As told to Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 21, 2018)

After graduating in commerce from Mumbai’s Sydenham College, I immediately got admission to an MBA course in the US. But they suggested I get some work experience first so I joined Mahindra & Mahindra’s Jeep division and discovered that I enjoyed advertising far more than marketing. I wanted to be a copy writer so I dashed off a mock campaign for the CJ-340 jeep which went something like ‘Feels like a car, rides like a buggy and looks like a dream’. I mailed it off to three top ad agencies, Trikaya Grey, Rediffusion Y & R and Enterprise and the first two offered me a job without even taking a copy test. Without waiting for the third interview, I took up the Rediffusion job. I was 22 and worked at the agency for five years.

I joined as a trainee but quickly graduated to writing copy. The first campaign was for a shaving cream which was along the lines, “In the stillness of the morning, everything waits, the water waits, the razor quivers…” V Shantakumar was the creative director, Nitin Beri the art director and it was filmed by Mahesh Mathai. I went on to do several other campaigns for everything, from magazines and soft drinks to hotels and corporate ads. A corporate ad I worked on as a freelancer for a city eveninger bagged me the prestigious CAG (Communication Arts Guild).

At 25, I was offered English, August, Dev Benegal’s directorial debut based on Upamanyu Chatterjee novel by the same name. The agency gave me two months off to go and shoot the film after two decades in theatre. I had been on stage since I was six and in the second standard, I played Tom in a play titled Tom, The Piper’s Son, and it was like my home, I belonged there, theatre made me feel strong, confident and loved. I’d done professional theatre for four years in Mumbai, working in Rahul D’Cunha’s Are There Tigers in the Congo? and Prithvi Theatre’s The Sandbox among others. I was excited about the film offer too but I quickly realised that facing the movie camera was a completely different ball game. There is no immediate feedback from the audience and after a while I began to rely on my instincts. If your mind and heart is clean and uncluttered, your instincts almost never let you down.

After English, August I returned to advertising. I enjoyed the freedom the job gave me. I worked from 10 am to midnight most days, but timings were flexible and I could go hop off to the gym in the afternoon and come to the office in shorts. The money was really good and there was no hierarchy. My bosses, Arun Nanda and Ajit Balakrishnan, were Arun and Ajit to me, and even Shantakumar was Shanta.

I must have been not too shabby at my job because I was promoted to creative director at the age of 26. That was a big high though I was unhappy about going out for dinner and drinks with clients after office hours and told my bosses I wasn’t going to do it. They respected my decision. It also upset me that for the first time in my life, I had no time for theatre for a year.

Meanwhile, English, August which was in post-production for over a year, finally released in 1994 and was critically acclaimed. It was the first indie film to break the stranglehold of mainstrem Hindi cinema. Many in ad circles dabbled in theatre, but no one had played the lead in a feature film. Amidst all the congratulations, I surprised everyone by quitting advertising to become a full-time actor. My dad was aghast, “What will happen now?” he wondered. I told him I had two-months salary and Ajit amd Arun had assured me their doors were always open to me. If things didn’t work out, I could always go back. But I didn’t have to.

I was offered a daily soap, A Mouthful Of Sky, which gave me a monthly income for a year. Fiction television is not my medium but the soap paid me as much as I got as a creative director and gave me my financial independence. Then, Bombay Boys happened, and after that one film followed the other.

Over the years, I’ve occasionally brainstormed with friends on campaigns and even acted in a few commercials and endorsements. My experience as creative director has also helped me position my movies correctly, design the logo and brochures of my foundation, come up with innovative promotion ideas for films like Poorna which had a limited budget to play upon a popular phrase, you can take a person out of advertising but you can never take advertising out of a person.

After his National Award-winning film English, August was damaged at Prasad Film Labs, director and co-writer Dev Benegal is trying to re-create a new archival digital negative
Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 13, 2018)

English, August, a landmark in contemporary Indian cinema, could well be lost to cinephiles. Dev Benegal’s 1994 directorial, which bagged the National Award for Best Feature Film in English and was feted internationally, is a fresh, irreverent take on bureaucracy and explored the effects of the English language barrier in our own country with tongue-in-cheek humour. It was the first indie film to break into Hindi mainstream cinema and made its unconventional leading man, Rahul Bose, a familiar name, both at home and globally. The filmmaker talks about the tragedy and his restoration efforts.

We’ve heard that the original negative of your film, English, August, has been destroyed following poor storage. Is there any way that it can be restored?
I wanted to make a digital version of the film. I called the lab for the original negative and they hesitantly revealed that it had been affected by water damage and was not in a good condition.

