HE’S BEEN making a habit of it: doing things
on his terms, walking to the sound of his own drums. In a film industry
infamously bound by formula, Aamir Khan, 47, has never been afraid to shift the rules. Now, with Satyamev Jayate,
he’s brought that catalytic energy to television. After a staggering
response to the first episode, a case has been lodged against a doctor
in Allahabad for abetting female foeticide. The Rajasthan government has
promised to group and fast track many cases in one court. As his
channel partners herald the real world impacts of the show, Aamir speaks
to Shoma Chaudhury about what sparked the idea, its long gestation and the challenging process of bringing it to completion.
In terms of the breadth of research that the team did (Satyamev Jayate), how
many personal stories did you actually get? Were there any that
particularly touched you?
We got many stories, much more than we could put in. The three stories
that are in the episode really touched me, and I found it very difficult
to continue with my conversations. What you do not see on TV is the
part where I break down. We had to edit that out from the telecast
because obviously you can’t have me crying for 10 minutes on screen.
But there was a fourth story that did not make it to the final cut,
and that is the one which really made me cry. It was a girl who didn’t
want to come on camera. We had shot with her and blurred her face. And
she explained what she went through in a very, very raw and emotive way,
as opposed to a more cohesive narrative.
‘We think we’re
backward because we’re poor, illiterate. The big shock is that
education has nothing to do with it. The rich kill too’
What she said is, when her child was aborted, the child was five to
six months old. So she had to give birth to it, she had to deliver it
after it had been killed. She explained that they put a tashla,
like a metal bowl, in which the baby, the foetus, came and fell in. And
she said that the sound of my baby falling in, that is something that I
just cannot get out of my system. Even now, when I’m in the kitchen,
and some pyaaz falls into the pateela which we cook in, I remember that sound and I just break down.
For full interview,please visit- http://tehelka.com/weve-been-through-so-much-raw-emotion-our-whole-team-feels-we-need-some-counselling/
मृणाल सेन भारतीय फिल्मों के प्रसिद्ध निर्माता व निर्देशक हैं। इनकी
अधिकतर फिल्में बांग्ला भाषा में हैं। अपने विद्यार्थी जीवन में ही वे वह
कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी के सांस्कृतिक विभाग से जुड़ गए। यद्यपि वह कभी इस
पार्टी के सदस्य नहीं रहे पर इप्टा से जुड़े होने के कारण वह अनेक समान
विचारों वाले सांस्कृतिक रुचि के लोगों के परिचय में आ गए संयोग से एक दिन
फिल्म के सौंदर्यशास्त्र पर आधारित एक पुस्तक उनके हाथ लग गई। जिसके कारण
उनकी रुचि फिल्मों की ओर बढ़ी। इसके बावजूद उनका रुझान बुद्धिजीवी रहा और
मेडिकल रिप्रेजेंटेटिव की नौकरी के कारण कलकत्ता से दूर होना पड़ा। यह बहुत
ज्यादा समय तक नहीं चला। वे वापस आए और कलकत्ता फिल्म स्टूडियो में ध्वनि
टेक्नीशियन के पद पर कार्य करने लगे जो आगे चलकर फिल्म जगत में उनके प्रवेश
का कारण बना। फिल्मों में जीवन के यथार्थ को रचने से जुड़े और पढऩे के
शौकीन मृणाल सेन ने फिल्मों के बारे में गहराई से अध्ययन किया और सिनेमा पर
न्यूज ऑन सिनेमा(1977) तथा सिनेमा, आधुनिकता (1992)पुस्तकें भी प्रकाशित
हुईं।
1955 में मृणाल सेन ने अपनी पहली फीचर फिल्म रातभोर बनाई। उनकी अगली
फिल्म नील आकाशेर नीचे ने उनको स्थानीय पहचान दी और उनकी तीसरी फिल्म बाइशे
श्रावण ने उनको अंतर्राष्ट्रीय प्रसिद्धि दिलाई। पांच और फिल्में बनाने के
बाद मृणाल सेन ने भारत सरकार की छोटी सी सहायता राशि से भुवन शोम बनाई,
जिसने उनको बड़े फिल्मकारों की श्रेणी में लाकर खड़ा कर दिया और उनको
राष्ट्रीय एवं अंतर्राष्ट्रीय ख्याति प्रदान की। भुवन शोम ने भारतीय फिल्म
जगत में क्रांति ला दी और कम बजट की यथार्थपरक फिल्मों का नया सिनेमा या
समांतर सिनेमा नाम से एक नया युग शुरू हुआ।
इसके उपरांत उन्होंने जो भी फिल्में बनाईं वह राजनीति से प्रेरित थीं
जिसके कारण वह मार्क्सवादी कलाकार के रूप में जाने गए। वह समय पूरे भारत
में राजनीतिक उतार चढ़ाव का समय था। विशेषकर कलकत्ता और उसके आसपास के
क्षेत्र इससे ज्यादा प्रभावित थे, जिसने नक्सलवादी विचारधारा को जन्म दिया।
उस समय लगातार कई ऐसी फिल्में आईं जिसमें उन्होंने मध्यमवर्गीय समाज में
पनपते असंतोष को आवाज दी। यह निर्विवाद रूप से उनका सबसे रचनात्मक समय था।
पूरा लेख पढ़ने हेतु नीचे दिए गए लिंक पर चटका लगाइए - http://www.samayantar.com/mrinal-sen-a-different-personality/
A filmmaker who broke many a stereotype, Rituparno Ghosh will be remembered for giving the alternative a chance
“I am overrated because there is a lack of talent
around.” When Rituparno Ghosh passed away last week, we lost a little
bit of honesty in the creative spectrum. “I don’t like to
intellectualise cinema too much,” he told this journalist when as a
greenhorn one was trying to place him in the pantheon dominated by Ray
and Ghatak. Over the years one realised that he was more like Tapan
Sinha and Tarun Majumdar, but since there is no Ray or Ghatak now his
image becomes magnified.
