Clockwise from left: Ketan Mehta, Saeed Mirza, Pankaj Parashar, Sudhir Mishra, Amit Khanna, Govind Nihalani, Manmohan Shetty and Vinay Shukla; Kundan Shah (inset)

Sudhir Mishra who met his filmmaker pals for lunch, reveals that middle of the road cinema, FTII and their late friend who made Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro dominated the conversation
Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 23, 2019)

Filmmakers Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Sudhir Mishra, Ketan Mehta, Pankaj Parashar, Amit Khanna, Manmohan Shetty, Govind Nihalani and Vinay Shukla met for lunch at a suburban restaurant recently, and Sudhir quipped afterwards, “Hum zinda hain, hum aur filmein banaenge! Anybody have a problem with that?” Soon, Nikkhil Advani, Goldie Behl and Tigmanshu Dhulia were enquiring if they could assist Sudhir and friends. The lunch was Amit’s idea and lasted for three hours. “All of us have worked together. We spoke about films and old times,” Sudhir tells Mirror.

The topics of discussion included their days at Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). “Ketan, Pankaj, Vinay and Saeed studied at the institute and I consider myself an unofficial student as I stayed on the premises with my brother (Sudhanshu) for three years and have worked with many FTII graduates. Even today, I narrate all my scripts to Saeed, Ketan and Amit,” the filmmaker confides.

At another point, Saeed reminded Sudhir that he had fallen off the roof while working on Saeed’s Mohan Joshi Hazir Ho. “Today, you have 20 people for one job, back then, we did everything alone. On Kundan’s (Shah) Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, I was the writer, assistant, peon and even assistant editor. I am not saying that today’s filmmakers aren’t passionate, but we were mad and still are,” Sudhir exclaimes.

He points out that Govind’s Ardh Satya ran for 25 weeks in Mumbai and Om Puri was a star. And Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro ran for 56 weeks in Delhi. “So, when people say that the audience has changed and become more accepting, it is an insult to the audience of the time of Ardh Satya. Today, many middle-of-the-road films are influenced by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Basu Chatterjee and Basu Bhattacharya; that genre worked then and still does. Independent cinema didn’t begin today, it began with Guru Dutt,” Sudhir asserts.

Kundan Shah, who passed away in 2017, was a big part of the conversation. “All of us remembered him a lot that day. Saeed is writing a book which is a kind of a conversation with Kundan. We worked for three days at a stretch during Jaane... actors slept wherever they could and I’d wake them when they were needed for a shot. Those were the times,” Sudhir concludes.

Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 20, 2018)

What can I say about an actress par excellence, a fiery activist, a Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan awardee with five National Awards, that hasn’t been said or heard before? So, I turned to Vinay Shukla, writer-director of Godmother, to introduce us to the Shabana Azmi he’s known for 45 years.

The actress who brought in her 68th birthday on Tuesday, was his junior at FTII and they met on the set of Parinay, a film she’d signed even before Ankur. It was directed by Kantilal Rathod who’d earlier bagged the National Award for Best Feature Film in Gujarati for his 1969 social drama Kanku. Parinay, too, got the Rajat Kamal Special Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration, with Shabana and Romesh Sharma in the lead. Shukla recalls that they were filming at the IIM campus in Ahmedabad and when he went to call Shabana for a shot, he discovered that she’d gone for a spin in the car she was to drive. “Perhaps she wanted to get a hang of the car, and was back with it in 10 minutes but being a hot-headed, young assistant, I shouted at her and she hollered right back. It was on this tempestuous note that our friendship began,” he chuckles.

The veteran filmmaker admits that back then, he didn’t think actresses contributed much to the storytelling till he watched Shabana and Romesh play out a dramatic scene. “Without her histrionics, my words would’ve remained just words,” says Shukla who, because of his command over Hindi and flair for writing, was often asked to rewrite scenes and lines. “Thanks to Shabana and Romesh, I got credit for the screenplay and additional dialogue.”

