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Do you think the multiplex culture has contributed to cinema’s evolvement?
If you look at Hindi cinema, particularly in the last 10 to 12 years, the multiplexes with multiple screen cinemas have come into play. In addition to single-screen cinemas, the multiplexes also exist and they charge a lot more money, which means it caters to the urban middle class who can afford to pay for tickets. In places like Delhi and Bombay, the ticket prices could be as high as the United States or Britain or even France. So what has happened is that, by doing this, you have different classes of people going to different types of cinema. This obviously means that those different classes of people would like to see different kinds of films, opening up a sense of choice. Two decades ago, if you made a film and it had to recover the money spent, it had to be seen by a very large number of people in single screen cinemas. In Mumbai, for example, if you were filling 80 per cent of a cinema hall of 1,000 seats, you didn’t even break even. But today filling 80 per cent of a 1,000 seat cinema can become a huge success because the value (of the tickets) is much more. Now people can see different kinds of films, closer to their choice (in cinema).

Most of your films are political or social satires, or they showcase deep human relationships. To make simple cinema on such subjects can be challenging, don’t you think?
There is an attempt to define entertainment in other ways than just the obvious. I find mass media’s definition of entertainment very narrow and shallow. I believe that all good entertainment must eventually lead to some insight. Something you can take home and appreciate in your mind or your own world.

Who are your favourite Hollywood directors? What inspired you to get into cinema?
I got hooked onto cinema by the time I was six or seven. There were quite a few Hollywood and Bollywood filmmakers who I grew to admire in my teens. Among the Hollywood filmmakers whose work I admired the most were the famous ones like Billy Wilder and William Wyler. And from Bollywood’s side, there was Mehmood, Bimal

Roy and Guru Dutt. There were also a number of Czechoslovakian, Hungarian and Russian directors as well as French directors of the time whose work was inspiring. It was my love and passion for the cinema that kept me interested, as there was no film school in my time.

How did the concept of making the films Mammo, Sardari Begum and Zubeida trilogy come about?
It didn’t start that way. It started with only one part of the story, which had to do with Khalid Mohammad’s great aunt, whose name was Mammo, Mehmooda Begum. The whole thing started when he did a piece in the Times of India about this lady who got married to someone in Pakistan after partition. She went there and settled down but within a few years, her husband died. She had no children and the family into which she had gotten married felt like she was a burden on them. So they threw her out of the house and then she managed to live in mosques and other places like that until she managed to get a visa to go to India. She had only two living relations . . . one was a sister living in Bombay and one was a sister living up north. So she went to live with her elder sister in Bombay. And the sister’s grandson was Khalid. So when the old lady (Mammo, Mehbooba Begum) came and her visa ran out and there was no way for her to remain here...the Indian authorities deported her. They didn’t care about the fact that she was an old lady and there was nobody on the other side of the border. It was a very legal thing— she didn’t have a visa, so out she goes!

The story up to then, was written in the beginning (before the trilogy was conceptualized) . . . I asked him (Khalid Mohammad) to do a script (for Mammo) of this for me, which Khalid Mohammad did. He is a very well-known film critic. The story ended when she was deported, so it was a very tragic kind of story and made a point as to how borders come in the way in all sorts of things, the Indo-Pakistani relations etc. During this time, while Khalid was writing this story, I was traveling to Egypt and I got a message from him that his grand aunt had returned in reality, but came with a temporary visa. So we both attempted to get her permanent residency in India. I had spoken to a lot of people and we tried our best but it wasn’t working out. After trying everywhere, the solution came to Khalid rather simply—she would remain a permanent resident if she had a death certificate. So a death certificate was made out stating that she had died! There was this strange irony that here is someone who can live in India but has to die first. This real story eventually became the film. So at the end of the movie she says, “I am now a farishta (an angel)” and they all have a good laugh about it! That was the true story of Mammo.

What about the other two sequels, Sardari Begum and Zubeida?
After Mammo, Khalid suddenly got really interested in his rather unique family. So he said that he had a story about a cousin of his mother who happened to be a very well-known singer. And her tragedy was that she died in a Hindu-Muslim riot. She was not an intended victim, she was an unintended victim. She was looking out from the balcony of her house and a rock came and hit her on her head and she died. She was a fairly good thumri (a form of semi-indian classical music) singer, her name was Sardari Begum. This story appealed to me as it was in the same kind of genre and a subject of great interest to me . . . Hindu-Muslim relations. Mammo was about relations between India and Pakistan. When I made (Sardari Begum), it was also the story of the same family and Khalid got even more into the biographical mode. And then he said that the most interesting story was the one he was trying not to deal with for a long time, which was the story of his mother—Zubeida. So he wrote the script for that (Zubeida) and asked me if I was interested in making it. And I said, “of course” and that is how it became a trilogy.

It seems like you have a very deep understanding of the Muslim culture. Is it your Hyderabad connection or had you researched thoroughly?
I suppose both! But it helped that I grew up in Hyderabad and that I had Muslim neighbors and that I am very familiar with the social and religious life of the Hindu and the Muslim community. To me, neither of these things are either strange or exotic nor do I consider a Muslim "the other." Therefore, I belong to that generation for whom these things never matter. t is very easy to function without thinking about people other than yourself as others. It's never been a problem to connect with people outside of my own cultural kin. A certain amount of researching is necessary, but ultimately there are cultures and there are micro cultures. I revel in our country’s diversity.

After such serious movies, how did the idea of Welcome to Sajjanpur strike you?
Well, it was in my head for a long time . . . as a story it originally came from a peon in my office whom I picked up literally from the street. He was totally illiterate but very bright. He kept going up in life and decided to get married. His wife was a fairly well-educated young woman. When she was in village, she wrote letters to him like any young wife would write to a young husband . . . full of passion. Unfortunately, he had to get someone else to read the letters out to him. So that idea converted into Welcome to Sajjanpur.

Did you feel that it was a completely new genre for you to experiment in?
When you are a filmmaker or anyone in the creative field, apart from being creative, you also have to work out strategies in order to make sure that you are capable of communicating whatever ideas you have to the present generation. My generation, which was some 40 years ago, was much like myself. But now I am dealing with an audience which is not much like myself. They're very different. Therefore, I have to find ways and means of communicating with this generation. And the concern might be the same but the manner of communication cannot be the same because if it is, then I would be more suitable for the museum. I have to constantly learn and relearn if I wish to carry on. But having said all that, you can’t not be who you are.

You have received many awards. How much do they really matter?
It’s a matter of being recognized and it is a matter of somebody saying that you are being recognized and applauded. Who doesn’t like to be applauded? I don’t know a single person who doesn’t. I am no different from anybody else in that sense.

Which awards matter the most?
The awards given to you by your own peers are the ones that you cherish the most, for a very simple reason. Satisfying your peers is by far the most difficult thing to do.

Out of the current generation, who catches your eye?
There are so many. There is such a rich harvest there and wonderful young filmmakers are emerging like Dibaker Banerjee (Khosla ka Ghosla) and Anurag Kashyap (Black Friday). There are quite a number of them. And it's after a very long time in the film industry that we have so much talent at the same time!

BY: NEHA SARIN / PUBLISHED: SEPTEMBER 2010 ISSUE
PHOTO COURTESY OF SHYAM BENEGAL