But then, nobody can deny
that Rituparno kept the flag of regional cinema flying when Bollywood
was trampling everybody to submission. “In the two decades that
Bollywood ruled India and the Diaspora, Rituparno Ghosh through his
Bengali films gave regional cinema a status and visibility that made it a
force to reckon with,” says Shohini Ghosh, seasoned scholar, who has
followed Rituparno’s career closely.
Rituparno saw
cinema getting demystified on the dining table, as his father was a
noted documentary filmmaker. “I discovered the difference between a rush
print and a final print very early. However, I could not relate to
documentary films as I wanted to be a storyteller... interpreting the
truth, which documentary filmmakers call distorting the truth,” he told
this journalist in an interview.
Ghosh says
Rituparno never had formal schooling in filmmaking and nor did he ever
work as an assistant to any director. “The world of advertising was his
training ground. He self-confessedly learnt about filmmaking by watching
Satyajit Ray’s films. I personally feel that his early work carried the
legacy of Aparna Sen’s ‘36 Chowringhee Lane’ and ‘Parama’. He also
loved the films of Tapan Sinha and Tarun Majumdar, not to mention the
romantic films of Uttam-Suchitra. ‘Noukadubi’ (The Boatwreck) was a
tribute to these filmmakers. On the other hand, he pushed the boundaries
of what is ‘cinematic’ in cinema. This investment in form was an
important development in his later films and was explored most
eloquently in ‘Shob Choritro Kalponik’ (All Characters are Imaginary)
and ‘Chitrangada’. I regret that his untimely passing has cut short this
phase of his cinematic experimentation.”
Seasoned
filmmaker Buddhadeb Dasgupta, who knew Rituparno from the time he took
the script of his first film “Hiren Angti” to him, says his cinema was
all about honest storytelling with good craftsmanship. He gave them the
ray of hope. “He brought the middle-class intelligentsia back to
theatres when the common Bengali was lining up for entertainers churned
out by Swapan Saha and Anjan Choudhury,” says Dasgupta.
Ghosh
says it is important to note that Rituparno’s films revived the Bengali
film industry economically. “His films brought audiences back to cinema
halls. Rituparno had a high regard for popular appeal as long as the
films were skilfully made. Apart from being a filmmaker, he was a
cinephile who loved popular Hindi and Bengali films as much as European
art house cinema. So for him or his audiences, ‘popular appeal’ was not a
synonym for ‘compromise’.”
However, Dasgupta feels
Rituparno didn’t experiment with the form as much as he could have.
“Like many others, he became a victim of popular appeal. In the later
years, particularly with ‘Chitrangada’, he rediscovered his voice. And I
told him to stick to it. But he started making a film on Byomkesh
Bakshi. I told him there are others who can do justice to Byomkesh but
nobody can blend personal with the cinematic as he did in
‘Chitrangada’.”
Female characters were central to
his stories and he read a woman’s mind like no other. “I would say that
Rituparno had an ability to cinematically explore the nuances of
intimate relationships. No other filmmaker in these two decades gave
women protagonists the centrality and significance that Rituparno did.
Bengali cinema in the eighties — with the exception of Aparna Sen films —
was largely hero-driven, but starting with ‘Unishe April’ that
male-centric equation was dramatically altered,” says Ghosh.
Dasgupta
agrees that Rituparno saw a woman as more than just a body. “He himself
was a woman trapped inside a male body and suffered the pain of living
in a society that is judgmental.” But Rituparno never said that. In
fact, he wanted to explore the ground between the two genders or the
matrix of androgyny. He was as much comfortable in a kurta-pyjama as in a
skirt. No wonder the walls at his residence were decorated with many
interpretations of ardhanarishwara. But that doesn’t mean men got
a raw deal in his films. He reinvented Prosenjit, tested Amitabh
Bachchan and who can forget Anu Kapoor’s cameo in “Raincoat”.
