Behind closed doors
I remember the day when I went to meet Mr Amitabh Bachchan in his office, after making an appointment. He arrived a little late and told me that he was tied up with some work to do with a film called Cheeni Kum.
He said that it is a love story between an older man and a young girl. I asked him who the girl was and he said Tabu. I asked him how can Tabu be called young. If the girl should be young she should be very young, not more than 18 years old. The seed of Nishabd was sown there.
I didn’t know much about the story of Cheeni Kum except that it was a light-hearted entertainer. I was very excited about doing a dark love story between a 60-year-old man and an 18-year-old girl and in the process lay bare the fragility of human relationships.
Initially Amitji was apprehensive about whether people will accept him in that kind of a role considering his image. I convinced him that his stature and stardom would draw attention to a subject which is only discussed behind closed doors. My concept of Nishabd was that only the body ages, not feelings. To date, I believe it is the most innovatively shot film of my career. Nobody has ever shot a relationship drama like a thriller. I also think Nishabd has Amitji’s greatest performance among all the films he has done with me.
What Amitji managed to do in Nishabd continues to baffle me. That’s mainly because he has neither been placed in situations like those in Nishabd in his real life. Nor has he been placed in a similar situation in the umpteen films he has done over the years .
From the very outset, the media had in its own usual, short-sighted manner said that I was re-making Lolita. Just the thought of a young girl and an older man gave them that idea. No matter how much Amitji and I refuted this, it fell on deaf ears. That’s because once the media makes up its mind to say something, it won’t budge, truth be damned.
So the public expected plenty of sex and immorality in the film, only to be disappointed. And cute flirtatious things like Jiah Khan playing footie with Amitji under the table, angered several women. “How dare he flirt in the presence of his wife!” they huffed.
When Jiah kisses Amitji I deliberately kept the door open. You see the servant carrying clothes across the corridor. Jiah and Amitji don’t even look at the door to see if anyone might see them, indicating that there was no premeditation in either of them. The kiss was impulsive. I just re-saw Nishabd. It has improved with the passage of time. That’s why I don’t want to remain silent. I want to say loud and clear, that I am truly proud of Nishabd.
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