Maisam Ali’s Ladakh

What happens when you understand the language of your homeland but cannot relate to its music? Having been born in Iran and spent his early childhood there, when Maisam Ali came to Ladakh, the soundtrack in his head did not match the one outside. This fundamental disconnect, birthed in childhood, allows him to look at his home both as an outsider and an insider. The result? A meditative movie about a wanderer who returns home but is considered a stranger. Ali’s camera in his debut feature, In Retreat, follows him from the back, taking him in and out of narrow streets and tiny restaurants. The film was accepted in the Association for the Diffusion of Independent Cinema (ACID) section of the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year and one can see why. The film is a poetic exploration of Ladakhi identity at a politically volatile time but in an oblique way. Perhaps the stranger in the film is the director himself, forever in the shadows, forever invisible, embodying the tragedy of the small-town migrant who leaves home for education and a career and then lives in a kind of limbo. Ali, who studied at the Film and Television Institute of India after obtaining a degree in polymer science at the Delhi College of Engineering, stumbled into filmmaking while helping a classmate with dialogues. “It was a spiritual experience and gave me immense creative satisfaction,” he says. A stint in advertising in Mumbai was a soul-crushing experience because of their copy-paste techniques. But he liked the city. “Everybody is a stranger in Mumbai,” he says. In 2017, he started writing In Retreat, and the labour of love, longing, and loss took its own time, often stalled because of lack of money.

Unusual Choices

He has heard it often enough. What is a boy from Doon School and St Stephen’s College doing in the Mumbai film industry? But as Rajeev Siddhartha says: life is not about settling because something or the other will unsettle you. Tired of advising high net worth individuals on how to get richer, he thought he’d go back to his college passion of theatre. A role in Mohan Rakesh’s Adhe Adhure (2014) was his big break professionally. He toured India with the play and got a small part in Jolly LLB (2013) with minimal dialogues. “I remember Arshad Warsi came up to me and said: ‘There’s something about you. Just keep at it’. It was such a validation for me.” But, of course, he does not want to become a prisoner of external validation. “It’s a tough industry and if you can’t mingle or network, more so. That’s where one’s growth as a human being is very important,” says Siddhartha, who was seen most recently in the Zee5 movie, Love, Sitara, and in Jio Cinema’s series Honeymoon Photographer. “Spirituality allows you to see other people for who they are. It enables you to empathise with rejects and discards,” he says. The stage feels like home to him now, not a stand-in for the screen, big and small. His most challenging parts recently have been in Mahesh Dattani’s Gauhar, staged by Primetime Theatre, where he plays three roles. But the question he is most asked is when Ashram’s next season will appear. The Dhanbad-born Siddhartha is a firm believer in destiny and always remembers Naseeruddin Shah’s sage advice in the context of acting: daane daane pe likha hai khanewale ka naam (Each actor comes with his parts written for him in advance).

Rewind

It is the season for re-releases. It’s also the season for horror movies. So it’s no surprise that Tumbbad, first released in 2018, has hit the theatres once again. With a footfall of 2.5 million, the film has made over ₹30 crore at the box office in its re-release. Its producer and actor Sohum Shah is delighted, calling it his “Mughal-E-Azam”. He calls horror a great genre because it has no limit in the worlds it can be set in, allowing one to play with imagination. “I gave it seven years of my life. I produce so I can act,” he adds. When Tumbbad was released in 2018, it was sandwiched between Andhadhun and Badhaai Ho. “The audience was not ready at that time,” he says. He is now working on ‘Crazy’, which he plans to release next year. Being a producer is a thankless job, he says, while the actor is given every facility possible. Shah is a Hanuman devotee because of the God’s two great virtues, bhakti (surrender) and bal (it has no direct English translation, he says). Krishna Das’ rendition of the Hanuman Chalisa is the sweetest he has heard. “He was told to sing by Neem Karoli Baba. Listening to him will change your life,” he insists.

BollywoodcinemaMaisam AliRajeev SiddharthaSohum Shah