There
is a school of thought that feels that his preoccupation with
homosexuality in the last few years and his inner struggles somehow
limited his canvas, but Ghosh sees it differently. “The ‘inner struggle’
you speak of did not belong to Rituparno alone; it belongs to all queer
people. As for the ‘preoccupation with homosexuality’, would this
question be asked of Guru Dutt or Satyajit Ray, as to why ‘again and
again’ they were preoccupied with heterosexuality? Making good films has
nothing to do with the director’s sexual preference or that of the
characters in the film.”
For the mainstream media
his eye for detail didn’t go beyond the strap of Aishwarya Rai’s
undergarment in “Raincoat” and Shefali Shah’s anklet in “The Last Lear”,
but Rituparno had a constant urge to look for grain in the chaff. Ghosh
cites an example. “During the climactic sequence in ‘Shubho Mahurat’
(which is a loose adaptation of Agatha Christie’s ‘The Mirror Cracked’)
the murderer arrives with a box of poisoned sweets. If you look closely
at the box you will notice that it has been re-packaged because she has
bought the sweets and meddled with them before taking it over to the
person she wants to kill. This is an innocuous detail that many may not
even notice but it’s there for those interested. The idea came from the
actress Sharmila Tagore, but Rituparno embraced it because he thought
that’s exactly what the character would do!” Konkona Sen once admitted
to this journalist that Rituparno’s ability to listen to his actors
during the course of shooting was more than her mother, Aparna Sen.“She
would listen to inputs of her actors during the workshops but Ritu da was open to ideas even when the shot was ready,” she said.
Like
his films, he had this ability to give space to the other point of view
even if he wouldn’t agree. When one pointed out the inconsistency in
Aishwarya Rai’s accent in “Raincoat”, he said it was his fault as he was
not familiar with the vernacular. Similarly, when everybody was
drenched in colour he gave black and white a chance in “Dosar”. “When we
got colour as an option, black and white ceased to be an alternative,”
he said. He would go to any length if he had a particular actor in mind.
Deepti Naval told at the time of the release of “Memories in March”
that he changed the Bengali portions to Hindi because her Bengali was
pathetic. “He could have cast any other actor but he wanted me. So when
one asked him if he brought in Hindi film actors for pan-India
acceptance, he quietly asked, ‘Do I need to do this? I cast them because
I see my characters in them.’”
Ghosh reminds
Rituparno was not the first one to cast Hindi film actors. “Satyajit Ray
worked with Waheeda Rehman and Simi Garewal. Sharmila Tagore acted in
Ray’s films when she was one of the top actresses in Bombay. Mrinal Sen
also worked with Bombay actors and therefore to level this charge
against Rituparno alone is unfair, if not pointless.”
Dasgupta
doesn’t agree but Rituparno is often credited with reinterpreting
literature on celluloid. For him cinema and book literally meant the
same thing — boi. “We must interpret literature according to the
times we are living in. I did it in ‘Chokher Bali’ where I didn’t agree
with the way Tagore ended the novel. I kept an unresolved ending.
Similarly, I adapted O Henry’s story in ‘Raincoat’ differently from the
novel,” he had said.
While reinterpreting the
dynamics of extramarital affairs, he was never judgemental about the
subject and refrained from dubbing the woman as an adulteress or the man
as debauched. He was keen to explore the different facets of
relationships. “Showing extramarital affairs in Indian films is no
longer taboo. Where Rituparno made a path-breaking contribution is that
he gave dignity, centrality and respect to queer sexualities and this he
did as writer, director and actor. The courage he has displayed in
doing this is unsurpassed,” says Ghosh.
To somebody
who grew up on a diet of Hindi cinema, one found a bit of Guru Dutt and
Sanjay Leela Bhansali in him. “I am not sure but these are two
filmmakers he found interesting — for very different reasons,” says
Ghosh.
Danny Boyle has directed hit films in a wide array of genres—from the cautionary drug saga Trainspotting to the inspirational, Oscar-winning drama Slumdog Millionaire. In 2010, Danny Boyle enumerated his 15 Golden Rules of filmmaking exclusively for MovieMaker Magazine, just as 127 Hours hit theaters. His latest film, Trance, is still trolling around in theaters.
1. A DIRECTOR MUST BE A PEOPLE PERSON • Ninety-five
percent of your job is handling personnel. People who’ve never done it
imagine that it’s some act, like painting a Picasso from a blank canvas,
but it’s not like that. Directing is mostly about handling people’s
egos, vulnerabilities and moods. It’s all about trying to bring
everybody to a boil at the right moment. You’ve got to make sure
everyone is in the same film. It sounds stupidly simple, like ‘Of course
they’re in the same film!’ But you see films all the time where people
are clearly not in the same film together.
2. HIRE TALENTED PEOPLE • Your main job as a
director is to hire talented people and get the space right for them to
work in. I have a lot of respect for actors when they’re performing, and
I expect people to behave. I don’t want to see people reading
newspapers behind the camera or whispering or anything like that.