The bond strengthened over the years and one day, Shabana complained that he’d never written a script for her and Shukla shared an idea. “The title itself excited her and she urged me to write the script,” he narrates, adding that he was inspired by a woman, Jina Masi, whose husband sold liquor illegally during Prohibition and worked as a liaison between Haji Mastan and Karim Lala who ruled the underworld. “She’d turn up at the Gamdevi police station and abuse the cops if her courier boys were apprehended. I’d wonder what would happen if she entered politics when I learnt of a woman politician in Gujarat and decided to merge the two to come up with my Godmother who ruled in Gujarat,” he flashbacks.

Shabana loved the script and began working on her Godmother, borrowing the way he gestured with his left hand during a narration. “She asked me if I wanted her to play the character in an understated way like Naseeruddin Shah in Manthan or like Dilip Kumar in Ganga Jumna. For me Ganga Jumna is one of the best performances I’ve seen, a judicious mix of a real and larger-than-life character. I told I’d prefer Dilip Kumar and she projected herself more dramatically,” he says.

Godmother bagged six National Awards — Best Actress (Shabana), Best Music Direction (Vishal Bhardwaj), Best Lyrics (Javed Akhtar), Male Playback Singer (Sanjeev Abhyankar), Best Editing (Renu Saluja) and Best Feature Film in Hindi. “Aapne to chhakka maar diya,” Vishal told Shukla who’s often been asked to come up with a prequel or sequel to the film, but for him that’s a closed chapter. “I’ve scripted a whodunnit, that I hope to make with Shabana now,” he says.

Anand Gandhi (MID-DAY; August 25, 2017)

Culture is the sieve of the civilization in which we put data, wisdom and epiphanies of the past, and the present, to distill solutions for the future. We can't solve our problems as a society if we censor speech and discourage open sharing of truths. In a community that's increasingly polarised between those who want to learn, and those who want to avoid witnessing the truth, odds are stacked against the lonely truth seeker, the documentary filmmaker. That is exactly what makes the achievement of filmmakers Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla, directors of the political documentary, An Insignificant Man, inspiring.

Khushboo and Vinay wanted to make a documentary about the democratic process because they wanted to know how our democracy works, and record the tryst between idealism and pragmatism, intention and hypocrisy, and integrity and compromise. They wanted to render the veils around political parties permeable, so that we could witness what is going on inside.

Of the three political parties they requested access to, only one agreed to let them in with cameras. That was the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). For a year, the cameras rarely missed a beat, rolling through meetings, campaign planning sessions, rallies, strategy discussions, back offices, arguments, fallouts, in their homes, and even while they travelled. Always a fly on the wall, observant, yet distant.

The material they collected was overwhelming. This made the community that supported the producing of the documentary in a highly successful crowdfunding campaign, a bit restless. But, their trust in the filmmakers never faltered. Khushboo and Vinay found support from a truth seeking audience, from both sides of the political spectrum — left and right.

One day, I was invited to a screening of An Insignificant Man (AIM). What I saw, left me enthralled. I cannot think of another film that shows us real politicians, doing politics. It doesn't patronise the viewer with a pedantic voiceover, but instead, allows him to witness an incredible moment in Indian politics.

I have seen Khushboo and Vinay struggle as first-time filmmakers in India. The contrast of their journey in India and internationally, could not be more stark. The film won fund awards from Sundance, Busan, IDFA and BritDoc. Toronto International Film Festival invited AIM for its world premiere. Festivals, awards, accolades, standing ovations and nuanced critiques unraveled. We started gearing up to show the film to the part of the world, we call home.

Enter, Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). In his astute wisdom, the former CBFC chief (Pahlaj Nihalani) decided, quite arbitrarily, that a piece of journalistic document needs "permission" from its political subjects. Also, in a dire misreading of his position, he thought it prudent to defend the Congress and the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) from their names being taken in the film. He would rather a documentary invent fictitious names like Mogambo and Dogaraj for politicians, perhaps.

After having waited for months outside the chief's office, and then being thrown out, Khushboo and Vinay chose to approach the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT). The FCAT judgment is out, and sanity has finally prevailed. The judgment says that a demand for a No Objection Certificate is "wholly unsustainable and not permissible at law."

It's dangerous that the Censor Board can act in an illegal way. Consequences are only meant for filmmakers, who are testing the small mercies of freedom. With the recent reconstitution of the Board, things look hopeful. As long as dialogue is not threatened by violence, and discourse is not silenced by censorship, there is always hope for a better future.

