Madhureeta Mukherjee (BOMBAY TIMES; May 31, 2018)

She’s feisty and fearless. Her opinions make solid statements and her ideas have shock value. Ekta Kapoor, the woman who made a genre out of the saas-babu sagas on Indian television, is also a film producer who takes pride in telling stories about love, lust, sexual repression and drugs. Quite an antithesis this one is. That’s Ekta Kapoor for you. Her ideas can be anything from simple to sensational or real to radical — all depending on what her audience will lap up. There’s one thing certain about this woman with boundless enthusiasm and guts galore, and she simplifies it best herself, “People are being able to put me in a box, so they think I am an anomaly”. She’s backing the upcoming Veere Di Wedding directed Shashanka Ghosh, a film where four fab women are leading the show. In a chat with BT, Ekta talks about how sanskar and sex can co-exist, the warped idea of feminism that looms large over us, and how she’s drawn to stories that beautifully break the idea of perfection. Read on…

After a long wait, Veere Di Wedding is finally here. The film, led by four female actors, is already making quite a statement. And all of you have stressed on the fact that it is not a chick flick...
It’s about time we make a statement, right? Though I am far more gender agnostic in the way I view things. I don’t look at it as a film about four women, it’s about friendship. And once you get engaged in the story, you really don’t see the gender of the lead cast. The more you spell out these things, the more we underline it, and we end up creating some kind of discrimination. Veere… is a coming-of-age film, and it’s about acceptance of the fact that the fairy tales we have been fed, don’t turn out exactly the way you imagined. We are all becoming the heroes we are told to marry, and we are becoming women who are okay with our blemishes, flaws and body types. It’s this depth in the story that drew me towards it. This is a story that we need to tell our boys and girls.

Kareena Kapoor Khan was signed for the project and then she announced that she was pregnant. Rhea Kapoor and you made the choice to wait for her to have the baby and come back to work. It also sends out a message that actresses cannot be easily substituted...
Well, Kareena is a star, a stunning woman and also an actor par excellence. There was a list of actresses that Rhea and I went through, who were keen to do it, but we needed a performer, because Kalindi (Kareena’s character in the film) is complex. I think that when you know your character well, and you are not looking at making the most expensive film on earth, you should go with certain type of actors that you want. I clearly remember when Rhea called me up to tell me that Kareena is pregnant, I was walking to the Tirupati temple. I was dealing with Udta Punjab (2016), as the film had run into trouble, and my nephew Laksshya (brother Tusshar’s son) had arrived just six days before that. There was too much happening already, and we just had a baby in our house, too. I didn’t think that an actress should lose a film because she was having a child. Not happening! As a producer, I was in and out of the project initially, and it had nothing to do with the idea of the film itself. A lot of people said that it’s a women-oriented film and that the budgets are not working out. There are people in the industry who patronisingly look at you and say. ‘Two crore mein toh khul jaayegi, yaar. Gaane chal gaye, warna women-oriented film ki opening kaise ho sakti hai’. I went through the same thing during The Dirty Picture (2011). On paper, the film appeared to be a Rs 12-crore loss. I said I am doing this film; I will make ten more shows and make the money for the company. I believed in it, and I did it.

There is a line in the film where Sonam Kapoor’s character says that it doesn’t matter how qualified or successful a girl is, but unless she has a mangalsutra around her neck, her life is not seen as complete. Every woman is evaluated through that prism, isn’t it? A single woman of so-called marriageable age is also often seen justifying why she is single...
We are always told that we should settle down and find the other half. And that half is someone who will come and complete you. I have given so many interviews where I was asked, ‘When will you settle down?’ What is the meaning of being settled? It means doing what I want to do, being independent and being emotionally sorted. I am in that space. I feel complete. So, I am settled, aren’t I? If I find someone, I will be giving something and sharing a part of me, but the purpose is not to fill up the other half. You don’t need someone to complete you, whether you are a man or a woman.

Interestingly, the kinds of films you have backed, like The Dirty Picture, Udta Punjab, Lipstick Under My Burkha (2016), are bold, path-breaking and challenge the norms of cinema. These are quite different from your TV shows, which are family-friendly and cater to a certain audience. In that area, you have gone with the tide. Your sensibility across mediums is starkly different…
People can’t put me in a box, so they think I am an anomaly. They tell me that you make a television soap like Naagin, then you make a film like Lipstick Under My Burkha, and now, you are making a film like Veere… I tell them, why don’t you get it, there are so many sides to me. I am doing my own kind of ‘MeToo’, I don’t want to do it in a way that others are doing it. In the show Naagin, in the first episode, she gets molested and then she comes back and takes full on revenge. In our society, kuch cheezein hum kehte hai aur woh wahi reh jaati hai. No one will ever call this a movement. But we need to penetrate across with our shows, and we have to do it in a language that the masses understand. I am also told ki, ‘Aap sanskar ki baat karte ho, phir aap sex ki baat karte ho’. I tell them that sanskar aur sex dono ussi ladki ke pehlu hai. Agar ek ladki mandir jaati hai, uska yeh matlab nahin ki she’s not interested in sex. And why are we deciding that this is all that a woman can be? That this is what stirs a fight between women? The one in the sari is complexed about the one in the swimsuit, and the one in a swimsuit looks down upon the one in the sari. Then, we start putting labels on each other and fighting over it. We have to stop putting ourselves and other people in boxes. We have to realise that as the world is getting gender fluid, we have to be fluid about our sensibility, too. Acceptance is the word of the decade. The day we get it, we are sorted.

In Veere… the four girls brazenly talk about sex, orgasms and use cuss words to express themselves; it’s the kind of stuff that we don’t see in our cinema. None of the characters are seeking to be poster girls of perfection or morality (that’s socially acceptable). It is a brave choice, but you are also taking some chances while backing such subjects...
That day somebody asked me, ‘Aap Kalpana Chawla (American astronaut and the first woman of Indian origin who went to space) ke baare mein kyon nahin film banate? Tab feminist film hogi na, yeh kaise feminist film ho gaya?’ I am like… how confused are you? First of all, yahan pe feminism kaise aa gaya? Feminism is a belief; a man or a woman can be a feminist. You have to believe in the concept of equality, and believe in giving someone space to live the kind of life they want. I said that I would love to make a film on Kalpana Chawla also. I even told him that what he said is politically incorrect on all levels.

The idea of feminism is terribly misconstrued. Here again, you want to put a woman on a pedestal.
It’s again the girl who can achieve, or the girl who has a baby who is put on a pedestal. The other girls have to reach that position somehow. For television, I make socially moving, but simple and sweet content, it’s not radical. With films, I want to do that. So many people tell me… ‘Yahi type ki films aapko pasand hai’. I tell them yes, and you won’t get it. The beauty of Veere… is that it doesn’t try to show the perfect woman. The film is about breaking perfection. It works for me, because I want to see four friends sit down and say… why the hell did this happen to me? That is real. Our hearts break, our mascara melts and when we are struck with pain, we overeat, drink and we are on Instagram reading quotes. This is just the way we are.

After creating content across mediums over the years, which medium do you think is the most challenging?
I still think that TV is most challenging. With shows, you are in people’s homes, you can’t do things in a certain way and you can’t be too radical. You have to get the story across to hundreds of people and the show has to fetch high ratings. Every time you think you have cracked it, you realise that the audience is sensitised to the story. And there are only so many stories. Making television shows is like going to war with your hands and legs tied.