3. LEARN TO TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS • Ideally, you make
a film up as you go along. I don’t mean that you’re irresponsible and
you’ve literally got no idea, but the ideal is that you’ve covered
everything—every angle—so that you’re free to do it any of those ways.
Even on low-budget films, you have financial responsibilities. Should
you fuck it up, you can still fall back on one of those ways of doing
it. You’ve got Plan A to go back to, even though you should always make
it with Plan B if you can. That way keeps it fresh for the actors, and
for you.
4. FILM HAPPENS IN THE MOMENT • What’s extraordinary
about film is that you make it on the day, and then it’s like that
forever more. On that day, the actor may have broken up with his wife
the night before, so he’s inevitably going to read a scene differently.
He’s going to be a different person.
I come from theater, which is live and changes every night. I thought
film was going to be the opposite of that, but it’s not. It changes
every time you watch it: Different audiences, different places,
different moods that you’re in. The thing is logically fixed, but it
still changes all the time. You have to get your head around that.
5. IF YOUR LAST FILM WAS A SMASH HIT, DON’T PANIC • I had an obsession with the story of 127 Hours, which pre-dated Slumdog Millionaire. But I know—because I’m not an idiot—that the only reason [the studio] allowed us to make it was because Slumdog
made buckets of money for them and they felt an obligation of sorts.
Not an obligation to let me do whatever I want, but you kind of get a
free go on the merry-go-round.
6. DON’T BE AFRAID TO TELL STORIES ABOUT OTHER CULTURES
• You can’t just hijack a culture for your story, but you can benefit
from it. If you go into it with the right attitude, you can learn a lot
about yourself, as well as about the potential of film in other
cultures, which is something we tried to do with Slumdog Millionaire… Most films are still made in America, about Americans, and that’s fine. But things are changing and I think Slumdog was evidence of that. There will be more evidence as we go on.
7. USE YOUR POWER FOR GOOD • You have so much power
as director that if you’re any good at all, you should be able to use
that to the benefit of everyone. You have so much power to shape the
movie the way you want it that, if you’re on form and you’ve done your
prep right and you’re ready, you should be able to make a decent job of
it with the other people.
8. DON’T HAVE AN EGO • Your working process—the way
you treat people, your belief in people—will ultimately be reflected in
the product itself. The means of production are just as important as
what you produce. Not everyone believes that, but I do. I won’t stand
for anyone being treated badly by anyone. I don’t like anyone shouting
or abusing people or anything like that. You see people sometimes who
are waiting for you to be like that, because they’ve had an experience
like that in the past, but I’m not a believer in that. The texture of a
film is affected very much by the honor with which you make it.
9. MAKE THE TEST SCREENING PROCESS WORK FOR YOU •
Test screenings are tough. It makes you nervous, exposing the film, but
they’re very important and I’ve learned a great deal from using them.
Not so much from the whole process of cards and the discussions
afterwards, but the live experience of sitting in an auditorium with an
audience that doesn’t know much about the story you’re going to tell
them—I find that so valuable. I’ve learned not so much to like it, but
to value how important it is. I think you have to, really.
10. COME TO THE SET WITH A LOOK BOOK • I always have
a bible of photographs, images by which I illustrate a film. I don’t
mean strict storyboards, I just mean for inspiration for scenes, for
images, for ideas, for characters, for costumes, even for props. These
images can come from anywhere. They can come from obvious places like
great photographers, or they can come from magazine
advertisements—anywhere, really. I compile them into a book and I always
have it with me and I show it to the actors, the crew, everybody!
11. EVEN PERFECT FORMULAS DON’T ALWAYS WORK • As a
director your job is to find the pulse of the film through the actors,
which is partly linked to their talent and partly to their charisma.
Charisma is a bit indefinable, thank God, or else it would be prescribed
in the way that you chemically make a new painkiller. In the movies—and
this leads to a lot of tragedy and heartache—you can sometimes have the
most perfect formula and it still doesn’t work. That’s a reality that
we are all victims of sometimes and benefit from at other times. But if
you follow your own instincts and make a leap of faith, then you can at
least be proud of the way you did it.
12. TAKE INSPIRATION WHERE YOU FIND IT • When we were promoting Slumdog Millionaire, we were kind of side-by-side with Darren Aronofsky, who was also with Fox Searchlight and was promoting The Wrestler.
I watched it and it was really interesting; Darren just decided that he
was going to follow this actor around, and it was wonderful. I thought,
‘I want to make a film like that. I want to see if I can make a film
like that.’ It’s a film about one actor. It’s about the monolithic
nature of film sometimes, you know? It’s about a dominant performance.
13. PUSH THE PRAM • I think you should always try to
push things as far as you can, really. I call it “pushing the pram.”
