Saeed Mirza Is Still an Angry Man

The director of the seminal Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyoon Aata Hai on his career as a novelist, the West’s racist ideas and why he found films “very limiting”

This is the same man who penned Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro at Shalimar Cold Drinks, a popular hangout for Muslims in the South Mumbai locality Dongri, and managed to complete that film in the summer of 1989 with the full support of prominent local ruffian Yakub Tempo who had earlier reproached him for not seeking his permission. It was Muslims like Yakub who found themselves integral to that film’s discourse.

Now, writer-director Saeed Akhtar Mirza, radically transformed but still “quietly angry”, is making books. After Ammi: Letter To a Democratic Mother, his first novel that released with modest fanfare in 2008, Mirza retreated to his tranquil home in Goa and returned with his second work of fiction, The Monk, the Moor & Moses Ben Jalloun. Unlike his films, Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro, Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai and Naseem, which depict the solitary struggle of India’s minority community and their constant attempts at validating their existence in a rapidly changing society, his books expose the machinations behind the making of civilisations. From working within ghettos to this sweeping, expansive worldview of human societies, Mirza talks about all that it took to embark on this transition.

Q The Monk, the Moor & Moses Ben Jalloun questions the very edifice of Western academic institutions. It’s about a group of curious students who highlight the Islamic contribution to the making of European civilisation. You term it a piece of “deliberately forgotten history”. Why deliberate?

A Deliberate because it smacks of a racist cover-up. It stems from the idea of Caucasian people being superior. What do you mean by ‘pure blood’? What the hell, we have mixed up so much over the years. To me, that’s a very dangerous vision the world has of itself. That means you are destined to civilise the rest of the world, and because of that, you will end up bombing Iraq, you will enter Vietnam or any part of Africa. What is civilised? Who claims to be civilised? What is modern? Who is modern? Modernity is not a fork-and-knife and a suit-and-tie; modernity is a state of mind. You can wear a dhoti and kurta and be incredibly modern because modernity has nothing to do with how you look but the way you think. What’s prevalent in the West is not a modern idea but a chauvinistic, racist one. There was this comment made by US Senator John McCain that Obama isn’t an Arab but a decent man. I wondered how easily an entire people are dismissed with just one line. That set me thinking.

Q Is your anger directed at America?

A No. I am just saying, as a government, it’s extraordinarily imperialistic. It does not mean the American people. Ordinary people the world over are wonderful and that includes Americans.

Q Is it fair to link this anger with that of the mechanic Albert Pinto?

A (Vehemently) Nahin, nahin. Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai is a slow process of the growth of an individual; a growing consciousness over time. You start from point A and end up at point X. Albert [played by Naseeruddin Shah] is also a member of the minority community, and how does he become mainstream? In the end, he is not only a Christian but also a Christian living in India, and therefore, he is an Indian Christian.

Q Can you take us through how you conceive stories and write them?

A Very much like my cinema. An idea strikes me, and then, I flesh it out and elaborate it. My father [Farhat Akhtar Mirza, writer of the films Naya Daur and Waqt] was a raconteur and used to tell me stories of civilisations. He brought me up with Chinese, Urdu, Telugu, African and Latin American writing, all kinds of literature. He talked about Al-Beruni, Ibn Batuta and Ibn Khaldun. These were memories I had, and then all you have to do is get onto the internet and pick up more information. I was interested in this period from the eighth to the 15th century of Islamic civilisation. What was this phase that Europe calls the ‘Dark Ages’? How does this Dark Age suddenly become enlightened? Is it like a miraculous, divine bolt of lightning? Ah, eureka, today we are an enlightened race, or is it a process over time? How did it happen? Then, I found out—the Western world was merely translating from Arabic to Latin and Greek. From mathematics, philosophy, medicine, astronomy to literature, poetry, physics, chemistry, everything was being translated, and slowly, it entered the universities of Europe.

Q You have mentioned Al-Beruni in your book Ammi as well. In The Monk, the Moor & Moses Ben Jalloun, he takes centrestage as you use an alternative narrative to shed light on his achievements.

A Yes, he is an extraordinary polymath. I wanted to tell his story and this idea was there with me even when I was writing Ammi. I explore Al-Beruni through this girl called Rehana, his namesake, who is a footnote in history. In reality, he did present his book to a young lady and she could have been the daughter of one of his associates. I built a fictional narrative around a young girl in the process of learning.

Q Your wife found Ammi “disjointed and lacking cohesion”. Again, The Monk, the Moor & Moses Ben Jalloun follows a similar narrative structure in which you mix history with travelogue, soliloquies and legends. Would such a complex narrative alienate readers or perplex them?