There’s a bit of ironic history to this. Having seen the condition of the negatives of Satyajit Ray’s films when I was working on the two-hour documentary on him (directed by Shyam Benegal), I promised myself that I would never let that happen to my own film if and when I made one. So, when I did make English, August I made sure to take it to the best lab in India, which back then was Prasad Film Labs in Chennai. What I never imagined was that this would be the very place where the negative would get damaged.

In my mind, the original negative was in the best lab in the country, safe and stored correctly. I should have checked continuously, spoken to them about storage conditions, but those were things one never knew back then and one learns in hindsight.

We did not have a budget to make a dupe or an inter-negative. Also, the technology in India was very rudimentary and when you did make a duplicate, it led to a significant loss in the quality of the image.

It’s really heart-breaking because the film has the work of one of the finest Director of Photography (DoP) in the country — Anoop Jotwani. Anoop was Subrata Mitra’s (Ray’s cameraman) blue-eyed protégé. In English, August his work was wonderful — the depth and tonality that he brought to the image, I haven’t seen elsewhere. That was combined with the extraordinary production design by Anuradha Parikh. The collaboration was magical.

So, are you saying there is no hope for the film?
There’s a tiny sliver of hope. The Taiwan filmmaker, Edward Yang, who was on the jury of one of the festivals where English, August won an award, loved the film and asked the Taiwan Film Archives to buy a 35mm print. There is a low contrast print with the French television network La Sept-Arte that co-produced the film. I am planning to scan these digitally, frame-by-frame at 8K, and re-create a new archival digital negative. Then, make 35mm prints and also create elements for online streaming, DVD and whatever the new formats are.

English, August was the first feature to have digital sound. Vikram Joglekar took an enormous leap to record sound in digital. I’ve made sure I’ve backed up the sound in every possible way. The sound design is also intact as is the music by D Wood and Joglekar.

But isn’t the process of restoration very expensive?
Yes, the real issue is the cost of restoration. It is much higher than what it costs to make the movie. So, that is a stumbling block. There are no organisations or funds I can access for support. I really have to fund it myself. I am hoping to do that in small steps.

Many cine buffs on social media have been asking about the film. Is there any way they can watch it?
At the moment, no. Once the restoration is complete, it will be available on all platforms — digital and film projection included.

What does this say about India, the largest film producing nation? Are facilities better now or are we still in danger of losing our cinematic classics?
India has a strange relationship with films. As people, we love them. As a state, we do everything to create hurdles for filmmaking. Absurd taxes, high import duties, censorship, the list is endless. For the longest time, we couldn’t take our own negative out of a lab due to some absurd Excise Rules. At every step, the state treats the film community like they are committing a crime.

It’s a known fact that celluloid film is the best archival medium that exists. Properly stored, it can last for a very, very long time. Longer than the digital medium which is subject to the whims of manufacturers and the lack of any standards. I say this even though I have lost my film’s negative.

I recently saw the restored versions of Wim Wenders’ films. He spoke about the German government fund to restore and digitise all their works of art. Everything. Now that’s something. I do feel strongly that the cinema and all our arts need state support for their preservation. This is more than a private enterprise initiative. It has to be something larger and all encompassing.

Reema Gehi (BOMBAY TIMES; November 13, 2016)


Slated to open towards the end of the month, the Goethe Institut’s ambitious Poets Translating Poets Festival, which will be staged across the city, brings to spotlight one of the oldest gems in the city —The Edward Theatre — located in bustling Kalbadevi. In December, a Bangalore-based performance arts company will present Christmas Shoot Out at the heritage theatre. Its 55-year-old owner Fred Poonawala is quite thrilled about hosting two back-to-back events at a space “which has barely five people in the audience right now”, he says, referring to the screening of a B-grade matinee Yudh – Ek Jung, which was playing at the cinema on Saturday. “The plan is to repurpose, refurbish and reimagine the space, without changing its structure, its look and its feel.”

Four years ago, the British Council had brought to the theatre a live cinema performance, Light Surgeons. Two years later, two Swiss bands, Eric Trufaiz and Plaistow, performed here. There was even a charity auction conducted by the Mumbai Art Room. “And we thought a well-educated audience would love the space and start bringing in shows. Though there hasn’t been any sort of consistent programming,” he says, adding. “I have been speaking with people such as Dev Benegal, Ramu Ramanathan, Sanjana Kapoor and Kunal Kapoor, who think it’s a nice place, but needs to be done up.”

Taking a cue from his friends in the performance arts and film industry, the Pali Hill resident is in talks with a few realty experts to spruce the 500-seater again. “We have an idea of what we want to do. But nothing is signed, sealed and delivered,” he says. “For years, it has been a chicken-and-egg situation for me. You think, if you do something, people will come, or wonder when people come should you do something.”

If all goes as Poonawala has planned, Edward Theatre joins the ranks of the Royal Opera House and the Liberty Theatre, which have transformed into performance venues in the city. Poonawala points out, “This space actually was meant for plays and performances before it turned into a single screen theatre. It was meant for entertaining British expats who came to Bombay during the war.”