MUMBAI MIRROR (May 27, 2017)

Filmmakers Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla had informed Mirror on Friday that chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification, Pahlaj Nihalani, had asked them to get NoCs from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and former Delhi CM Sheila Dixit, among others, before clearing their political documentary, An Insignificant Man. They added that after the Examining Committee had referred them to the Revising Committee without offering any reason, they had approached Nihalani for an explanation and he “threw them out of his office”.

Objecting to this allegation, Nihalani said, “I met them at the theatre during the Revising Committee screening and after it, I suggested some mute cuts (beeps) with reference to certain political parties. I also told them that since they had used footage of certain real politicians, they would need to get NoCs from them. They told me they had already taken NoCs during the shooting, and said I would clear the film subject to the NoC. Their allegation that I threw them out is completely untrue.”

As she turns 66, Shabana Azmi on how she has mellowed down over the years...
Subhash K Jha (DNA; September 18, 2016)

Shabana Azmi’s had a career most actresses her age would be envious of. She’s constantly and bravely gone against the grain and accepted norm to deliver performances that in retrospect, will go down in history, as part of her rather strong legacy. Also, she is one to call a spade a spade and doesn’t mince words when getting her point across. As she turns 66 and we sit down to have a conversation, one cannot think of any other actress who has impacted mainstream and arthouse cinema as profoundly as she has. Excerpts...

It’s been a good year, right?
It has. The appreciation I received for Neerja, particularly from my industry colleagues, made me wonder if I had done anything worthwhile before! It was overwhelming.

Do you see the challenging roles coming your way at the pace you’d like?
I do think it’s a golden period for actors because all kinds of films are being made: mainstream, parallel, middle-of-the-road, independent films, etc. I’m doing comedy, drama, negative roles, etc. Earlier, I largely had dramatic, heroic roles on my plate. At one point Aparna Sen said to me, “Your off-screen persona is becoming so dominant that your choice of roles will get affected.” That remark set me thinking because I’ve been trained in the Stanislavsky Method that says an actor should be able to prefix the words, ‘If I were..a queen, a slum dweller, a whore..’ And be able to inhabit the world of that character with truth.

Do you choose roles only when they match your own political aesthetic and moral sensibilities?
It’s a difficult choice. When I did Godmother, feminists were annoyed with me. They said, ‘We want women to enter politics, but if someone like you plays a woman politician who is corrupt, you hurt our cause’. I tried explaining that the director Vinay Shukla was looking at the film from the lens of caste politics, not gender politics. Plus, it was a layered part that doesn’t come one’s way that often. From then on, I decided that I would do a variety of roles, provided of course, that they didn’t promote patriarchy or communalism.

Which are the films you’re working on right now?
I’ve just completed Piyush Panjuani’s Idgah, based on Munshi Premchand’s story of the same name. We shot in Gulmarg and I was happy to be filming there after so many years. The place was teeming with tourists and it seemed normalcy had finally returned to the Kashmir Valley. Within days of our pack-up, the peace was shattered as if kisiki nazar lag gayi. Heart-wrenching. I’ve also just completed an American production Signature Move, directed by Jennifer Reeder and executive produced by Michael Shannon who played Elvis in the film Elvis & Nixon.

What else?
What do you mean,what else? Aur kitna karoon? I’m carrying on with theatre productions — IPTA’s Kaifi Aur Main and Alyque Padamsee’s Broken Images, written by Girish Karnad. I’m also doing a TV serial Amma, where I play a mafia don.

As you grow a year older, what emotional changes do you see within yourself?
I have mellowed and am interested in the solution, not in holding on to the problem. I am willing to really listen to the other person’s point of view. I believe that dialogue must remain the only option to resolving problems. I also party very little and prefer to hang out with my family and close circle of friends. In fact, I’m becoming more of a ghar ghussad (homebody) than ever before. I travel so much that I have little energy for the social scene.

How has Indian society changed, according to you?
Indian society is in a position of transition. Women are coming into their own, but violence against women has the tacit approval of societies all over the world. Men are mostly stuck in their sense of entitlement because we continue to be a patriarchal society. It worries me also that communalism is getting more deeply entrenched in our society because political parties continue to use it as a tool for vote- bank politics.