A It’s another way of seeing. I have used a very ancient form of narrative, like in One Thousand and One Nights. Are the tales in that coherent with each other? They aren’t, and yet, in the larger entirety, they do [attain coherence] and finally you see another image emerging. This beginning, middle and end, and who did what to whom, is a waste of time. I hate this straight-jacketing of structures. Humans are fiction and non-fiction both. This literary installation works for me because it is far more open and democratic and it allows readers to draw conclusions, allows them to reflect, and lets them take away anecdotes and little tales. If it is linked to a larger idea, then there is definitely something there for every reader. But there should be that larger idea, without which it fails.

Q You spend a lot of time in Goa now, like many writers. Is Goa the place for writing?

A Goa gives me a space where I can reflect. But that doesn’t mean I shut myself out from the world. I am accessible to my friends in the evenings. I write the whole day. I have done enough work on the streets of Bombay, done enough wandering its mohallas all my life. When you are in Bombay, you realise it’s a city run totally by builders and developers. There is no point gnashing your teeth over the state of affairs. Bas ho gaya, ab sukoon chahiye (Enough, I want peace now).

Q What dictated the move from cinema to writing?

A Philosophically, I just felt I needed to write books because what I wanted to say could not have been contained in a film. It’s just too vast. This is a far more satisfying process—because, as a writer, I am closer to the reality of the given world.

Q Is this satisfaction different from what you derived through cinema?

A Not that my films left me dissatisfied or anything. But it gives me more satisfaction to chronicle my time in a way that I find new and interesting (laughs). I am no longer young enough [to make films].

Q Does a film touch more lives than a book?

A The two are totally different mediums. The responses to a film, or for that matter, my films, are far more immediate, and then they fade away. Appreciation of a book is continuous. I was amazed by some of the reactions to Ammi. Someone asked me how I could say it all in the first book itself, and wondered if there will be a second book at all. Ammi was not distributed very well. I have a feeling it is a lambi race ka ghoda (long-distance runner). Its impact will be felt over time.

Q Would you say you have found your voice?

A I am not so sure. I see myself as an interlocutor. I don’t know whether I am being accepted and I don’t know if I want to be accepted within the hallowed world of these so-called authors who think they are profound pundits. What are these literary festivals all about? Are they really worth it? I wouldn’t like to be categorised as somebody different from the rest of the world.

Q How do you see the role of a writer? I think what you mean when say you are not “somebody different from the rest of the world” is that writers should engage with society and should not be alienated from the reality around us. Right?

A Fundamentally, they should have an engagement with the world, but they should at some point transcend society and reach the next level of discourse of trying to understand that world. I am very much a product of my environment. The source of all inspiration stems from the real world.

Q Where did your concern for the marginalised, as we see in your films, come from?

A All you have to do is look around and you see faces of people and that’s enough to set you thinking. You might be privileged but can you ignore the reality all the time? In Ammi, I have said ‘Look at the faces of people on the streets, in buses, cabs, and you can see their tension and you realise it’s a world gone awry’. Somewhere there’s a great lie floating around, this lie of exuberance and joie de vivre. It’s not on the streets, it’s not visible there.

Q Your kind of cinema spoke to me. I was raised in a Muslim mohalla and I could feel what an embittered Salim must be going through in that scene in which he asserts that he is an Indian. To me, that is a precursor to later Hindi films that dwell on the dilemma of being a Muslim in the modern world. Why did you stop making films?

A  Naseem (1995) was the epitaph for me—epitaph to an age, to a time, and perhaps, also to cinema. Kaifi Azmi, who acted in the film, represented that age and then the passing away of that age. Not that I will never make films again. It isn’t that. (Pauses) I found films a very limiting experience. But then, everything has its time. Now, I have this idea that I want to make a film on, but let’s see.

Q In Ammi, there’s this anecdote about your mother— that after watching Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastaan, she told you that there was “no story”.

A (Laughs) Yes, I told her that’s why it’s called the strange fate of Arvind Desai.

Q It is probably your only film that is set in an elite household, isn’t it?

A It deals with the upper middle-class and the rich, but it also comes straight down to the status of his college friends who are radicals. It filters down to them, and therefore, there is a divide between the rich and the poor. But it is primarily about Arvind’s life and it is his story and he is trapped by the fact that he has read the right books, has the right ideas and went to the right school, but what do you do with it?

Q How do you look back at your movies?

A I never see them because all I see are the blunders I made. (Laughs) As I keep saying, I will never repeat old mistakes; I will make fresh ones.

Q You refuse to label your films; you call it ‘cinema of integrity’. Does the same go for your books?

A Oh yes, with as much integrity as possible. It’s a battle with yourself all the time—the angst, the pain, the struggle. It’s important to be angry. I am angry (squints). It’s a cold anger. Maybe I am quietly angry. Despite the anger and disappointments, there is this realisation that we cannot change the world around us—at a physical, political or material level—but we can always reflect it and reflect this much larger idea of the world that we have inherited. You cannot deny the role of an individual in this narrative, but he or she is always placed in a context.

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