Built in 1800s, the theatre belonged to Poonawala’s grand-uncle Bejan Bharucha, “who was a man of many tastes. He loved his horses, cars and theatres. In fact, he had shares in 40 theatres across India,” says Poonawala. “As a kid, I would often drop in at Edward to watch old American cowboy movies, and my grand-uncle would be very happy. I remember there used to be a staff of 63 — today, we are only 10 — because it was buzzing with people and we needed manpower to control them.”

Bejan later passed on the legacy to his German wife Gertrude. “The theatre was already not doing well when my aunt passed away in 2005. Single screen theatres were not doing well as multiplexes already sprung up,” he says. “Besides, my grand-aunt was very determined to keep the prices of tickets low because she wanted the poor to watch cinema and get away from their lives for those few hours. The most expensive ticket was Rs 24,” he says, pointing, “Today, the most expensive ticket is Rs 35, which isn’t much anyway in these times of inflation. I continue putting my own money to maintain this place; it’s not a profit-making endeavour. I am looking for generous donors who will help this cause.”

A collector in his own right, arts have a special place in Poonawala’s life: he also runs a lithography firm and is the go-to man for leading contemporary artists, and top gallerists such as Shireen Gandhy, Usha Mirchandani and Dadiba Pundole to print limited editions, reproductions of artworks and exhibition brochures. Working with artists is a different experience, he says. “(MF) Husain would land up twice a week at our office when his projects were going on. He was an easy-going person. He knew what he painted could never be reproduced the same way in print and didn’t keep any big expectations,” says Poonawala, “He was experimental and would oblige us with his impromptu drawings and canvases. He painted a Ganesha for me, which I still count as my favourite.”

Asira Tarannum (MID-DAY; September 19, 2014)

If sources are to be believed, Akshaye Khanna is no longer a part of Dev Benegal’s upcoming film, Bombay Samurai. It may be pointed out that Akshaye Khanna was reportedly interfering a lot with the film’s script and getting his role re- written. Now we hear that the makers are now considering other actors for his role.

This film, apparently starring Akshaye in an out-and-out negative role, was supposed to be the actor’s comeback vehicle; the actor has no other film in hand. A source says, “Since it was his comeback film, he was not leaving any stone unturned to get this role right. After reading the script, Akshaye discussed his role once again with the film’s makers and he then asked for some changes. Now the filmmakers want to rope in Irrfan instead but his dates are not available as of now.”

The source adds that the makers are choosing to replace Akshaye only because they weren’t very happy with his interference. “It reached a point where too many changes were being asked to be made in the script. So the makers decided to sign on another actor. The official announcement for the same is yet to be made, but the makers have started approaching other actors for Akshaye’s role,” says the source.

Irrfan and producer Ritesh Sidhwani remained unavailable for comment.

Asira Tarannum (MID-DAY; July 31, 2014)

If sources are to be believed, Dev Benegal's next film, Bombay Samurai, might have Hrithik Roshan do a cameo in it. Sources say that Excel Entertainment, that is producing the film, is keen to have him make an appearance in the film. Accordingly, the makers are said to have asked director Dev Benegal, who is also writing the film’s script, to create a special role for Hrithik Roshan. The film already has a big star cast that includes Kareena Kapoor, Farhan Akhtar, Kalki Koechlin, Akshaye Khanna and Abhay Deol.

A source close to the film’s team says, “Excel Entertainment’s Ritesh Sidhwani and actor- filmmaker Farhan Akhtar are keen on including Hrithik in the project. Dev is now writing a role for Hrithik, let’s see how it will work out.”

It may be pointed out that Hrithik has earlier done a cameo in Zoya Akhtar’s Luck By Chance, where the actor stole the limelight with the Rajasthani song, Baware.

Both Hrithik Roshan and Ritesh Sidhwani were unavailable for comment.

Asira Tarannum (MID-DAY; July 30, 2014)

Akshaye Khanna, who is making a comeback in Bollywood with Dev Benegal’s film, Bombay Samurai, has apparently asked its makers to make changes in the script.

It is being said that the actor will be playing an out-and-out negative role in this film and the actor apparently wants his role to be a hard-hitting one.

A source from the industry says that Akshaye wants it to be an edgy negative role that will take audiences by surprise. “Since it is his comeback film, he is not leaving any stone unturned to get this role right. After Akshaye read the script, he discussed his role once again with the makers and he then asked for some changes,” says the source.

The source adds that the Dil Chahta Hai actor is very interested in knowing how his role will shape up. “This is more so because he plays a negative character in the film. After suggesting some changes in his role, Akshaye has checked with the makers to see if the changes have been made,” says the source.

