Upala KBR (DNA; June 9, 2014)

I am meeting Mahesh Bhatt after what seems like ages. I see a change. Years. He is as passionate about his work today as he was back then but there is this added sparkle in his eyes when he talks about his last production Citylights. It is not a film with a formula, or done with commercial reasons in mind, and different from the ‘cinema of desire’ like Murder and Raaz with all the paraphernalia of songs, stars cast and skin show. He sits across me in his spacious office in Khar (a far cry from his cramped space in Juhu) and talks about everything from A (Alia) to Z (his Zen park). Read on...

A director, then producer now a star father — your labels keep changing. Do you keep changing with every label?
Yes, I have changed. The director Mahesh Bhatt is different from this man who plays the mentor to a lot of young people. I am not the same man when I am driving or doing backseat driving. As a parent, it’s a great joy to have children like Pooja, Alia, Shaheen and Sunny (Rahul). They have their head on their shoulders. Pooja has had a rather intensely unorthodox life yet she is an excellent daughter and has courage and ability to stand her own ground, do things her own way. It’s such a delight to see her the way she is. Sunny is a self-respecting boy who would rather make ends meet by being a fitness guru than by telling me to make him a hero. Finally he’s said yes to a role as it’s worth it. He’s doing a film with Pooja. Shaheen is an extraordinary writer with an unusual mind somebody from whom I seek a lot of inputs. She has a very enlightened view of life and is an out-of-the-box person. And Alia is a hard worker. She is the hardest working child in my family. I have never seen a wrinkle on her forehead as to why she’s working so hard — she just enjoys it. My children come to me for advice. My only advice to them is don’t listen to anybody, just follow your heart. Pooja comes and asks me. I say a lot of things, some things she rejects and that’s the way it should be.

Do you advise Alia on the kind of films she should do?
No. I have not given her a single advice on her work or cinema or life. She took off with Karan (Johar). He is very fond of her and like a parent to her. She’s lucky to have him by her side because he’s far more hands on as a producer and contemporary filmmaker. Alia also has a great manager from Matrix who looks after her work. We just ask questions from a distance if there are questions to be asked which are more out of curiosity. Her mother is more in tune with what she’s doing. We need to learn a lot from what she knows because she is a young icon who has made it on her own two solid feet without any help from her father who has ‘made innumerable people’, as the world says. There is no better achievement for me. In fact, I am delighted when at some of the places I go to people refer to me as ‘Ah! You are Alia Bhatt’s father.’ That brings a smile to my face.

Do you miss directing?
No. I don’t even think of myself as a director. It’s not in my path. When I look back I ask myself who was the guy who did it? I don’t know who he was… Just because I am not a director does not mean that I am not creative. Marketing is helping the director to find his own strengths. I am a person of ideas — I write, speak, encourage, put together projects so it’s a lot of work. In fact, my working hours are much more now. I work harder now when I am not a director anymore.

There were times when you let assistants make films that had your name as the director...
It’s a fact. I used to do that. I was so overworked that I was losing the desire to make films and I used to make my assistant direct my films. I would call him and give directions. That’s why I de-linked myself from the directorial chair.

You have directed Pooja. Don’t you feel like directing Alia?
No. Why would I want to direct her when she has a Karan (SOTY), an Imtiaz Ali (Highway) and Abhishek Burman (2 States). She’s not poorer without me. I’m not under the illusion that I can bring to her what these kids can’t! No. These are brilliant people out there.

How involved are you in the film Soni wants to direct with Alia?
Soni is directing a film called Love Affair produced by Pooja and T-Series. That’s a triangular love drama, a fictional reconstruction of the Nanavati murder case. I am not involved in the film at all. Soni is a self-sufficient person. She has worked out her own narrative with her writer. I have no role to play in it at all. I have heard the story once and I gave my response but I don’t do any kind of backseat driving. That’s her film and between her, Pooja and the writer they call the shots.

What is your average day like?
My day begins at 5 am. My morning begins at the beach or the Zen park behind my building where I walk for an hour. I come and do most of my reading and writing before the day begins. Before the sun rises I have done most of my thinking. Read, write, ponder about things regarding my immediate work and then each day’s work is different. Sometimes I have to come for a story session, sometimes a marketing strategy — Kunal’s working on another film and we are very close so sometimes he calls me to discuss a script and I go there. I float around. I am a free bird moving from here to there seeking any kind of insights that come my way from the people who are vigorously engaged in the process of living. I try and sleep by midnight. I don’t need more than four hours of sleep.

You have three phones — is that really necessary?
I like toys and the reason I have three phones is that when I travel the network in some areas like Assam or Kashmir you don’t find a particular service working there so I do not want to be disconnected from my home base. Most of my work is through communication, messaging, email. That is just a tool that is used as a standby. I don’t need three phones. I actually carry them in the bag. I use one phone and use the others when the battery is draining out. That’s all.

Are you easy to get in touch with today for writers, actors, etc, as you used to be when you started out?
I am the easiest person to access. Any person who is not available in today’s time is an outdated individual. Access is success. If a talented person cannot access you, the loss is yours. Pick up the phone and say no, I won’t talk to you. Innumerable people, including actors call me, I ask them to come to the office or message me. It’s not possible to talk to everyone on the phone. Once you get your act together you can handle your so-called intrusion. I don’t believe in the mindset of the film industry of creating a kind of citadel around themselves and not be available at all. It takes you days to reach people. That’s a regressive attitude. The more you are accessible the chances of you being able to do yourself more good and staying relevant. Otherwise you will be lost. Success isolates you. I don’t want to be isolated. I am not a political head who needs a firewall around me.

