Since his directorial debut in 1981, Indian filmmaker Amol Palekar has explored a range of offbeat themes on taboo topics. But his latest Bollywood-esque offering is a stark departure, writes P.Ramakrishnan. The role of an ordinary man caught in an unusual predicament made Indian actor Amol Palekar the king of middle-class comedies in the Hindi cinema of the 1970s. A bespectacled and soft-spoken actor, he never fitted Bollywood's model of a leading man, but the success of his musical comedies ensured a long career on screen.
Then, in 1981, he put acting behind him to direct Akriet (Misbegotten), a film that propelled Palekar onto the world stage when it won a special Jury award at the Nantes Third Film Festival in France.
"One tends to confuse me as an actor with the [real] person," says Palekar, 61, on the eve of the release of his latest film, Paheli (Puzzle). "All the credit goes to my directors, the best in the country, all of whom I worked with. I was a painter by profession, an actor by default and a director by choice. The movies I make are the ones I want to see."
In the 24 years since his first award as director, Palekar has shown his capability as a storyteller whose themes centre on sticky social issues few Indian filmmakers would dare to touch or deal with in Bollywood films. He has been lauded as the so-called king of the movie festival circuit and a doyen on the parallel cinema movement in India, referring to independent films far removed from the mainstream Bollywood blockbusters.
His directorial work - including Ankahee (The Unsaid, 1985), Bangarwardi (The Village has No Walls, 1995), Daayraa (The Square Circle, 1996), Dhyaans Parva (An Era of Yearning, 2001) - is miles away from the comedies in which he starred.
"I am greatly influenced by the filmmakers I worked with - how could I not be? I worked with the best in the industry. In fact, what the critics say about my film, what the journalists have to write in print doesn't concern me - but what my former directors think of it matters a lot more," says Palekar, who has won six National Awards in India in his nearly two-decade on-screen career.
As a filmmaker, Palekar has remained uncompromising in the visual impact of his works and his directing sensibilities. Such unfailing integrity is evident in a rumoured incident during his career.
A production company had approved Palekar's script, but days before production was scheduled to start he was pressured to make it more commercially viable. Having films made on sexuality, the plight of village women, transvestites and others who are on the fringes of society, the thought of splicing a chart-topping song into his script was anathema to the director so he found another producer.
But the mainstream has its place.
"There's a misconception that I don't enjoy your average Hindi film. It's tremendous fun to watch a mainstream movie in India - I have been part and parcel of it. But I would like to say certainly I am anti-mediocre cinema, bad cinema."
So what is bad cinema?
"That's fairly simple," he says. "The parameters of each and every film, the subject, the story, has its own demands. It chooses the language, the idiom. The story chooses the visuals, the textures and the sound.
"A Bollywood film is meant for pure entertainment - so it has its songs and dances. Once you choose those parameters, sincerity is its yardstick.
"You have to be true to the parameters that you have chosen. If there is a confusion in one's own mind, [coming] out of that insecurity, how can you try to say something that comes off in a jumble? A hodge-podge of here and there. That's bad cinema."
With a lineup of Bollywood's A-list names - Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan and Rani Mukherjee - Palekar's latest film comes after a three-year gap and is a change in tack from his previous non-musical, non-star, low-budget efforts. Industry rumours say the combined budget of his past two films pales in comparison with the financing of the art direction alone in Paheli.
"I chose actors for the role, not stars. The stars in the film just happen to be the biggest in the country," says Palekar, who shot the film in just 45 days in an industry notorious for lengthy delays and year-long production hassles.
"When I first narrated a part to Shahrukh, he loved the script so much he said he wanted to produce the film. Each and every person we approached agreed immediately [because it was] based on Sandhya Gokhale's writing, and that script is the backbone of this film."
Palekar is reluctant to reveal many details about Paheli, which is based on Vijaydan Detha's version of a Rajasthani folktale of love. Detha's work entitled Duvidha, is about a woman named Lachchi (played by Mukherjee) who has an arranged marriage to a merchant she's never seen. On the way to her new home, the wedding party rests under a banyan tree haunted by a ghost (Khan) who falls in love with the young bride-to-be. On their wedding night, the groom leaves home on business and the ghost, disguised as her new husband, visits the bride. Years later, her real husband returns and Lachchi has a choice to make, but she is uncertain what she should do.
"The film's narrative is Indian to the core. We have oral history - stories that are retold over the years by a storyteller who doesn't pen it down on paper, but tells you the tale. A vocal narration of legend and history is our tradition. This movie is an Indian version of a once-upon-a-time fairy tale," says Palekar, who uses vibrant colours and the costumes of Jaipur to bring the ancient tale to life.
"It is set in the days of yore, we've shot in the most beautiful, palatial homes in Rajasthan, untouched by modernity. Thematically, it's layered on the plight of women. What choices do they have and people could just as easily relate it to contemporary women, not just in India, but everywhere in the world."
Without a chorus line of scantily clad women dancing to a pop-bhangra-techno beat, the question is will this village tale find box office success?
"The story, the cast and the acting of each person in the movie will bring in the audience. Rani's easily one of the best actresses in the country. Her past four films did brilliantly at the box office so there's that superstar element, but well before that I saw her as this great actress who I wanted in the title role of the film."
So why the sudden leap from the drama of his small-budget independent films to the choreographed magnitude of Bollywood?
"My process is very simple - when you read a lovely poem, and you love it so much, your first reaction is to share it with your dear ones and hope that they love it as much you did," Palekar says.
"The same kind of passion and love that I have for a story, I want to share it with everyone, with as many people as possible. This is my simple reason and simple process. Essentially, this is what most directors are - storytellers. I am very fortunate that the number of people listening to the story have been increasing with each film of mine."
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