You know, like a stroller that you push a baby around in? I think you
should always push the pram to the edge of the cliff—that’s what people
go to the cinema for. This could apply to a romantic comedy; you push
anything as far as it will stretch. I think that’s one of your duties as
a director… You’ll only ever regret not doing that, not having pushed
it. If you do your job well, you’ll be amazed at how far the audience
will go with you. They’ll go a long, long way—they’ve already come a
long way just to see your movie!
14. ALWAYS GIVE 100 PERCENT • You should be working
at your absolute maximum, all the time. Whether you’re credited with
stuff in the end doesn’t really matter. Focus on pushing yourself as
much as you can. I tend not to write, but I love bouncing off of
writing; I love having the writers write and then me bouncing off of it.
I bounce off writers the same way I bounce off actors.
15. FIND YOUR OWN “ESQUE” • A lesson I learned from A Life Less Ordinary
was about changing a tone—I’m not sure you can do that. We changed the
tone to a kind of Capra-esque tone, and whenever you do anything more
“esque,” you’re in trouble. That would be one of my rules: No “esques.”
Don’t try to Coen-esque anything or Capra-esque anything or
Tarkovsky-esque anything, because you’ll just get yourself in a lot of
trouble. You have to find your own “esque” and then stick to it.
The debate was
whether the celebrations in India were about hundred years of Bollywood or
of Indian cinema. The clumsiness of the situation was nothing new for us in
Pakistan; we who already have seen our history subjected to this clumsiness,
understanding it with reference to geography alone.
Truth is that May 3, 2013,
marks a century of Indian cinema. We in Pakistan as well as those in the
country we know as Bangladesh (East Bengal of yore), too, have remained a
major part of this history that has brought us to this historic occasion.
May 3, 1913, it was when the first ever film Raja Harish Chandar was
released in what was then united India. Soon, Lahore became one of the three
biggest centres of film production in the subcontinent and persisted with a
mutually beneficial relationship especially with Bombay and less so with
Calcutta.
To say that Pakistani film
industry began with the release of the first film after 1947 may be true for
some narrow nationalistic or academic purpose but the ties that bind this
part with that could not have been severed so easily. Why should Pakistan
not celebrate one hundred years of cinema in the subcontinent is then a
legitimate question.
We have partially tried to
address this question in today’s Special Report by remembering the Indian
cinema’s contribution in providing entertainment to billions of people,
and looking once again at the connections we had with wonder and awe, one
must admit.
Till the mid-1960s, the
Indian films were shown in Pakistani cinemas, and the ultimate of all
connections — between the viewer and the film — remained. However, the
thirst for Indian films did not die, and antennas and television brought
them back for us on Doordarshan. The VCRs and the video films filled the gap
till the Indian films were allowed in Pakistani cinemas again a few years
ago.
Music, the distinguishing
feature of the subcontinental cinema, kept the people of this region united
on a spiritual level because we have all hummed the same tunes.
Come Ziaul Haq’s time,
and the ideological battle that we were fighting with the enemy state cost
us our own film industry — known as Lollywood — and has not been able to
recover ever since.
Yet
we feel that May 3, 2013, is a celebration of a shared past of
subcontinental cinema. So here’s to Cinema’s Century.The debate was
whether the celebrations in India were about hundred years of Bollywood or
of Indian cinema. The clumsiness of the situation was nothing new for us in
Pakistan; we who already have seen our history subjected to this clumsiness,
understanding it with reference to geography alone.
Truth is that May 3, 2013,
marks a century of Indian cinema. We in Pakistan as well as those in the
country we know as Bangladesh (East Bengal of yore), too, have remained a
major part of this history that has brought us to this historic occasion.
May 3, 1913, it was when the first ever film Raja Harish Chandar was
released in what was then united India. Soon, Lahore became one of the three
biggest centres of film production in the subcontinent and persisted with a
mutually beneficial relationship especially with Bombay and less so with
Calcutta.
To say that Pakistani film
industry began with the release of the first film after 1947 may be true for
some narrow nationalistic or academic purpose but the ties that bind this
part with that could not have been severed so easily. Why should Pakistan
not celebrate one hundred years of cinema in the subcontinent is then a
legitimate question.
We have partially tried to
address this question in today’s Special Report by remembering the Indian
cinema’s contribution in providing entertainment to billions of people,
and looking once again at the connections we had with wonder and awe, one
must admit.
Till the mid-1960s, the
Indian films were shown in Pakistani cinemas, and the ultimate of all
connections — between the viewer and the film — remained. However, the
thirst for Indian films did not die, and antennas and television brought
them back for us on Doordarshan. The VCRs and the video films filled the gap
till the Indian films were allowed in Pakistani cinemas again a few years
ago.
Music, the distinguishing
feature of the subcontinental cinema, kept the people of this region united
on a spiritual level because we have all hummed the same tunes.
Come Ziaul Haq’s time,
and the ideological battle that we were fighting with the enemy state cost
us our own film industry — known as Lollywood — and has not been able to
recover ever since.
