IN PASSING
Growing up pains
SUCHITRA BEHAL
He is the bad boy who refuses to grow up. Actor Sunjay Dutt may have turned half a century but the nickname of “baba” has stuck to him. But Dutt wants out.
“All I want at 50 is my freedom,” said he. “My only wish is that I am able to put all my nightmares out of my life and, yes, I want my freedom back.” However, for Dutt, given his star-crossed life, this may be wishful thinking.
The actor who had courted more than his share of controversies, found himself in the centre of a family drama when contesting the election. The bitterness of the rumour mills still irks. “Why do I have to dine with my sisters each weekend to prove that everything is fine with us?” he asks. “We are family and will remain so and will stand by each other.”
On the professional front he is convinced that this is his “lucky phase”. He added, “I could not be happier, I have my family, my work and well wishers I feel lucky.”
Eternal lover boy
He does not think he is the ultimate romantic hero. “That is a slot reserved for Shammi Kapoor,” says actor Rishi Kapoor. “Just look at his style, the aura, everything about him was fantastic.”
Despite having been the lover boy, the romantic hero in most of his films, Kapoor now feels that since he “romanced so much on screen, I wasn’t inclined to do it in real life”. He also feels that the idea of romance “has changed drastically in Hindi films. For my generation and me, romance will always be associated with song and dance that is so integral to Hindi films. But new films do not have any such song and dance routines and are doing well. So I cannot say for sure.”
Kapoor said that he was not being moralistic when he said that today’s youngsters need time to introspect and slow down. “One has to sow the right seeds at the right time. It’s sad to see the meaning of love change. Films have become bolder and there is nothing between the sheets now.”
Dark experiences
For Vishal Bhardwaj, exploring the dark underside of human nature is as fascinating as the idea of exorcising his own ghosts. “Maqbool”, “Makdee”… almost all his major films deal with characters whose negative influence
finally shapes the way the film moves. Bhardwaj acknowledges, “Yes. I have been doing this from my earliest films. As a child, I saw a cousin who was taken to various godmen to exorcise his ‘ghosts’. It left me traumatised and I tried to get rid of my own ghosts. I think we can never really rid ourselves of our dark side. It co-exists with our good.”
Even in “Kaminey”, his latest film, Bhardwaj looks at the negative side of things though in a lighter vein. “The script came out of a writer’s retreat some years ago. I liked the work of one writer; so I picked it up, added some Bollywood masala to it and, of course, my more serious and dark side.”
He also feels that the youth is more open to facing and exploring the hypocrisy in themselves and society. “It’s like… we use certain abuses in English but, in our own languages, we shy away from it, because we are not conditioned to do so… but I feel the youth today doesn’t care. They are easy with both languages and can express themselves so.” And while he waits for the box office verdict on his latest offering, he’s not ready to repeat some of his experiences in a hurry yet.
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