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Moments to cherish
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Award winning director Jahnu Barua on the gifts of life
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TOP Director Jahnu Barua’s new film ‘Har Pal’ is set for release
“Five years ago when I went to to a private sector bank and applied for a home loan, a lady there happily gave me a form to fill. She asked, ‘Sir, what do you do?’ I said, ‘I am a filmmaker’. She took the forms back and said, ‘Sorry sir, we don’t give loans to filmmakers’. I asked, ‘Is it written in the bank’s rules and regulations? If so, show me what the rule says.’ She replied, ‘There is no such written rule. But our boss has asked us not to give loans to filmmakers!’ I was taken aback. After a futile debate, I returned without a home loan. So, now if someone asks me, which profession I am in, I tell them, I belong to the fraternity that the banks don’t have faith in. I am a filmmaker.”
This was Jahnu Barua, one of India’s most acclaimed film directors.
A good citizen
On a serious note, Barua said later, “I am a good citizen of India. I should be respected. If a responsible person is suspected in his own homeland, then there is something terribly wrong with the system and not me.”
Barua, currently president of the Indian Documentary Producers’ Association (IDPA), also spoke strongly in favour of documentaries. “Documentaries have still not got the place they deserve,” he remarked, saying people were ignorant about the genre.
“Documentaries speak the truth, they show reality and analyse. How many documentaries are made on the tsunami victims? People just don’t know what happened to them after the devastation. What the media showed were merely reports. We wouldn’t have got to know the truth behind the Gujarat riots or Babri demolition if documentaries were not made on them.”
Barua is doing his bit for the cause of documentaries. He is trying to make some changes in the archaic policies made in 1956. He is also trying to “take it beyond IDPA members”. He is mobilising support and demand. And when his tenure ends after two years, he will “continue to do the same as a member”.
Not disheartened
A stoic Barua doesn’t still get disheartened by life’s frivolities. In fact, he believes that life should be lived king size, and every moment of it cherished. “I don’t get disheartened by anything. If my film fails, I don’t brood. National Awards too, don’t affect me much.”
And he has mirrored this attitude in his next film Har Pal. “The film would inspire you to live every moment of life rather than waiting for one to come. It stars Preity Zinta, Shiney Ahuja and Dharmendra. I have written its script and directed it. Its music is scored by Pritam. I would release the film by May this year,” he says, smiling as ever.
RANA SIDDIQUI
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