Yet
we feel that May 3, 2013, is a celebration of a shared past of
subcontinental cinema. So here’s to Cinema’s Century. For full report ,click on the following link-
दुख पैदा होता है क्योंकि हम बदलाव को होने नहीं देते। हम पकड़ते हैं, हम
चाहते हैं कि चीजें स्थिर हों। यदि तुम स्त्री को प्रेम करते हो तो तुम उसे
आने वाले कल भी चाहते हो, वैसी ही जैसी कि वह तुम्हारे लिए आज है। इस तरह
से दुख पैदा होता है। कोई भी आने वाले क्षण के लिए सुनिश्चित नहीं हो
सकता--आने वाले कल कि तो बात ही क्या करें?
होश से भरा व्यक्ति जानता है कि जीवन सतत बदल रहा है। जीवन बदलाहट है। यहां
एक ही चीज स्थायी है, और वह है बदलाव। बदलाव के अलावा हर चीज बदलती है।
जीवन की इस प्रकृति को स्वीकारना, इस बदलते अस्तित्व को उसके सभी मौसम और
मूड के साथ स्वीकारना, यह सतत प्रवाह जो एक क्षण के लिए भी नहीं रुकता,
आनंदपूर्ण है। तब कोई भी तुम्हारे आनंद को विचलित नहीं कर सकता। स्थाई हो
जाने की तुम्हारी चाह तुम्हारे लिए तकलीफ पैदा करती है। यदि तुम ऐसा जीवन
जीना चाहते हो जिसमें कोई बदलाव न हो--तुम असंभव बात करना चाहते हो।
होश से भरा व्यक्ति इतना साहसी होता है कि इस बदलती घटना को स्वीकार लेता
है। उस स्वीकार में आनंद है। तब सब कुछ शुभ है। तब तुम कभी भी विषाद से
नहीं भरते।
विश्वास
यदि तुम विश्वास करते हो, तुम कभी भी जान नहीं पाओगे। यदि तुम सचमुच जानना
चाहते हो, विश्वास मत करो। इसका यह मतलब नहीं होता है कि अविश्वास करो,
क्योंकि अविश्वास अलग तरह का विश्वास है। विश्वास मत करो, पर प्रयोग करो।
अपने पर जाओ, और यदि तुम देख सको, यदि तुम महसूस कर सको, तो ही विश्वास
करो। लेकिन तब यह विश्वास नहीं रहता; तब यह श्रद्धा होती है। यह श्रद्धा और
विश्वास में फर्क है: श्रद्धा अनुभव से आती है; विश्वास पूर्वाग्रह है जो
अनुभव के सहारे के बिना है।
इसलिए विश्वास मत करो कि शास्त्र कहते हैं, और इसलिए विश्वास मत करो
सम्माननीय लोग कहते हैं, क्योंकि हो सकता है कि वे यह इसलिए कह रहे हैं
क्योंकि यह कहने से वे सम्माननीय हो जाते हैं। इसलिए विश्वास मत करो कि
पंडित-पुजारी कहते हैं, क्योंकि पंडित सभी तरह का व्यवसाय कर रहे हैं।
उन्हें वैसा कहना ही है; वे विक्रेता हैं । वे कुछ अदृश्य उपयोग की वस्तुएं
बेच रहे हैं, जो कि देखी नहीं जा सकती पर तुम्हें विश्वास करना होता है ।
प्रयोग करो, सभी बातों के लिए अस्तित्वगत अनुभव के लिए जाओ। प्रयोगशाला बन
जाओ--तुम्हारी अपनी प्रयोगशाला। और जब तक कि यह तुम्हारी अपनी समझ ना बने,
विश्वास मत करो। जब जक कि यह तुम्हारी अपनी समझ ना बने, विश्वास मत करो, और
तब ही तुम श्रद्धा बन सकते हो। जिस सत्य पर विश्वास किया जाता है वह झूठ
है। अनुभव का सत्य पूरी अलग ही घटना है। यह वैज्ञानिक मन का ढंग है।
स्पष्टीकरणः "आप फिल्म को फिल्म की तरह देखतें हैं। आप समाज को भी फिल्म की तरह देखते हैं।...मैं फिल्म को समाज की तरह देखता हूं। और समाज को राजनीति की तरह देखता हूं।"
