab We Met go round the audience. “When an actor walks in flesh and blood and says it, that is when it becomes real. So, the interaction between the actor and director is a two-way street to tell the story effectively,” adds Ali.
However, the Jamshedpur boy prefers not to become a character in his films and says, “Sometimes when I am making a movie, I start to behave like some characters subconsciously and I have to stop myself because that is not sustainable in the reality of my world. These often predate the film when they simply existed in my head.”
However, he does admit that he enjoys when Jordan peeks out from his persona, “I believe I am not at all like him. He is stupid and I am intelligent. He can sing really well like Mohit Chauhan and I can’t sing at all. In his stupidity and naivety, there is a truth and lack of cunning. His ignorance is a path to a higher truth which I admire. When I am like that, I push my boundaries which I would have ignored if I was being myself,” he says.
Though Ali doesn’t want to be Ved or Jai (Saif in Love Aaj Kal) as the latter is so flummoxed by different thoughts that he can barely complete a sentence, this is is a character that he sees often in himself and people around him. “I start a sentence and realise that it’s redundant and jump onto something else confusing the hell out of everybody,” he says.
However, there is a consistency in his films like the use of journey as a metaphor for life. “Journeys are important to me because they change the perspective. If you are at a new place, you feel new. The things you feel or experience are dramatically new as well. That is entertaining in life as well as movies,” he says.
Linked to the journey is also the element of the protagonists being a seeker in his films. Does Ali relate to the fact that the so-called millennials are more often found to be engaging in the quest for spirituality than the generations past? “There is so much invigoration in their brain that the absence of substance really hits them hard. They feel a little hollow. All of us would, if our lives centered around imaginary friends. If we are more device-oriented than human interaction oriented. They feel the sense of abyss and they seek a meaning. So they are seekers and drawn to spirituality,” he says nodding sagely.
When a person from the audience asks, the way to tell stories, Ali replies, “If there was only one answer to how, that would have been the end of pursuit in life. You are fortunately condemned to a life where you will constantly try to find it.”
A Hindu College alumnus, Ali loves to shoot in the capital as the old, the very old, the modern and the uber modern coexist. “It is unbelievable that we are sitting over here and just close by is Humayun’s tomb, Hazrat Nizamuddin dargah, a flyover, The Oberoi hotel and a metro station. When you see a frame in Delhi, you find various layers. I really feel proud that there is the presence of old heritage and culture alongwith the new. This is visually represented in every frame,” he says.
Since it is a storytelling festival, Ali decides to narrate one and asks the audience to huddle up close which they promptly do. He requests them to switch off their phones and not record it for there are a few tales which must remain a secret within the hearts of the stones, monuments and a few mortals that are present.
Photo: Md Meharban
