Far too frequently, I have been credited for innovative ideas and also for discovering actors and technicians. But has it occurred to anyone what I might have thought about those ideas and the talents at a certain point of time?
The reason I took Anurag Kashyap on board for Satya had nothing to do with my perception of his talent.
It was because he was the first writer to approach me for the film. And he got Saurabh Shukla to join in as a co-writer. I credited Saurabh’s name first in the writing credit titles because he’s older in age than Anurag. In fact, during the film’s making, Saurabh got married and did not have as much time as Anurag to hang out with me. Similarly, I do not think that Shimit Amin is more talented than Prawal Raman just because Shimit made Ab Tak Chhapan and Prawal made Gayab. On the contrary, given the material of Ab Tak Chhapan, Prawal would have made a better film. Given the material of Gayab, Shimit would have made it worse.
The point is that each and every one of us here is as good or bad as the material we take up at a particular juncture. The hype that spreads is in the mind of the media, the film industry and the audience. In effect, I am saying that even if Anurag had worked with me on Daud, we would have made as bad a film. And if some other writer had worked with me on Satya it would have been as good. We shined because of the material I picked up by ‘chance’ which is the operative word here.
And what have all the actors and technicians of Satya done since the film’s release over a decade ago? All you have to do is to track down the works of Anurag, Saurabh, Manoj Bajpai, Sandeep Chowta and the cameraman Mazhar Kamran to see my point. An idea had just fallen into place when we worked together. Let’s be happy about that, move on and be thankful that no one realises that a good film can be a random case, or even a fluke.
With all my fluke hits, am I a success or a failure? I would say that I am a failure in intent and a success by chance. I had the same belief in J.D. Chakravarthy, Manoj Bajpai and Vivek Oberoi. I had the same belief in Urmila Matondkar, Antara Mali and Nisha Kothari. I had the same belief in Anurag Kashyap, Jaideep Sahani and Prashant Pandey. My belief in all of them does not change till today. Some of them made it big, some did not. People have their own judgments about them but if I may say so, only I know the cause of what made them popular or fade out.
It may be asked about me too — how come he’s still around? What is it that sustains him in the film industry? Answer: It is nothing but my ability to go on taking decisions and continuing to make my good, bad and ugly films rather than sit at coffee shops tearing down other filmmakers’ work and planning to make masterpieces… which, sorry to say, never happen.
Links:
[1] http://archive.asianage.com/sites/default/files/The Asian Age/ag1.JPG
