You learn when dealing with contrarian views: Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha

You have embarked on this unique yatra to engage with audiences in smaller centres and gain insights into the health of single-screen theatres. What prompted this journey?

It’s difficult to articulate what I’m doing and what the takeaway is. It started with people in Mumbai telling me that such films work in such cities. It led to two things. One, I am from a small town, and I told them they were wrong. But when they show me data, I have to agree with them. It got me confused. The other sweeping statement that I kept hearing is that theatres are dying. It bothers me because I want to make films for theatres. So I thought I’d go to 20-30 cities, visit these theatres, meet the theatre owners and managers, and figure it out.

During your travels, did you notice what audiences in these cities expect from Hindi cinema, and how does this compare to what is being offered?

I realised it’s been 35 years since I left a small town, and as I’ve changed, so have the cities. If I don’t know Banaras well now, I certainly don’t know Kanpur, Agra, or Jhansi. I talk to people about their lives and cities, and they often talk about films. There’s a clear gap between what audiences expect and what they get. As someone from Banaras and Aligarh who’s become disconnected from his roots, I believe others may feel the same, and this shows in our films.

Have the OTT platforms changed the game?

There is an elephant in the room. It’s called the Internet. And right now, we are standing too close to the elephant. So, we don’t know its size. You know, if you stand this close to an elephant for the first time in your life, you will not know an elephant. You’ll have to step back to see how big this is. So, all this AI, OTT...it’ll take us time to see the whole shape. Yes, fewer people are going to theatres, but even fewer are going to malls and even fewer to bookstores. Have the books died? No. In fact, book sales have increased. Bollywood is a very convenient punching bag. Doctors are available on apps. People are ordering dosa at home, and they don’t seem to mind how soggy it becomes. Similarly, people are ordering films for home delivery. What we can see has gone wrong is the distribution of money on both sides of the camera. That ratio has gone lopsided. And that is the OTT’s contribution.

Was your shift from Tum Bin and Ra. One to a socio-politically confrontational mode with Mulk and Article 15, organic or did something change inside you?

This was me. A small-town Banaras boy who lived through his early teens during the Emergency and witnessed riots all over U.P. goes to Aligarh to study. While going there, it felt like I was travelling to some other country, but there I had one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. In the process, I must have become a bit political for sure. But when I reached Bombay, I was a mechanical engineer. I quit that, and I went on to make films. It was probably, subliminally, a career for me that lasted for many years. And then I realised the potential of the art form that I was pursuing.

Mulk opens with a frame that shows how a nuqta, a dot, can completely change the meaning. It exemplifies your knack for deftly presenting two contrasting perspectives of the subject to the audience. Where did it come from?

This must have something to do with my upbringing. In my house, my father and my mother were both music buffs. There were LPs of both Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s Madhushala and Begum Akhtar’s ghazals. I was fond of both. I remember almost the whole of Madhushala that Manna Dey had recorded. Then I went to Aligarh Muslim University for education and was introduced to the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and the meaning of Faiz’s poetry. I think I was just fortunate to have lived in two extremely diverse cities during my formative years. I don’t believe in blacks and whites. I find grey the most fascinating colour.

In Mulk, the main character is a practising patriotic Muslim, which is a rarity in mainstream Hindi cinema. They usually don’t make such characters at the centre. How did it come about?

Because I probably know those people. I remember I was new in Aligarh, and people would say Allah Tala. I was fascinated as an ignorant person. I wondered, Allah miya ke naam ke aage taala kyon lagaya. (Why put a lock as a suffix to the name of God?) One day, I asked a Maulana Sahab. He said it was Ta’ala, the number one. You may or may not subscribe to it. But this is what it means to me. He left an impact on me; his kindness, patience, and belief made me learn something about him.

And then in the same film, you give Ashutosh Rana’s advocate ample space to articulate the bigotry that has swelled around us....

Well, I think everyone should have a voice because the moment the so-called liberals start stifling the opposing or inconvenient voice, then you are being a fascist yourself. Every voice should have space....

In Article 15, the protagonist is an upper-caste person. Did you want to show the privileged patrons a mirror to years of discrimination? Or as the section felt that you presented him as an upper-caste saviour.

When I wrote the film with Gaurav (Solanki), the idea was to take it upon ourselves to say we created this system, that we must participate, and that we must take a lead to change it. And yes, there were some people, including my Director of Photography (Ewan Mulligan), who questioned the shot, where Ayushmann (Khurrana) carries the (Dalit) girl in his arms. And he said, no, I disagree with this shot. Why should he do it? Why aren’t the villagers doing it? And he’s (Ewan) a white man. I said, in Indian films, you need it: the audience looks up to the heroes, and I’m not making a white-saviour thing. But probably I was. And I took that criticism very respectfully, and it helped me understand. If you deal with contrarian views, you learn.