Are you enjoying what you do now? Still as passionate about cinema?
I am passionate about life. Cinema is a part of life. I am not passionate about cinema as that’s not the only thing in my life. The process of living engages me. I am a passionate human being. People ask me how I don’t get tired talking from dawn to dusk. If you do anything wholeheartedly you don’t get tired. Children don’t get tired because they work wholeheartedly. I have lot more energy today because I am wholeheartedly engaged with the process of living. There is no other way to live!

What makes you happy?
I have had moments of ecstasy and great despair. I have highs and lows in life like anybody else. Good or bad things happen to you. You take them in your stride. I am not mesmerised by the market place —like food or clothes or by the goodies that people pursue. I am a man who wears a black shirt and blue jeans or vice versa. I like to travel in comfort. I don’t have many needs. I have very few needs in life. I read because I need ideas to survive —ideas are my currency and I interpret the happenings like anybody else.

Which actors from the current generation have impressed you?
I was stunned by Rajkummar’s talent. I am looking for new people. I don’t want to work with people who are already established. The joy of discovering new people is something, which is still fascinating.

You listen to your heart or head?
I don’t have a head. I always say people who do not want to act, think. Thinking paralyses you. I have got so far because of acting. I have always aimed after I have fired. I respond to life as it happens. If I lose my way I will ask somebody the way and will find the right place. I can’t be lost because I am not going anywhere. This is all that I have right now. I wrote something — ‘life doesn’t need an affirmation to be what it is, it doesn’t care about any negation – it just is.’ This is my life. Life doesn’t seek any approvals from anybody.

Do you have any friends in the industry?
I have no friends. My only friend was a man called UG Krishnamurthy who died in 2007 and when I say I don’t have friends I don’t lament. I am not a lonely man. I am not a man pining for some human association. I had just one meaningful relationship which lasted for over 30 years and with his passing away I don’t have a friend but people are very nice, caring and generous to me and I have nothing but gratitude to people around me. Life hasn’t short-changed me in any way. I have always got more than what I think I actually deserved. I wouldn’t have made it so far without the generosity of people around me. I don’t have conflicts or am caught between right and wrong. If I want to do something I do it and if it doesn’t work I pay for the consequences. I take it in my stride. I don’t go for a shoulder to cry on. As long as you are alive you will have pain in some form or the other and saying no to pain is saying no to life so whatever the golden insights I have got is by plowing through the painland. In the heart of darkness lies light.

Recently the family went to Paris. Why weren’t you with them?
I am not a holiday man. That’s been a complaint that my wife Soni has always had — that I am not a regular husband. That was what even my first wife said. In fact my first (wife) told my second that if Mahesh could be what we expect in a marriage from a husband then he would have given that to me but he just doesn’t have it in him. I don’t go for holidays. That’s something my wife and children hold against me but that’s not my idea of recreation. I say sorry I can’t do it. I don’t like traveling for pleasure. I travel only for work. I’m not a tourist or pleasure-seeker through traveling or food. I live a rather bare, austere, minimalist experience.

The Bhatts makes commercial grossers. Why a film like Citylights now?
Change for sake of change is something I have always tried to adhere to. Having come to a peak I realised it’s only when you are very successful that decay sets in. So the time had come for me to deconstruct myself. I saw a kind of smugness seeping around me — people in my world were feeling certain that now that we are there we are repeating the formula and nothing is more dangerous than that.

Films like Murder and Raaz have been the Bhatts’ trademark...
The times that we were living in said that people were interested in movies which were purely escapist in nature. We made a decision and we had tremendous success with Raaz opening the innings for us and becoming a big hit. Then Murder and the Raaz series came. The last 15 years have been very successful. Everything we have achieved has been thanks to the cinema of desire. I was making movies that gratified but they were all unapologetically marketed as they were. We were using sex as a component to seduce, lure and titillate. And it worked.

You got a lot of criticism for that
I can say with conviction that I am as proud as I am of a Murder, Raaz or Jism as I am of a Citylights today. For me they are both two streams which run parallel side by side. Like there was always a Raj Kapoor and Satyajit Ray.

So more films like Citylights now?
We won’t move away from the kind of cinema which is speedy, big budget and caters to the escapist need in all of us but we will continue to make movies that use the cinematic space to explore painful truths but for that we need integrity, honesty and courage of people like Hansal Mehta. You can’t create them in your backyard. I don’t want to make films that are affected or festival films — that aspire to use cinema to pole-vault into Cannes or Berlin. I want to make films that generate revenue indigenously and touch people. I don’t know when I will find another story like that.

How would you place a Rajkummar Rao amidst a Ranbir Kapoor or a Ranveer Singh?
Rajkummar is the best actor I have seen in years. He is head and shoulders above the contemporary actors because firstly, he doesn’t source or reference his performances from a model that exists among the seniors. He has the Indianness and his own very unique way of connecting with the character. I would unhesitatingly call him the best actor amidst us. I presume that a good actor becomes a star. At 29, he already has got a National Award. There’s the writing on the wall that a man who has done such diverse roles in such a short span of time has tremendous potential to achieve what is called a star status. Rajkummar is one of his kind but cinema that reveals the harsh truths of life has less takers so since so far he has opted to act in this kind of cinema his stardom is understandably not as much as Ranbir’s is but the day he chooses to operate from that we will see whether he can rise up and touch the larger constituencies as well.

You have introduced many newcomers. What is required for an actor to become a star?
You need enthusiasm, enthusiasm and enthusiasm. And for a long productive career you need to re-invent yourself consistently. The Barbie doll, Amitabh Bachchan and Mahesh Bhatt have re-invented themselves over the last 40 years. Actors like filmmakers and politicians should have the ability to change with the changing times and re-invent themselves.