Covering Bollywood and the Hindi Cinema

Here is the second part of the interview as promised. Those who missed Part 1 just check below.

 

 

THE TURNING point in Farah Khan’s life — aptly enough — was the film Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar. Taken on as assistant director by Nasser Hussain, she suddenly found herself asked to play choreographer when her predecessor, Saroj Khan stomped out. She crafted the song Pehla Nasha. It was the birth of a new aesthetic. Since then, Khan has choreographed almost a 100 films. Untrained, fed only by intuition, she changed all the rules. Gone were the squeamish, selfashamed bodies, the vulgar suggestions, the undulations of rolling fat. 1942, A Love Story. Dil Se. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Dil Chahta Hai. Monsoon Wedding: almost single-handedly, Khan made Bollywood dancing cool, clubby, hip, international. Yet, unmistakably Indian. “I also raised the pay,” says Khan, “I don’t get enough credit for that. When I started, dancers were paid Rs 250 a day. I pushed it to Rs 1,000 very quickly. Now it ranges from Rs 5,000 to 10,000 a day.” “Her dancers call her Mama,” says her brother. Slowly, the money, the houses, the cars returned. But Khan remained unimpressed. She understands the casino. Ask people about her, and a roll-call of traits flow out: very funny, very blunt, very honest, very transparent, very no-nonsense. Very solid. 

All of this — life, love of cinema, her gift for laughter — has coalesced in Khan’s blockbuster Om Shanti Om — a hilarious, affectionate, genre-bending film that takes he piss out of every traditional Hindi cinema trope, evenwhile lovingly continuing to live inside the genre. It jokes at the industry and jokes at itself. Intelligently leavened with irony and affection — and completely over-the-top — it does what Khan’s first film Main Hoon Na could not do: it nudges an intimate elbow at everyone’s shared memory and evokes the self-deprecating but overwhelming love people have for the larger-than-life cinema of the 70s. “I thought it was brilliant,” says Shimit Amin, director of Chak De, a film as far as it can get from OSO. “Farah is like a pop culture historian. OSO is an endearment that laughs at the 70s but captures the heart and soul and conviction those films had in themselves.” “I loved it,” chuckles Anurag Kashyap, another director one would expect to be cantankerous about such a film.

“It was like a guilty pleasure. This is totally against my notion of cinema, but I found myself laughing right through it. It is so intelligent, so self-aware. People will kill me if I admit this on my blog, Passion For Cinema, but no one who loves cinema can help but love this film.”Which brings one to the curtain call — the credits: the S-factors in Khan’s life: Sajid — soulmate-brother, Shirish — soulmatehusband, Shah Rukh — soulmate-friend-umbilical cord. Can Khan’s creativity stretch beyond these three? She’s not answering. Right now, having followed the plot correctly and married a Hindu man, she is focusing on her triplets. They are to be named Amar, Akbar and Anthony. Unless, in a last-minute, self-aware change of plan, three little girls are born instead. Each like their mother, ready to fight big battles in a man’s world.


From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 4, Issue 47, Dated Dec 08 , 2007