You have always been one of the strongest voices of protest in our country. What is the one issue that bothers you the most among our many societal failings?
Social injustice. That people continue to be passive recipients rather than active participants in the democratic process. That the development model successive governments have adopted over the years has led to a greater divide between the rich and the poor. That after 70 years we still haven’t been able to provide drinking water, housing, education, health services to all. That GDP continues to be the yardstick of progress rather than the human development index.

What makes heroes and role models so scarce in our country?
Heroes are created by either a great ideology or a great struggle. At present, all over the world, we see an absence of both. That’s why we don’t have heroes like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr or Nelson Mandela who used non-violence as the only alternative for freedom. Today, Donald Trump is in the running for a position once held by Lincoln! They don’t make them like that anymore. Democracy, as necessary as it is — and I wouldn’t trade it for any other system — has an inherent flaw. Electoral politics forces leaders to take short-term populist decisions that can get them re-elected. But real development can only happen when you plan 20 to 50 years ahead. It’s also necessary that successive governments do not reverse projects that have been put in place by previous governments. And please, let history not become a handmaiden of the political dispensation of the day!

How do you look back at your marriage to Javed?
With satisfaction and gratitude. There is no person other than Javed that I would have rather been married to. He makes me laugh, he makes me think, he pushes me to push myself but basically that he and I share the same worldview. Touchwood, a thousand times over.

Finally, if you had to change one thing in your life, what would it be?
That I would learn how to cook!

Ship of Theseus director Anand Gandhi returns to the Toronto Film Festival with a drama which traces Arvind Kejriwal's political journey
Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 10, 2016)

Anand Gandhi (front row, centre) and the Memesys Culture Lab team at their studio in Versova. Pic/atul kamble

Award-winning filmmaker Anand Gandhi is two months away from launching India’s first mega virtual reality lab. Want to take a tour?
Aastha Atray Banan (MID-DAY; May 22, 2016)

The conversation at the Memesys Culture Lab’s studio in Versova oscillates from space — “That’s what Elon Musk’s plan is, to take plants and drop them on the surface of the Red Planet,” says Vinay Shukla — to if monogamy is finally redundant. “It’s a vestigial emotion. It’s like the tail bone,” Anand Gandhi declares.

And, of course, politics.

“You know, there is this regular at Delhi’s AAP rallies who always has an act going — one of his dentures popping. When we first saw him, we thought it was funny. Then, we realised, he does it everywhere!” says Khushboo Ranka. The 30-year-old and Shukla, 30, are makers of a film titled, A Proposition Of A Revolution, that examines the workings of the Aam Aadmi Party.

The lab’s founder, writer-director Gandhi says it’s a venture that brings together several of his passions — science, ancient wisdom, technology, news and creating conversation.

Gandhi has met with success in the past, whether it was with scripting the hugely popular television soap, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, or directing the critically acclaimed in the 2013 film, Ship Of Theseus. A look at organ donation, it won him a National Award for Best Picture, among swooning critics.

The lab, says Gandhi, will use virtual reality to transform the landscape of narrative fiction. It is funded by Round Glass Partners, who pitched with an initial investment of $2.5 million last year. “We are the biggest studio in India yet to provide end-to-end virtual reality/augmented reality/mixed reality solutions and helming the largest projects. We are also creating holographic content, so in a sense, we are future-ready,” says Gandhi.

To prove it, he shares a pair of virtual reality headsets attached to a cell phone. Suddenly, we are on a cricket pitch in the middle of the action. Snap to us standing on stage beside vocalist Tipriti Kharbangar of Shillong’s Blues Rock band Soulmate, watching a stirring audience. Snap to being one with the crowd surrounding rights activist Trupti Desai, who is animatedly arguing for women’s entry into all temples.

We take off the headsets and are handed a phone to point at a sheet of paper. Mahatma Gandhi is seen doing a few stretches as a holographic character.

“It’s all in the developmental space, but it can also be used in education. Imagine opening a text book and watching a holographic Mahatma Gandhi walk out, and sit beside you for a conversation,” says Zain Menon, the inhouse technical wizard. “You open a biology book and watch a heart float out. It slices open to reveal itself and hangs there in mid-air as you watch how the ventricles and auricles receive and expel blood.”