Why did the Dalit leader played by Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub have to die when in real life the person he is based on is growing in stature?

In such films, there are certain characters you want to leave hope with, and specific actions you want to break someone’s heart to stoke action. I made him die to stoke action. I wanted to wake you from your slumber. It is about what is suitable for the story.

So there is a struggle between social responsibility and storytelling...

Striking a balance between the two is very difficult. I try my best to be responsible while telling a story, but I don’t think you will always strike a good balance.

In Bheed, Rajkummar Rao’s character, a Dalit policeman, is so conscious of his past that he carries it with him even during moments of physical intimacy with his upper-caste girlfriend. Where did it come from?

I have read a lot of material written by Dalit writers. Someone who’s been denied his place in society finally gets a uniform. It gives him social responsibility and power, but what he has lived remains, and that causes performance anxiety in him, not only in his physical intimacy with his girlfriend, but also as a policeman, which is what I was trying to say.

While mounting Thappad, how did you get over your own biases while focusing on systemic patriarchy rather than individual villainy?

Sometimes, even after the whole experience of making that film, I’m sure, inadvertently, every once in a while, I indulge in misogyny because it’s been decades of living with a particular ideology. I realised this much later, it was actually my father who was helping me to make that film. Hailing from Jaunpur (U.P.), he worked in a government department. But in today’s evolved terminology, he is an extremely liberal man. In 1981, my sister had a boyfriend who would come home and spend the whole day with us. At the time, I did not look at it as, wow, my parents are allowing this. I think papa played a big role in how Thappad turned out. I’ve never seen him misbehave with my mother.

Some films have a long and interesting post-release life. Ra.One is one of them. With AI a reality, we could read a deeper meaning into the premise of the sci-fi spectacle you made in 2011.

Ra.One has the most wonderful post-release life. When it was released, I was almost depressed, not clinically, but yes. Seven years after its release, in 2018, suddenly everything changed. Now they tell me it’s iconic. I try not to take praise as seriously as I do criticism. So, while I get a lot of love for Ra.One now, also, what happens is the kids who loved Ra.One is in their 20s now. When I get to meet them, I get a whole lot of love. But, of course, it was flawed. And, of course, it should and could have been better.

Sometimes your films tend to get pedantic, and certain sections read like an editorial.

Not pedantic, but I do get criticism for being a bit didactic sometimes. Filmmaking is like riding a horse and holding the reins. Sometimes you can get a little tighter than necessary or hold it looser than required. Also, in terms of literacy and sensitivity, we are a very diverse country. A thin population is sensitised towards caste and gender equality. However, there’s a large audience that isn’t, and you want to reach both. So, sometimes the outreach you make for this one ends up being didactic for that one.

Within the pro-government narrative, there are now two variations. One is The Kashmir Files kind of direct narrative, and the other is what we see in Dhurandhar, where political messaging or agenda is dressed in the form of a spectacle. How do you see this trend?

In my opinion, Dhurandhar is a seminal film. Although I haven’t watched it, when you start hearing similar views from everyone, you seem to know the film a bit. It’s tough for filmmakers to watch their own films. It’s very difficult for us to go absolutely blank and watch a film. And right now, it’s coloured for various reasons, including the debate surrounding the film.

Why do you say that?

Because it has a genuinely large subscriber base.

But you earlier said that subscribers don’t matter; it’s the film’s shelf life that truly matters.

In my view, this will have a long life.

Do you think it will change the way filmmakers approach the subject?

It will. Every successful film changes something for some time.

While Dhurandhar blames the politicians for the Kandahar hijack, you hold the bureaucracy responsible in your award-winning mini-series on the subject...

That’s my view, based on extensive research I conducted. I didn’t rely on any one source. From declassified U.S. government documents to the views of people who were part of the system at the time of the hijack, I read whatever worthwhile I could lay my hands on.

The similarity is that, like you, Aditya Dhar focuses only on Jaswant Singh, the then External Affairs Minister, as the political face of the crisis.

That was the truth. He must have done his research.

What about the then Home Minister?

He wasn’t very active in this episode.

Is there space for a Mulk 2, or do you think polarisation has gone too far?

Children (Israel-Gaza conflict) are being massacred. We have gone too far. The whole world is complicit in inertia. So, let’s not fool ourselves with an OTT series or a film.