"देल्ही बेली" बनाने के बाद अगर आमिर खान या "गैंग्स ऑफ... " बनाने के बाद
अनुराग कश्यप के हाथ में "पान सिंह तोमर" गई होती तो यह फिल्म कैसी बनी
होती? यह खयाल मुझे "पान सिंह तोमर" के आखिरी दृश्य में "पान सिंह तोमर"
यानी इरफान की मौत के साथ ही आया।
तिग्मांशु धूलिया की दूसरी फिल्में कैसी हैं, इसके बारे में कुछ कहने की
स्थिति में नहीं हूं। उनकी "पान सिंह तोमर" के कला या सरोकारी पहलू पर बहुत
कुछ लिखा जा चुका है। लेकिन मेरे दिमाग में इस फिल्म के खत्म होती ही
"देल्ही बेली" या आमिर खान या अनुराग कश्यप जैसे फिल्मकारों का ही नाम
क्यों आया? "देल्ही बेली" अगर किसी वजह से याद रह जाती है तो सिर्फ इसलिए
कि "गरीबी" का पाखंड जीते तीनों एलीट हीरो एक दूसरे को मां-बहन की सबसे
वीभत्स गालियां ऐसे सहज भाव बोलते हैं जैसे किसी को तोहफे में फूल दे रहे
हों; "देल्ही बेली" का एक "हीरो" एक स्त्री की कीमत लगाता है और पूरी सहजता
से उसकी छातियां दबा कर चला जाता है; एक हीरो अपनी "प्रेमिका" की जांघों
के बीच मुंह लगाए हुए दूसरी "प्रेमिका" का फोन सुनता है और बीच में ही उठ
कर उसकी "सेवा" में चला जाता है; एक हीरो बड़ी सहजता से यह डायलॉग चिल्लाता
है कि "ये शादी इसलिए नहीं हो सकती, क्योंकि इसने मेरा चूसा है और मैने भी
इसकी ली है..."। ("मैंने भी इसकी ली है... " की जगह वास्तव में क्या है,
इसे समझना मुश्किल नहीं है; वही हीरो अपनी "प्रेमिका" को दर्जनों बार
"चुड़ैल-चुड़ैल" कहता है; और एक (आधुनिक और "इम्पावर्ड") हीरोइन को महज
यौन-ताजगी के लिए अपने "प्रेमी" के साथ फूहड़ हो जाने की हद तक "जहां-तहां"
मुंह में मुंह लगा कर मग्न हो जाने में कोई परेशानी नहीं होती...।
इसके अलावा, "देल्ही बेली" की कहानी क्या है, और इसके उपर्युक्त दृश्यों की
जरूरत क्या थी, उसका जवाब नहीं मिलता है। अब इसे अगर कुछ "महान" समीक्षक
स्त्री के पक्ष में खड़ी फिल्म तक घोषित करते हैं तो उनकी कुंठाओं या
नफे-नुकसान का सिरा भी समझा जा सकता है। (गैंग्स ऑफ... पर बहस चल रही है।)
बहरहाल, आमिर खान और अक्षत वर्मा या अनुराग कश्यप को "पान सिंह तोमर" बनाना होता तो यह फिल्म कैसी बनती?
गांव का पान सिंह तोमर, फौजी पान सिंह तोमर, फौजी अधिकारियों से सजा पाता
और उनसे पूरे भोलेपन के साथ जवाब-तलब करता पान सिंह तोमर, अपने दबंग और
सामंती ठसक वाले रिश्तेदारों के अत्याचार झेलता पान सिंह तोमर, बागी पान
सिंह तोमर, अपने गिरोह के साथ बीहड़ में जीता-मरता या धनपतियों का अपहरण
करता और उनसे फिरौती वसूलता पान सिंह तोमर... । यानी अक्षत वर्मा और आमिर
खान या अनुराग कश्यप जैसों के हिसाब से देखें तो पूरी फिल्म में संवाद या
डायलॉग के नाम पर अगर कुछ होता तो बस मां-बहन की गालियां होतीं। शुरू से
लेकर आखिर तक इस फिल्म में जो सामंती सामाजिक-सांस्कृतिक परिवेश मौजूद है,
अक्षत वर्मा, आमिर खान, सुधीर मिश्रा या अनुराग कश्यप जैसे तमाम "महान"
फिल्मकार इस फिल्म को गालियों की "गंगा" में डुबा देते और यह फिल्म भी समाज
और संस्कृति के यथार्थ निरूपण का तमगा हासिल कर लेती!