The lab’s core team is working towards the ambitious goal of creating content that is intelligent and cutting edge, not ‘viral’; something that helps you find meaning in everything you do, see and feel. “Why is it a joy to work with Anand?” Ranka asks in mock wonderment. “He finds science, even in everyday situations, and whether he is worried or happy, he is speaking in scientific references.”

The group, which aside from Ranka, Shukla, Menon and Gandhi, includes Neil Pagedar and Pooja Shetty, have as striking a backstory as what they have set out to do. Except Shetty and Shukla, everyone is a college dropout. “I dropped out after Class 12,” says Menon. Suddenly, squeals of “me-too” pour in.

“I am a dropout, too,” says Gandhi, who hails from a Gujarati Jain family from Mumbai. All of us here have self-designed our education. What’s common to us is that we are curious.”

If, like us, you are wondering whether it takes a life of privilege to drop out of college and dream a holographic Mahatma, Gandhi will quote a scene from Sylvia, a film based on writer Sylvia Plath’s life. After poet Ted Hughes is snubbed by Plath’s parents’ rich friends, her mother pacifies Hughes with, “Don’t judge my friends, as they haven’t had your privilege — the privilege of working for what you want”.

“That’s what I have done,” Gandhi says. “I have had to work hard for what I wanted to achieve. And now the plan is to showcase information, science and life in an easy, accessible way.”

The Memesys website will be up and running in two months, he hopes, and will feature content that he terms thought provoking. Coming up is a science comedy, OK Computer, on the lines of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and 30 Rock. There is also a science show that will tackle one Indian historical or scientific subject in every episode. “For example, why and how has the Sanjeevani booti, which finds mention in the Ramayana, become attractive to scientists?” Gandhi asks. “Texts like the Ramayana are treasure troves of botanical information,” Ranka joins in.

There is also a web magazine featuring narrative non-fiction and gets the viewer right in the middle of news, much like the virtual reality clip we experienced of Trupti during the Maharashtra temple row. The lab will also be manufacturing its own cardboard virtual reality headsets, which you will need every time you watch their content on the web or your phone. A holographic app is under deliberation, which explains the stretching national leader.

And keeping with a profit-making model they envisage, the group plans to use the ‘branding’ route. “We will provide virtual reality solutions for all kinds of brands from start to finish. This includes getting into sports which includes cricket and kabbadi, and even music,” says Gandhi.

The first Memesys release though is A Promise Of A Revolution. This happens next month.

But all of this is hardly taking Gandhi away from what he is also bloody good at — movies. He is wrapping up his last film, Tumbad, and says he is working on the next idea, which will be a virtual reality production. “It’s about those south Indian women scientists whose picture went viral after the Indian Mars mission put a satellite into orbit around the planet. Aren’t they amazing?”

Just then Ranka decides it’s time to put the Memesys motto into words. “When Round Glass Partners decided to fund us, they said they did it because ‘they wanted to change the world’. And we said, that’s the plan!”

Ankur Pathak (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 11, 2015)

Proposition For A Revolution, the documentary produced by Ship of Theseus director Anand Gandhi, which traces the journey of the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party, is finally gearing up for a theatrical release. However, despite the recent landslide victory of AAP in Delhi, the documentary, directed by Khushbu Ranka and Vinay Shukla, will not include the big win.

The film chronicles the journey of the party from its formation in December 2012 to the Delhi state elections in December 2013. "The shoot is complete and there are no plans to incorporate the current events into the narrative, which is already locked," informed a source.

The film follows soon-to-be-Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his party members, Yogendra Yadav, Santosh Koli, Saurabh Bharadwaj, through discussions, grassroots engagement, campaigns, strategies, criticisms, failures, manifesto development and the challenges faced in applying it.

The makers have successfully managed to raise over Rs 10 lakh, which will take the film into the theatres, through crowd-funding. It has already won awards and accolades at the Busan International Film Festival and the International Film Festival of India.

Confirming this, Gandhi told Mirror, "We are in the final stages of editing and hope to release the film by June. It attempts to provide a fly-on-the-wall neutral perspective on the formation and evolution of the young political party, and in doing so, on Indian democracy itself."