Titas Chowdhury (HINDUSTAN TIMES; March 31, 2020)

“I have brought my son back home with me to Mumbai, but my daughter is a little stubborn (laughs). It makes me feel secure she’s staying with her grandparents in Uganda. However, I wish we could all be together now,” says Juhi Chawla, with her signature warmth. Her children, Jhanvi and Arjun, were at their boarding school in the UK at the time of the Coronavirus outbreak but she decided to fly them down.

She confides that a while ago, she was overwhelmed by a sudden rush of nerves. “A few nights ago, I had a panic attack. My mind was racing ahead and I was worrying what if we’re unable to battle this pandemic. I woke up and told myself to stop thinking,” she says. But Chawla is now happy, picking up a skill not many know about. She says, “I was learning to sing but gave up a few months ago as I couldn’t focus. My teacher messaged and I felt this is the best time to resume training since I’m grounded at home. I’m taking lessons online.”

The Ishq (1997) actor adds, “Apart from that, I’ve been reading and watching films. My son and I’ve taken to watering our garden. And my mother-in-law has given us the duty to do the puja in the house.” She believes the lockdown is “grounding” everyone. “Whenever I stay home, I always experience a fear of missing out and so, I want to keep running around. But this time, staying at home feels like a detox. The best thing to do is to look around yourself and feel grateful,” says Chawla.

Emphasising how each person should help those in need, she says, “The simplest thing that we can do right now is show kindness and consideration. There’s a 96-year-old woman living all by herself in Mahim. Her children are abroad and they aren’t able to send her money. Since there’s a lockdown, I can’t send food across to her every other day but I’m trying to help her as much as I can.”

Chawla co-owns Kolkata Knight Riders, part of the Indian Premiere League. Talking about the IPL’s suspension she shares, “The lockdown is till April 14. Then the government will take a call on what to do next. We don’t know what’s going to happen but we do realise safety of people is more important than anything else. We’ve to wait and watch and let things unfold.”

A Delhi based writer, who chased Indian women directors to discuss how gender-affected their career was, tells us what we don't know about Reema Kagti, Mira Nair, Farah Khan and Kiran Rao
Jane Borges (MID-DAY; July 28, 2019)

Asking an Indian filmmaker what it means to be a woman in a fiercely competitive industry is not a question many are comfortable answering. "One of the reasons is that they don't want to play the victim card. Their reluctance also stems from the fact that unless the sexism is blatant—like in the case of #MeToo—nobody thinks of it as being an issue of gender," says Nandita Dutta, 29. The writer, who spent nearly six years tracking indie and regional cinema for a popular film website, feels that journalists often resist probing women directors about gender during interviews. "Even if they ask the question, they sound apologetic," says Delhi-based Dutta, an alumnus of Mumbai's Sophia College.

Her debut non-fiction title, F Rated (HarperCollins India), addresses this, as she profiles 11 Indian women filmmakers, who among other things, discuss how their gender feeds their art. "While most of them were receptive to the idea of a book, the moment I started questioning them about how gender determines their choices, and the way the industry treats them, there was resistance," recalls Dutta, who started work on the book in 2014. Zoya Akhtar, in fact, withdrew mid-way, because she got uncomfortable. "She felt that there was a need to move away from this conversation around gender." There were others, however, who were vocal. "Often, we collaboratively reflected on the issue, and that was the most rewarding part of this exercise."



'She was ready to discuss sexism in Bollywood'
Dutta says that Farah Khan wouldn't have agreed to be in a book like this if she had not been snubbed by male filmmakers, after the success of Happy New Year. Khan, who until then had been vocal about not facing a gender bias, said in an interview to mid-day in 2014: "I have never said this before, but I need to now—our country is sexist and so is our industry."

"I caught her at the right time," says Dutta. "That infantilising attitude against her was the defining moment for her." According to Dutta, Khan who is the only female filmmaker in the 100-crore club, is nonchalant about everything she does—right from the movies she makes to her family life. "But, she is invested in her kids. The one time I met her at a cookery show she was hosting, her children who were on set, would come and hug her every time there was a break. And, she doesn't shy away from talking about being privileged, and having two nannies to look after the kids." Her nonchalance, Dutta finds charming. "And despite that, I don't see her as a non-political or unthinking person."



'She has a domestic side to her'
It was after 25 email exchanges that Dutta made a breakthrough with Mira Nair, whose oeuvre includes Salaam Bombay!, The Monsoon Wedding and Vanity Fair. "She invited me to Uganda, where she was shooting the Disney film, Queen Of Katwe. Being on the set with her was quite an experience—to see her direct and lead the team. Mira seems to have two very contradictory sides to her: She is a stern director, but once the shot is over, she will go and speak to everyone, ask them if they are okay. It was moving to see that."

Dutta spent eight days, doing extensive interviews with Nair at her home in Kampala. The intimate setting, she says, contributed to the filmmaker opening up about battling depression at 40. It was then that she decided to take a break from the movies to raise her son Zohran, who was six then, in Cape Town, South Africa, where the family had briefly moved. "I wanted to have an accident. I took it seriously after three times of having this experience," Nair told Dutta, who had begun to feel stagnated.

"What strikes you about her is that she is grounded in family life. She spoke a lot about her son, husband and the passing away of her mother-in-law. She also has a beautiful garden [in Kampala] and talked endearingly about her trees. You see her films, and the powerful personality she projects, but you don't quite see the domestic side to her."