Both Akshaye Khanna and the film’s producer, Ritiesh Sidhwani, remained unavailable for comment.

Vickey Lalwani (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 4, 2014)

The rumour mills have been busy recently with reports that Dev Benegal’s Bombay Samurai, starring Kareena Kapoor and Farhan Akhtar, has been postponed to next year as the script is being reworked.

While buzz is that the film has been aborted, Mirror has learnt that Excel Entertainment, one of the three co-producers, has withdrawn from the project.

According to a source close to the development, Farhan loved the script and wanted the film to roll by March 30. But despite Excel’s best efforts, Dev could not start the film on time.

Adds the source, “Firstly, Dev specified that he wanted technicians of his choice on his team. Excel arranged for them but he was unable to wrap up pre-production work on time. And after much deliberation, Ritesh Sidhwani decided to inform him that Excel does not wish to be associated with the film. However, they have parted ways amicably. Dev has a wonderful script and he might get a new producer soon. The star cast too may not remain the same.”

While the production house’s withdrawal is bad news for Dev, it will also affect Kareena's dates diary. After reports that she has been replaced by Deepika Padukone in Shhuddhi, this could be another plum project out of her kitty.

When contacted, Excel Entertainment’s head honcho Ritesh Sidhwani confirmed the news saying, “Yes, we are no longer producing Dev’s film. We wanted to start last month but he wasn’t ready. Now, Farhan (his partner in Excel Entertainment) too is busy with three back-to-back films— Zoya Akhtar’s Dil Dhadakne Do, Bejoy Nambiar’s next being produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Rock On 2—so where is the time?”

Shaheen Parkar (MID-DAY; March 27, 2014)

With his film Bombay Samurai, starring Kareena Kapoor and Farhan Akhtar, now put on the backburner, Dev Benegal has decided to immerse himself in another project. Titled Dead End, the film is being made in collaboration with actor-filmmaker, Satish Kaushik. It is a dark comedy about the life of Lal Bihari, a farmer from Uttar Pradesh, who has to prove that he is alive. Directed by Benegal, the film will have Kaushik on board as producer and actor.

The two are currently attending the Hong Kong International Film & TV Market, in a bid to woo investors for the project.

Says Kaushik, “Just days after my two films — Gang of Ghosts and Lakshmi — released, I headed to Hong Kong for my next. Dead End is close to my heart and when Dev developed the screenplay, I knew that there was no looking back.” Incidentally, Kaushik has been planning this project for over a decade and initially, wanted to make it with Anil Kapoor who had shown great interest in the subject.

In Hong Kong, Kaushik and Benegal have a dinner invitation from The Wienstein Company which has produced films like The King’s Speech, Inglorious Basterds and August: Osage County.

Dead End has been selected among the 11 best screenplays at the Asia Film Financing Forum, which is held alongside the film mart in Hong Kong.

Kaushik had the story registered under his banner and then handed it over to Benegal to develop.

Asira Tarannum (MID-DAY; March 13, 2014)

Director Dev Benegal’s next film, starring Kareena Kapoor and Farhan Akhtar, and titled Bombay Samurai, has been postponed. The film was supposed to go on the floors this month but it is being said that the production house (Excel) is busy with its Shah Rukh Khan-Farhan Akhtar starrer, Raees. It has also emerged the script is currently being reworked upon.

“Benegal showed Farhan the film’s script and he liked it so much that he wanted to produce it. But now the script is being re-worked upon and this has delayed the project,” says a source.

However, another source says that this is not the only reason why the film has been postponed. “Benegal wasn’t ready to sit down and finalise the shoot dates. His personal commitments seem to have come in the way. Moreover, the script is still being worked on. The unit will now start shooting for the film from January next year,” says this source.

Producer Ritesh Sidhwani was unavailable for comment.

Roshmilla Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 31, 2014)

Satish Kaushik is ecstatic. A story he had registered years ago and gave Dev Benegal to develop is among the 29 scripts selected from 11 countries by the Hong Kong Asia Film Forum (HAFF). HAFF is a coveted film trade platform which offers producers, sales agents, studio owners and financiers to interact on prospective collaborations.

“I’m pretty sure of our script getting funding in Hong Kong. It can be developed into an international project as Dev had envisaged when I sounded him out during the filming of Road, Movie. In fact he was so kicked by the idea that he requested that I let him direct the film while I act in it.” 

The story in question is titled Dead End and inspired by a real life story of a man whose uncles rob him of his property by declaring him dead on paper. “I actually met this guy and learnt from him first hand about his 18-year-long struggle to prove that he’s still alive. It is an intriguing story which could appeal to a wider audience beyond idea with international sensibilities,” points out Satish, who apart from this dark comedy is also a part of Dev’s whacky thriller, Bombay Samurai, co-starring Farhan Akhtar and Kareena Kapoor.