An observer of politics

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An observer of politics

Thursday, 17 January 2019 | Saimi Sattar

An observer of politics

Director-producer Prakash Jha’s new venture Fraud Saiyaan is a comedy set in the heartland, says Saimi Sattar

A pair of spectacles dangles at the end of the V-neck of the grey sweater and a blue muffler is casually thrown across Prakash Jha’s shoulders. The ensemble is paired with dark trousers. He looks relaxed and at the same time proud as his daughter Disha is producing her first film Fraud Saiyaan. “She came with the script and said that she had set up this production company and wanted me to back it up. She told me to read the script. And when I did, I could not stop laughing,” he says.

And he elaborates why by describing what the film is about. “The beauty of the film is that it is a heartland story. It is inspired by fraud characters that exist. It is about native intelligence and the jugaadu manner in which Bhola (played by Arshad Warsi) negotiates his affairs and wives hilariously,” says Jha sitting adjacent to a glass window on the 20th floor of a hotel in the capital.

It is not Jha’s first foray in comedy, even though he is identified with socially-relevant cinema. “I did direct the popular serial, Mungerilal ke Haseen Sapne and produced Dil Dosti, Etc (2007) and Crazy Cukkad Family (2015). It is not as if I have not supported comedies. The films that I make usually have dark humour because they have a heavy political influence.”

Jha chooses his words carefully. If one says that his films are politically relevant, he points out that it’s a huge word to define them. “They can be called reflective of the polity,” he says and elaborates further, “Every cinema, if it is true to social behaviour, is politics. Even in a love story, where a boy and a girl can’t meet because of caste or class is political.”

When one ventures into the domain of the increasing politicisation of films, Jha immediately takes the discussion ahead. “I have not seen The Accidental PM but no matter what you do, a film has to stand on its own. And if it has some substance, people will like it irrespective of the politics. It has to have a logic and be engaging to work. I have no problem with what it says as long as it is coherent,” says the director who made his debut with  Hip Hip Hurray in 1984. Next came Damul (1984) for which he received huge recognition. The film went on to win the National Film Award for Best Feature Film and the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie in 1985. He goes on to point out that, “Political ideology is now available in public domain. If you are falling for the rhetoric, you will use your rationale to justify that.”

When you prod him further about the political divisions within the Bollywood, which are coming to the fore, he says that the industry was always split down from the middle. “We have cinema and then there is the world outside cinema where secularism, democracy, fanaticism, everything is very active. And that holds true for the entire world. Majoritarianism holds sway whether it is America, Britain, France, Turkey, China or Russia. These ideas are being debated because democracy all over the world has shrunk into the concept of electoral politics and its redefinition is essential,” says Jha who sees a manthan (churning) happening all over the world. Though he is not sure he will live to see the change which began in 2010, he says, “As an observer I am alive to everything that happens every day and in my own way I try to capture it,” and goes on to give the example of some of his landmark films like Damul, Mrityudand, Apharan and more, which were reflective of social realities whether it was mandalisation, open marketing or saturation of caste politics. He tried to tap in the advent of new ideas of the current youth with Satyagrah.

Coming to the larger picture of the state of affairs in the film industry where content is now coming to the forefront, he says that it was already there. “It is about acceptance as people are more receptive to it. The multiplexes ensure that even smaller films are screened. The audience is willing to take a chance and pay for it,” he says.

While he is heartened by the reception to better content, the state of affairs in education draws flak from him. “We have taken a very terrible direction as far as education is concerned and faulted for almost two generations. We took humanities out of the system and focussed on science and management. This led to the creation of a new kind of world which is smart and efficient but not rooted in culture or philosophy. This generation does not know anything about it,” he says adding that it is only now when people, especially parents, have seen that engineering and management colleges are going bust and there are no jobs in the field that they have opened up to the idea of taking up literature or history.

Another change that has been witnessed is the shift from the so-called parallel cinema and the use of ‘star power’ by Jha. He defends the move. “I changed from pure parallel cinema like Damul as I had a choice to either become competitive or not survive. There was a wave of parallel cinema by Ketan (Mehta), Kundan (Shah), Saeed (Mirza) in the 1980s and suddenly with the open market, the cost of making films went up and new technology came in. I wrote Mrityudand and brought in Madhuri Dixit. The dialogues, script and the scenes were like that of a commercial film. And I would like to point out that Gupt an out-and-out commercial film also released around the same time and both of them had their space,” he says.

Looking ahead, he is also working on the OTT platforms as he finds it “a very interesting space and way of dealing with subjects that we couldn’t deal with in films.” He is working on three subjects in this platform. “It takes a lot of time as one season is like five or six films,” he says.

Jha also works in the social sector with his organisation Anubhooti. “I would like to do a lot more but I do not have a team. I mostly help financially in health, education and disaster management,” he says.

There is one phase of his life which he is not keen on revisiting — that of being part of active politics. He had contested and lost the election to the Lok Sabha from his native Champaran in 2004 and again in 2009 as Lok Janashakti Party candidate from West Champaran. He again contested in the 2014 elections as a JD(U) candidate from Paschim Champaran and lost. And there is a reason, he says. “I am enjoying my life as a producer, actor, writer while helping young people find their feet. I also love to watch the world go by.” 

Jha has finished shooting a film “but I didn’t want things to overlap. I didn’t want to announce it as my daughter deserves her place in sun. But we will meet soon,” and moves on to other interviews with that promise.

(The film releases on January 18.)

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