लेकिन वे कौन-सी वजहें होंगी कि तिग्मांशु धूलिया को पूरी फिल्म में न केवल
गाली जरूरी नहीं लगी, बल्किल एक जगह तिग्मांशु गालियों के खिलाफ खड़े होते
हैं, जब पूरी फिल्म में एकमात्र जगह गाली का जवाब पान सिंह तोमर से
दिलवाते हैं कि "हमारे यहां गाली पर गोली चल जाती है...।"
यह मेरे लिए हैरान कर देने वाली हकीकत है कि "पान सिंह तोमर" के पूरे
परिवेश में अगर गालियां भर दी जातीं, तब भी उसे एक पैमाने पर जरूरी (सही
नहीं) ठहराया जा सकता था, लेकिन तिग्मांशु धूलिया को पूरी फिल्म में यह गैर
जरूरी लगा और इसके बावजूद फिल्म का एक मिनट का भी कोई दृश्य अपने असर में
कमजोर नहीं रहा और दर्शकों में गहरे पैठा रहा।
मैं नहीं जानता कि तिग्मांशु की बाकी फिल्मों की सामाजिकता कैसी है, या आगे
की फिल्मों में कैसी होगी। लेकिन मुझे लगता है कि "पान सिंह तोमर" के जरिए
उस फिल्मकार के बारे में बात होनी चाहिए कि अगर वह ईमानदार है, जवाबदेह
है, उसे अपनी क्षमता पर भरोसा है, उसमें कहीं सरोकार बचा हुआ है, वह खालिस
दुकानदार नहीं हो गया है या वह व्यवस्था का एक एजेंट नहीं है तो वह विषय भी
ढूंढ़ लेगा, कलाकार भी खोज लेगा और "पान सिंह तोमर" जैसी फिल्म भी बना
लेगा, जो न केवल कहानी और प्रस्तुति के स्तर पर एक स्थायी असर से लबरेज
होगी, बल्कि कारोबार के स्तर पर भी निराश नहीं होने देगी। (इस फिल्म ने साबित किया है कि वे फिल्मकार झूठ बोलते हैं जो यह कहते हैं कि दर्शक जो पसंद करता है, हम वही दिखाते हैं।)
दरअसल, हाल की कुछ फिल्मों में "यथार्थ का स्पर्श" देने के नाम पर जिस तरह
गालियों से लैस संवादों को सहज स्वीकार्य बनाने की कोशिश की जा रही है, वह
"यथार्थ" के निरूपण के नाम पर एक साजिश से ज्यादा कुछ भी नहीं। समाज में
जहां-तहां पसरी यौन-कुंठाओं का शोषण करके मकसद भले ज्यादा-से-ज्यादा कमाई
करना हो, लेकिन इस रास्ते होता यह है कि एक सामंती, मर्दवादी,
पितृसत्तात्मक और भारतीय सामाजिक संदर्भों में ब्राह्मणवादी सत्ता की
कुर्सी के पाए और मजबूत होते हैं। स्त्रियों और शूद्र जातियों के खिलाफ
जलील करने वाली भाषा या गालियों का सहज इस्तेमाल दरअसल इस सत्ता को बनाए
रखने के अहम औजार हैं। गालियों को सहज सामाजिक अभिव्यक्ति मानने वाले या तो
खुद एक साजिश के सूत्रधार होते हैं या फिर शायद अंदाजा भी नहीं लगा पाते
कि ऐसी भाषा का सुनने या बोलने के स्तर पर इस्तेमाल करते हुए वे किस बारीक
साजिश का एक हिस्सा हैं या फिर शिकार हैं।
सच तो यह है कि गालियों के जरिए एक ऐसा समाज मनोविज्ञान और ऐसी राजनीति का
जाल बनाया गया है, जो आखिरकार जाति, नस्ल या लिंग के आधार पर सत्ताधारी,
शासक और शोषक वर्गों का हित इस रूप में साधता है कि इससे सामाजिक हैसियत का
मनोविज्ञान ज्यों-का-त्यों बना रहता है। यानी इस रास्ते शासित वर्गों को
अपमानित करके उसका मनोबल गिराए रखना और उस पर मानसिक नियंत्रण बनाए रखना
शासन का सबसे ताकतवर औजार बना। इसमें एक तरफ स्त्री की देह को ही उसकी
अस्मिता का पर्याय बना दिया गया तो दूसरी ओर समाज के कमजोर तबकों की
सामाजिक हैसियत, यानी वर्णक्रम पर आधारित जाति-व्यवस्था में नीची कही जाने
वाली जाति की पहचान। यहां स्त्री के यौन की उनकी इज्जत का दूसरा नाम और उसे
अपने नियंत्रण में रखने के लिए उसके यौन के खिलाफ शारीरिक या शाब्दिक
हमला-हिंसा सामाजिक सत्ताओं का मूल चरित्र इसलिए बना, क्योंकि इससे एक साथ
शूद्र जातियों और स्त्रियों- दोनों पर मनोवैज्ञानिक, सामाजिक और राजनीतिक
नियंत्रण रखने में सबसे ज्यादा मदद मिली।
जाहिर है, ऐसे मनोवैज्ञानिक ढांचे-सांचे में जीते-मरते समाज की कुंठाओं का
शोषण वैसी ही नई कुंठाओं के सार्वजनिक प्रदर्शन के जरिए करना सबसे आसान है।
और आमिर खान या सुधीर मिश्रा जैसे तमाम फिल्मकारों का मकसद केवल इन
कुंठाओं का शोषण करके कुबेर बनना भर नहीं है, बल्कि उस साजिश को कामयाब
बनाना भी है, जिसमें यह सामंती, मर्दवादी और ब्राह्मणवादी व्यवस्था कायम
रहे।
भदेसपन और संस्कृति का अभिन्न हिस्सा होने की दलील देकर जो लोग गालियों का
बचाव करते हैं या उन्हें महिमामंडित करते हैं, वे भी दरअसल अनजाने में या
फिर जान-बूझ कर इस साजिश का हिस्सा बनते हैं। दलील भले ही जनतांत्रिक होने
और लोकभाषाओं के प्रति सहनशील होने की हो...।
