OTT can challenge Bollywood's star system'

Renowned film director Saeed Mirza (‘Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro’, ‘Naseem’) was a close friend of Kundan Shah, who among other things, helmed the iconic politically-aware comedy, ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’. Shah passed away in 2017. Mirza has penned a book, ‘I Know The Psychology Of Rats’ – the title is a quote by Shah. In an interview with TOI, Mirza talks about Shah’s worldview, why he prefers writing to making films nowadays and ‘The Kashmir Files’: As someone who collaborated with him on several projects, how would you describe the journey of Kundan Shah the filmmaker? He was a very passionate human being and very concerned about the time in which he lived. I think he was trying to get into a structure and a form that could express his angst about the state of affairs in India and the world. He was trying to figure out a path that he could travel as an artist and as a creator. He experimented with all kinds of forms: the grotesque, the absurd, the ascetic and the brutalised. And at one point of time when Kundan got into mainstream cinema, he realised he wasn’t getting anywhere. They just wanted him to be funny. Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro is a comedy but it is also a deeply political film. It is also a very angry film. But they wanted to separate comedy from content. He didn’t accept that. He found the world amoral, stark, absurd, and at times, very beautiful but at times also dehumanised. Compassionless also. How would you describe the evolution of Shah the person? It was a tumultuous journey to find a form through which he could express himself about the world we have inherited. He had a deep fascination for Dostoevsky and for Stanley Kubrick’s film, Dr Strangelove (1964), a critique of war mongering and capitalism. He was on a constant search. medium96460908 What caused this search? Shah came from a traditional family of traders. When you go to film school (FTII, Pune), suddenly something happens, you are touched by poetry, you are touched by a lot of brush strokes that interfere with you, that impinges on your thinking. Poetry and training don’t go together. He went to England and saw racial tension over there. He saw the problems. He suddenly realised they had a history, economics, politics, and then the cold. It rattled him. All these things played a factor and shaped him and put him on a quest to find out a form both in TV and films on which he could travel. As a filmmaker, what has changed for you since the 70s and 80s to now? Now you have OTT, which is a huge platform. I wouldn’t know the impact it would have on popular cinema. But a lot of change has come. I think the entire idea of the star system is on shaky grounds. Also, OTT platform has opened the floodgates to all kinds of cinemas. It doesn’t mean necessarily for the good. All kinds of cinemas are emerging and I wonder what impact this will have on the big-screen cinema, the theatre-going public. You also see blockbusters of digitally-created films on the big screen, which are high on wizardry and technology as opposed to content. State-run organisations such as FFC (later NFDC) did a lot to promote good cinema. Do you think that the state moving away from filmmaking has helped cinema? The state has relinquished its duty. There’s a pretence of freedom. There’s a lot of sex and violence and everything that’s free. You think that’s freedom? Freedom is about the things you say about the world you live in. And that’s where the reins are going to be pulled in. And you have got to be incredibly careful. Tread carefully, you are on thin ice. It is difficult to break free. But some filmmakers are breaking free from that. It will be a very tough journey for them. As it was for us in the 70s and 80s, when popular cinema ruled. We had to struggle for spaces where we had a platform. Will these people have a platform? I am not so sure. You haven’t made a feature film for over 15 years now. Why? I prefer writing, teaching and travelling. I can do stuff with my writing that I would not be able to do with cinema which requires enormous budgets. And who’s going to supply me with that? Writing gives me immense pleasure. I am a deeply conscious socio-political citizen of India and the world. What is your take on The Kashmir Files controversy? I disliked it. But he has every right to make it. It was ahistorical, it lacked vision. It just had an agenda. As opposed to trying to understand what it was all about. The story of Kashmiri Pandits is quite horrific. But the whole tragedy of Kashmir is horrific. Not just the Pandits, it is a horrific story out there.