March.13 : So as London’s Asian Film Festival comes to an end this Sunday, I can still clearly remember moments when I feared for my life! And when I wished I knew a bit of Kung fu or karate to fend off the hordes of ardent fans who were especially determined to grab a moment with the Bachchans. The most threatening was one bunch of very aggressive, Swarovski-studded women in their chiffons and mid-thirties. At one stage I almost got beaten up by them when I tried to stop them from storming the room where the Bachchans were seated before the event.

So the whole thing became a bit of a game of hide and seek, as they were whisked in and out of various entrances and exits to confuse the aggressive desi damsels who wanted unfettered access to them. But the first family of Indian cinema was both elegant and graceful — and everyone kept exclaiming how different they are compared to any other filmi parivaars.
There was a well-researched Q&A with Abhishek Bachchan by Francine Stock at Bafta (British Academy of Film and Television Arts), interspersed with clips from his movies. It was definitely a proud moment for Indian cinema, as Amitabh, Aishwarya and Jaya watched from the audience. Jaya Bachchan received her Lifetime Achievement Award from Tongues on Fire (London’s Asian Film Festival), also at Bafta, and got a standing ovation. Needless to say it was a packed house.
Abhishek proved he could make us laugh and cry as a skilled raconteur, both during his interview and in his masterclass for acting.
One of the funniest moments was his description of how a particular sequence was shot during the making of the film Guru. Remember the scene when the entire family of the screen character Guru (played by Abhishek) comes to see him off at the railway station, as he leaves to make his fortune in the big bad city?
In the original script Aishwarya (playing his screen wife) was not supposed to accompany him on the journey. But at the station, during the filming on the set, Abhishek reasoned with director Mani Ratnam, asking him, “How could anyone, in his right mind, leave a girl who looked like Aishwarya behind?” Gazing at the gloriously lovely Ash, Mani immediately decided to change his mind and the script, on the spot.
So now Aishwarya was to hop onto the train along with Abhishek. Instantly, therefore, the dialogues had to be hurriedly improvised. However, the scene was being shot with a hired antique train, rented only for two hours and the train driver had decided to leave (with his train) as his time period for which the train was hired got over. And, therefore, a whole new frantic element appeared in the filming.
The scene had to be shot while the train had already started moving away. And in the confusion Aishwarya, in her role as a traditional wife, started touching the feet of her “filmi” family. So now there was even more tension. Not only was the train chugging happily away, Abhishek had to ensure that somehow Aishwarya would stop saying goodbye to the “family” so that he could pull her onto the train because the determined train driver would not slow down. And Abhishek had to do all that while remaining in character of Guru — without spoiling the shot and remembering his dialogues. Somehow in that confusion the scene was shot — as he put it — almost like a comedy sequence. But, of course, on screen, with the final edit and the addition of Aishwarya’s close ups (shot later), it looks completely smooth and slick and serious.
In his masterclass, similarly, (attended by a huge number of aspiring actors based in London) Abhishek was able to give an insight into how an actor prepares in India. To his credit he was frank about his early days of failure. He also shared instances of some of his most difficult scenes, and how he had mastered certain emotions — eg, sorrow. But he was sensitive enough to admit that sometimes major emotional upheavals can take their toll on an actor and can even lead to a complete breakdown. He recounted another incident while shooting for the movie Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna where in a particularly complex scene he has to confront the fact that his “screen” father is dead. The problem with this scene was that, in the film, the role of the father was being played by Amitabh. And as Abhishek acted out the scene on the set, reality and reel life blurred completely. The enormity of the situation sunk into Abhishek’s mind, he could not stop his tears. And everyone else started crying too, including Karan Johar who had recently lost his own father. And listening to this, I have to say, I wiped away a tear as well.
It was quite obvious where the acting genes have come from — or at least 50 per cent of them — Jaya Bachchan. Even though Jaya is notoriously media shy and hardly ever gives interviews, she was there for us at the Nehru Centre and when I spoke to her about her life and times, she was honest, funny and warm in her replies. So we covered her cinema, her famous family and even her politics. It was wonderful that an actress of her calibre has been performing for more than 40 years and has remained completely rooted. In fact, for the last few films she has done she did not charge any fee at all, doing them more for the challenge and the fact that she was playing an interesting role. Both in Jayabrato Chatterjee’s film Lovesongs, and in Rubaiyat Hossain’s Meherjaan, she plays a woman confronted with her past loves and relationships. Meherjaan is a Bangladeshi film made by a 26-year-old as-yet-unknown woman director. I can think of no better example which gives me hope about the future of Asian cinema because it has people like Jaya Bachchan who stand on no formality. In fact, she was disarming and came with me and my husband, without any fuss and bother, to the various festival venues.
It also goes to her credit that even after receiving the lifetime achievement award she said that her greatest achievement was Abhishek. There was also a collective “ooooooh” no doubt from all the parents in the audience when Abhishek said he had dedicated his acting to his parents. The affection between mother and son is quite palpable, especially when Jaya admitted in another interview that Abhishek still sends her flowers on Valentine’s Day…
But the most interesting moment was when Jaya told us that actually the best actor in the family had not yet made her screen debut. It turns out that her daughter Shweta is possibly the most talented actor among them. Wow! I am sure some directors are already pouncing for their phones to dial Shweta. Now can you imagine a film with all five of them in it...?

Kishwar Desai is the chairperson of Tongues on Fire, London’s only Asian Film Festival. She can be contacted at kishwardesai@yahoo.com

Kishwar Desai