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Simply priceless!
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He maintains that women have better minds and has no reservations about working under a woman boss. He blames filmmakers for denying audiences a choice and the media for coining labels. RANA SIDDIQUI catches up with Amol Palekar to find he has more than "Anaahat" on his mind.
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Photo: Shanker Chakravarty.
Amol Palekar... "Anaahat and beyond". Photo: Shanker Chakravarty.
HE HAS a childlike smile...
"You are embarrassing me," he says, hiding his face partially in his palm, lowering his eyes and chuckling.
Never tried to dye the grey beard and hair? Many do, despite a ripe age.
"Yes like Dev Anand and Dilip Kumar? On whose head it is difficult to spot even one white hair. But I love my grey hair. I am growing old, why should I hide my age?"
And he is looking nice in it...
"You are pulling my leg, embarrassing me, again." A hearty laugh and the shyness is writ large on his reddening cheeks.
This is Amol Palekar, whom you have seen in serious films, and here in his coy demeanour he lives up to his character of Ram in "Golmaal". And he is the same Amol whose film "Anaahat" in Marathi was screened on the inaugural day of the 34th India International Film Festival in New Delhi. "It is based on writer Surender Kumar Varma's story titled `Surya Ki Antim Kiran', a period film of the 10th Century B.C. juxtaposed with contemporary issues."
At the festival, he got "overwhelming response" and at Pune, it got released in multiplexes and is running to packed houses, he informs, proclaiming that audiences have always looked up to quality in films.
"Filmmakers are to be blamed for not giving choices to the audience. They have always been very wise and sensitive, but we tried to reduce their choice and gave them films that we thought were best for them. We cultivated in them the habit of going for the so called `mainstream cinema' and the media too should be blamed for coining such labels."
Amol is geared up for "a healthy debate" sitting pretty at Ashok Hotel in New Delhi. And you don't realise when he slips into another topic and comes back associating it with what he was already talking about.
"Look, when Manmohan Desai gave us Amitabh Bachchan's new avatar, people lapped it up, but don't forget that Hrishikesh Mukherjee's family films were a hit simultaneously and Dara Singh had a different share of audience. I mean that we could always coexist happily till recently. But the choice for the audience has been drastically condensed now. Now there is one `Sholay', one `Lagaan' and one `Devdas' at a time. Audience goes to see different films if given a choice. Take for instance, the film `Dasparva' which is an intense autobiographical which does not have even the `e' of entertainment, but ran for 100 days in Maharashtra among the same audience."
So it is a change in trend?
"I don't say it is a trend. It is just a transitory phase. The industry is going back where it started. Recall `Bhuvanshom' starring Utpal Dutt and Suhasini Mulay and its distributors were none other than Rajshri, which later gave memorable films to this e-mail generation. Now it's all story-based good small films that big people are making. Now a new parallel movement has started. Even Hollywood has realised that in its own country that technical razzle-dazzle won't do always. Audiences need change. They have been democratic enough."
For this painter by training - yes, he is a postgraduate from the JJ School of Art - making films is "just an extension of artistic expression". Talk art and he does not forget to mention his favourite painters: Gaitunde, Hebbar and M.F. Husain. Of the latter he states, "When he sees me now he says, `I remember you as a struggling painter,' what more can I ask for? Such a great painter remembers me by face!"
There is one community that remembers him too: women. Amol openly favours them for "sincerity". He asks, "Why do men only talk about `motherhood' all the time as the only reason to respect a woman? Because she perpetuates the race? I accept that women have better minds, they work better too. So at one time I had an entire fleet of women assistants, there were no men at all except me. And I admit that I have been enriched by women and I have absolutely no problems working under a woman boss."
Does he read a lot?
"No, but I think I am fortunate enough to be born in a renaissance period where I get to sit with the likes of Vijay Tendulkar, Badal Sarkar and Mohan Rakesh. I read regional stuff a lot, so I can humbly say that I am slightly better equipped than many in the film industry. For example, many might not know an extremely talented writer Vijay Rathenda from Rajasthan but I do."
A film on his works?
"I have three interesting projects on hand. Any one can turn into a film," he replies, concealing more than he reveals.
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