'Motherhood and celebrity consumed her'
Though just one film old, Dutta says including Kiran Rao was important to the book, because she wanted to understand how being married to a star put an end to her filmmaking career. "She is consumed by celebrity and an overshadowing figure [Aamir Khan], in her life. At one point in the interview, she says, '[German director Rainer Werner] Fassbinder died at 37, and made over 40 films. I'm already so old...how much work will I end up doing?'"

Dutta finds Rao to be contemplative. "She is aware that she is a filmmaker and that she is here to make films. But the pressure of being a celebrity wife and making public appearances, and later, raising her son, has kept her from pursuing her passion. When I met her [in 2014-15], I think she was still struggling to find the drive."

'Quit alcohol to fight her aggression'
With Reema Kagti, Dutta faced the greatest resistance, because, she didn't want to be typecast as a woman filmmaker. She opened up by the third interview, when she started to talk about her problem with aggression. In the book, Dutta writes about Kagti's reputation preceding her. "She is known to be mercurial. Stories of manhandling the crew often float around," writes Dutta. "That is the one moment when she took cognisance of how aggression in a woman is perceived very differently [when compared to a male director], and why most of the problems in her career have been a result of this," says Dutta. "Back in 2014, when I interviewed her, she seemed pre-occupied with it. She even mentioned that she was consciously working on the problem, as her mother felt she should too. In fact, she had stopped drinking for a while, as one of the ways to deal with her aggression. I don't know how things are now."

Director Mira Nair, from New York, on Broadway adaptation of Monsoon Wedding, and her next, Queen of Katwe
Mayank Shekhar (MID-DAY; September 19, 2016)

'Queen of Katwe' is a Disney film. You've been working in the Hollywood studio system for years now, the exact variants of which, and the same suits, operate out of Bollywood as well. Surprising that you haven't made a film from Bombay's Hollywood studio network yet...
'Queen of Katwe' is actually an 'independent' film. And very much 'my' film at its core, set in my front-yard in Kampala, Uganda, where I've been living for 27 years now. When Tendo Nagenda, the Ugandan born vice-president at Disney, came to me with a remarkable story (of chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi) that he'd read in a newspaper article (by Tim Cothers), I didn't know about it, although it took place 16 minutes away from my house. I am inspired by people who make it from nothing. It's the same values that embody Disney, but the style is radically different. Disney has never made a film set in modern-day Africa without animals in them! But they never asked me to sanitise it either. It's truthful, stylish, and about the place.

Also interesting that the crew mainly comprises alumni from Maisha, the film school you've been running from Uganda for 11 years.
Yes, 30 per cent of the Hollywood crew are former students of Maisha. But the most famous alumnus is (the Oscar-winning lead actor) Lupita (Nyong'o), who graduated from our school in 2006.

And you've called it a "100 per cent African film". I'm sorry for harping on this, but we are talking to you from Mumbai. When do we see a "100 per cent Indian film"? We've been missing you since Salaam Bombay, Monsoon Wedding, Mira.
Aa rahee hoon meri jaan! Lo, ab aayi! (I'm coming over soon, my love). The style invented in Monsoon Wedding, we are trying to adapt to Broadway.


Yes, there is much excitement over that!
We've been developing it for nine years, and it opens finally on May 19, 2017, at Berkeley Theatre in California, and then Broadway at the end of next year. Vishal (Bhardwaj) has written the most amazing score, with 21 new songs. Namit Das is the new PK Dubey, and we have a fantastic new actor, Sharvari Deshpande. Others you'll discover soon as the time's right to reveal. We've been through several rounds of rehearsals and workshops over the years, with the fantastic Sabrina Dhawan (original writer of Monsoon Wedding), and the veteran Susan Birkenhead as lyricist.

And you just mentioned this — right from Salaam Bombay to The Reluctant Fundamentalist set in New York, and now 'Queen of Katwe' in Kampala, there appears to be a recurring theme of chronicling the marginalised in places you know. Is that conscious?
I just get inspired by people who focus on what they have, rather than what they don't. That story is eternally inspiring. Also, there is the question of who considers whom the margialised, or the 'other'. What I'm trying to do (with 'Queen of Katwe') is in a sassy, vibrant way, show the dignity of Kampala, with the confidence of an insider's view. Uganda is the most courteous country in the world. Even with half an inch of water to bathe, you'll find people who look the most stylish. That is inspiring. My film is not a picture of utter despair with the white man as the saviour. It is also not a sports genre movie. It is more complex. You can find genius everywhere. But you need a family and society to see it and nourish it. You need a village to help you make it.

The other common theme that one notices, especially while watching your super-serious last film, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, is an over-arching sense of music — soundtrack, background score — which is true for almost all your films. Does that come from the fact that you happen to be fundamentally an Indian filmmaker?
Happen to be how? I am fundamentally Indian! Music is such a gift, and I have always breathed it as oxygen. Being Indian allows me to be liberal, with the use of music. With Salaam Bombay that I re-watched recently, I discovered that you have to use silence in equal measure. Music is often the seed of the movies I want to make. In Reluctant Fundamentalist, the 'qawaal' world of north India hit the nerve, given what Mohsin (Hamid) had written.

The Oscar season has just begun, and I've been reading blogs about how 'Queen of Katwe' could be the perfect Oscar bait. It checks all the right boxes: it's a biopic, has a stellar cast, and pardon the expression — not mine — it's a tear-jerker! Would you agree?
Arre yar, apan ka kaam hai banana! (My job is to make). Hope the film rides a wave, not for any (Oscar) bait at all. But to capture people's hearts. And the (Academy) votes? Well, that won't be a bad thing. I want bums on seats. The film received an enthusiastic reception at Toronto (film festival). I'm now trying to be calm amid the hoopla!