‘I want to keep optimism alive in me’

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Shyam Benegal, the colossal figure of Indian cinema, made a whirlwind trip to Kolkata as a trustee of the India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) recently to attend its New Performance Festival. In an interview, the national award-winner touched upon issues like restoration of cinema, archiving the lesser known art and crafts, his ambitious endeavours and a significant tribute to Tagore.

Excerpts from an interview:

A DISTINGUISHED PATRON

The India Foundation for the Arts is a well-known voluntary non-governmental organisation (NGO) which raises the bar by granting individuals with funds to foster and preserve different disciplines in the cultural sector. Various artforms, be it fine arts, performing arts or creative arts, all have their own distinctive quality, flavour and aesthetic essence. Painting, drawing, sculpture, handicrafts, music, theatre, stagecraft — a myriad other such vocations of art and culture can be traced back to discover a pedigree of history, which needs to be tapped in great depths. This mammoth expanse of India’s rich cultural heritage needs to be sustained by a battery of skilled and well-trained hands. The IFA plays a vital role in ensuring that. It endeavours to look at the thrust areas that go beyond the watermark of high risks involved in meting out monetary aids to those experimental groups, who unwaveringly retain their flair for a distinctly unorthodox style and approach in their chosen craft and save the almost perishing arts to resurge with a new zing for sustenance.

IMPORTANCE OF CURATION

ChARITY BEGINS from home. I think at an administrative level, a helping hand should be lent out to push forth the boundaries in educating the willing minds to expertise in the field of archiving and the art of curation. A series of teachers’ training programmes to archive the vanishing arts and conserving the precious pearls of aesthetic creations should be instituted to impart to all eager and enthusiastic minds in order to add some credence to the curating job. It’s shocking that there’s no course on archiving in India that can be taught to a bunch of inquisitive students and avid learners across the country. One has to inculcate an enduring passion and that painstaking patience to take up a unique subject and learn its subtle nuances. You just can’t pick it up for the lark, can you?

REEL RESTORATION

Conservation of cinema brings in a baggage of exorbitant expenses. In that case, a private body with limited financial strength can hardly come handy. The Union government at the Centre has a budget allotted aside for the retrieval of cinema which is in shambles. This is also highlighted in the Planning Commission report. The enlisted data and statistics clearly suggest an amount being entitled to train people how to resuscitate the films dwindling in tatters. This concerning matter also lies under consideration within the purview of the ministry of information and broadcasting. The National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC) too is doing a lot of restoration work on their own accord. It breathes in a fresh lease of life into the package of films, produced under its aegis. All Satyajit Ray film prints have been resurrected from the foreign laboratories. The presence of corporate bodies is also felt to revive the long-lost gems of cinema from their predictable decadence.

MASTERMAKER OF BIOPICS

Biographies always fascinate me. Be it a nationalist hero, a patriot, a freedom fighter or a statesman, I was always hooked to biopics of formidable historical figures. Projects based on inspiring characters like Mahatma Gandhi, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru or Dr B.R. Ambedkar command time and space for celluloid adaptations. Discovery of India, The Making of the Mahatma or Bose — The Forgotten Hero all fell in a row. Bharat Ek Khoj, based on Nehru’s Discovery of India, was serialised in a 53-episodic capsule for the national television. Whereas Satyajit Ray: The Filmmaker was a docu venture.

TRIBUTE TO TAGORE

We are celebrating the 150th birth anniversary of the Nobel laureate. The Central government has formulated a huge programme to commemorate the bard’s sesquicentenary in 2011. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee will be the chairman of this grand affair. There will be a screening committee to assess proposals of a treasure-trove of films adapted from Tagore’s everlasting writings, be it his novels, short story collections, poetry, limericks, plays or dance-dramas. I’ve been bestowed with the privilege of chairing the screening committee. We’ve been studying, scrutinising and selecting an assorted hoard of entries, accumulated from within and outside Bengal to zero in on the “top icing” crust which would determine the best bulk of movies adapted from Tagore’s immortal subjects. There’s a good deal of archiving material as well as reams of newsprint and chronicled documents reserved on eminent personalities like Tagore, Nehru, Bose or Gandhiji.
Tagore has a series of his own speeches, recorded in his own voice, besides CDs, commentaries and books to refer to. He was a versatile genius, a multifaceted artiste, who donned many caps at the same time. I sincerely feel that his writings need to be translated into other regional Indian languages.

ON THE ANVIL

Currently, I’m contemplating on a script which will be a comedy, set along the lines of a political satire, like Welcome to Sajjanpur. An untitled project, I’d have liked to start shooting this winter, but due to some uncalled-for problems in casting, the project has been stalled at the moment. The camera is likely to roll next year. Even the script of Chamki Chameli is ready. But it’s been deferred for the time being. However, I’m hoping that it will work at some stage. I want to keep that optimistic streak alive in me.
NATIONAL AWARD TREAT

I’m happy that Well Done Abba has won the 2010 National award in the Best Film on Other Social Issues category. It’s a thought-provoking film, raising an issue in the hinterlands of India. It involved the blood, sweat and efforts of many people who worked as a team, embarked on the board. So any reward comes as an acknowledgement and appreciation of this unanimous effort is always heartening to me.

THE ‘SPY PRINCESS’ BIOPIC

I have always wanted to reel a film based on the life story and extraordinary exploits of Noor Inayat Khan, who was a direct descendant of the great Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan’s royal lineage. It would be one of my most ambitious ventures for sure. A gritty character, Noor was born brave with a remarkable fortitude and resilience. She served as a British-Indian spy during the Second World War. She was meted out with excruciating torture and killed by the Gestapo She was horribly treated and ended up as a prisoner at the Nazi concentration camp of Dachau, situated close to Munich in Germany. In September 1944, she was executed at the camp. She was a staunch nationalist and would have shown her valour fighting against the British Empire in the freedom struggle of India. She tried to escape the camp twice during her interrogation but was caught on a second chance. She was contacted by the secret organisation of Special Operations Executive (SOE), which supported resistance operations in France and other occupied countries.

and served as one of the radio operators.

For common knowledge, SOE was an operation group, created by the British government more as a red herring. It was a clandestine, spying group, functioning in Europe. The Germans had ultimately discovered the operators and despatched them to the camps to be slaughtered like lambs. But strangely enough, Noor had a close shave, while others were executed within weeks. She was the only person who lasted for an extended period of 14-15 months. All throughout her service, she never fed or filtered out any piece of information to the Gestapo but steadfastly lied to them. Her life makes for an interesting read and a volcano of revelations tumbles out of the otherwise locked cubicle of her contemporary times. The footprints of history of that bygone period can therefore be retraced via a gut-wrenching tale of her biography.