Saurabh Shukla Reloaded

When people make money, they buy luxury homes, fancy cars or go on expensive holidays. When he managed to save some money, actor-director Saurabh Shukla decided to buy the best film equipment there was. So, when the pandemic hit the world, he thought the time was right to use it. With help from friends, he learnt how to use it and the result, after three-and-a-half months of filming and 52 hours of dubbing, is the 82-minute film, The Incomplete Tale of Satyaprakash Paramkovid, written, directed and starring him. Made in the cinéma vérité style, with dialogue on the go, it is a string of sequences which comes together beautifully to underline the chaos, paranoia and numbness that characterised most of us during the prolonged lockdown. For the first time in his adult life, Shukla, a long-time theatre and cinema veteran who has played iconic screen characters such as Kallu Mama in Satya (1998) and the judge in Jolly LLB 2 (2017), was not working. So, partly to keep himself occupied and largely because he fell in love with the purity of filmmaking again, Shukla managed to shoot the film, with friends chipping in to do the editing and music. The movie takes potshots at our Westernised notions, at our ability to paint others as demons, and dwells on the courage of living a solitary life. It premiered at the second Chandigarh Music and Film Festival at Chandigarh University, where the reception from the students was overwhelming. They got the dry humour, whether it was being defrauded by a bootlegger with the colourful name of Mogambo Lal or the irony of being more scared of a guard from Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir than of Covid-19. Shukla has been extremely productive. He has also wrapped up the cinematic adaptation of his own play, Jab Khuli Kitab, starring the magnificent Pankaj Kapur and Dimple Kapadia.

Punjab Calling

Imtiaz Ali has always loved Punjab, whether it is its actuality in Jab We Met (2007) or its memory in Jab Harry Met Sejal (2017). Its open roads, its largely good-hearted people and its soulful music stir something deep in the boy who grew up in Jamshedpur spending time in a family theatre watching movies on loop, sometimes stepping out to call the projectionist from his bidi break. And Punjab has loved him back, giving him stories and music for his movies. So, it’s no surprise that he is working on a biopic of folk singer Amar Singh Chamkila who was assassinated along with his wife and two bandmates during the insurgency in 1988. At a time when Punjabi music is enjoying a global resurgence with stars such as AP Dhillon and NAV (albeit in English), it will be interesting to see Ali’s take on Chamkila, who is to be played by Diljit Dosanjh. Ali, who was also at the Chandigarh Music and Film Festival, was struck by the positive energy of the state, the stirrings of a new beginning, not politically as much as emotionally. Chamkila, a Dalit Sikh, wrote truths about Punjabi society that weren’t very palatable to those who believe in fake narratives. In a way, he was a precursor of today’s Punjabi rap stars—his songs were hugely popular with the Punjabi diaspora, especially in Canada—when they are being authentic. Ali is a great romantic and his filmography is proof of it, and though he steers clear of politics, the fact is his cinema speaks more from the dil rather than the dimaag.

Scene and Heard

What would persuade Sharmila Tagore to return to cinema at 75? Well, it would have to be something special, and Gulmohar, which has just wrapped up shooting, truly is. Written and directed by Rahul V Chittella, who assisted Mira Nair at one point, the film follows the final four days of the Batra family as they move to a new city, leaving behind the home they lived in for 31 years. The pain of leaving a place you called your own is something every family can understand in these hard times. But with actors such as Tagore, Amol Palekar, Manoj Bajpayee and Suraj Sharma, among others, it is bound to be as full of sorrow as of joy.

BollywoodcinemaImtiaz AliSaurabh ShuklaSharmila Tagore