You seldom remember the names of the directors of comedies. But Kundan Shah is a glorious exception. Corruption refuses to fade away from our lives and so his Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro , which continues to grow in our collective memory as it is becoming increasingly difficult to speak the truth. So says Shah but the next moment comes up with something sardonic that scythes through the soul and puts a smile on the lips. “My experience says quality of food and films is inversely proportional. Jitna achcha khaana, utni bekaar film.” Before you can get the import, he narrates a multi-layered story. “When Mani Kaul was planning to make Duvidha based on the short story of Vijaydan Detha, he didn’t have the money to buy raw stock. At that time Kodak was selling its rejected film stock. Kaul bought it at throwaway rates and reached Detha’s home in Rajasthan to shoot the film. Years later Shah Rukh Khan made Paheli on the same story. Detha told me Kaul had made the whole film in the amount Shah Rukh spent on Bisleri bottles. And you know the result.”
A good friend of Kaul, Shah says the maverick filmmaker had a strong sense of humour. “After watching Paheli , Kaul, who had directed Shah Rukh in Ahmak joked that he should go to Shah Rukh and tell him that the world knows the story now let’s make the film.” Shah reminds films like Agent Vinod and Asoka also figure in the same list.
The episode takes me back to Thoda Khao Thoda Pheko imagery of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro , a strong comment on American consumerism. “Food was always in very short supply on the sets of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro . In the Mahabharat scene it was difficult to distinguish between junior and senior artistes and the food for 40 was consumed by 80. I was the last one to eat and had to make do with watery dal and paav. I can say that nobody laughed on the sets.”
In the city to promote his latest flick P Se PM Tak , we meet at S18, the all-day dining restaurant of Noida’s Radisson Blu. The easy and relaxed atmosphere of the brasserie suits Shah’s unfussy culinary choices. He picks mix dal, steamed rice and herb potato and unravels the story of a hooker who goes on to become the chief minister. A metaphor for today’s politicians, Shah says she is always hungry for food. “After all it is this hunger that drives the choices we make.”
Shah holds that we are living in darker times than Vinod and Sudhir. “There are a lot many Tanejas now in comparison to when Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro got made. The film could not have been made without NFDC support. The committee didn’t question the script at all. No questions were asked as to why Akbar comes in a scene which starts with Mahabharat. And the biggest was the freedom to go wrong, the freedom to fail. That is very important.”
Even the media, he adds has acquired darker shades. “I remember appreciating the comment a leading daily had written in an editorial that the film is like a home video. It is hard to criticise the media now.”
Despite giving a cult film, industry hasn’t given Shah another chance to make sense of India political scenario. Of course, he has given successful films like Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa and Kya Kehna but his real forte—political satire – has not been tested. “They believe in vigilante films. I don’t think vigilantes can change the society. Through such films the audience get a chance to release their frustration. It gives them a vicarious pleasure.” For him every film is political. Even Happy New Year . “And I firmly believe that films do affect society. I started smoking after watching films. In Hollywood the heroes were sponsored by brands.”
He doesn’t take the lack of opportunities to heart though. “A painter makes only one film, a writer writes only one novel. It reflects the way they look at the world. Story is just the body; you bare you soul only once. After that the idea is to get more purified. To make your art sharper and richer. Some filmmakers are lucky to get opportunities. Others are victims of circumstances.”
He reminds what Godard once said, “There are 1000 gags. The idea is you throw away one gag at a time and finally arrive at one gag and then probably to a comedy film with no gag at all. I experienced it while directing Wagle Ki Duniya in the illustrious company of R.K. Laxman.”
Times have changed and Shah laments that it is very difficult now to see cinema as an art of expression. “Cinema has to be made without the tag of viability. And only State can sponsor such cinema.” He narrates another incident to attest his point. At one point producer Gul Anand, who had backed films like Chashme Buddoor , was trying to buy Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro from NFDC told Shah that he was buying his film but if he had brought the script to him he would have thrown it out of the window. “He couldn’t visualise the film on the page,” says Shah reflecting the limitations of producers and actors to understand comedy at the script level. “Even Naseer had problems understanding the so-called absurd situations.”
Over the years the State, Shah maintains, has abdicated the role of a benefactor of quality cinema. “Tell me what is the life of many of our commercial successes? Let’s take the case of my friend Nikhil Advani’s film Salaam e-Ishq . What is Salaam e Ishq doing now after making 30 crores at the box office? The entire output of Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen’s films may not have made 30 crores but they are timeless.”
As Shah repeats the cycle of rice and daal, he remembers his wife’s cooking. “Whenever we go out I tell her that she makes this dish better. She doesn’t like it anymore because she gets bored of cooking and wants to eat outside. So praise doesn’t always help, even if it is genuine. Since I have time now I want her to teach me some basic cooking but she doesn’t have the patience,” says the 68-year-old, who swears by traditional Gujarati food – rotla, bajre ki roti, baigan ki sabzi, urad ki daal and gud.
Time for mango cup cake. Marvelling at the shapes aam can take, Shah tells us that he is working on the sequel of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro. “I came to cinema from a literary background but now I consume economics because today economics govern politics. I have my own theory on gas prices.” For Shah truth is always stranger than fiction. “We keep scripting bizarre situations but ‘their’ scripts are even more bizarre. Like I have been told that the Arab Spring is about controlling a huge resource of underground water in Libya. I have conceived the climax at the interval and the second half provides solutions that are scientifically and economically viable.”
Talking of bizarre, he has conceived an educated joker in the erstwhile Planning Commission (now Niti Ayog). “I told a member once that you guys are too serious. You should have a joker. You will get a different point of view. Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro has given me the license to be James Bond. I can kill anybody. I can make any kind of film. If you want a comedy that is your problem.”
