The man with the glass eye
V S Srnivasan
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Ashok Mehta. Click for bigger pic!
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If ever a star snaps at a canteen boy, as politely as possible warn her/him that at least one such canteen boy went on to become a director. Name of Ashok Mehta
Ashok is more famous as a cameraman, one of the most sought-after in India and the winner of several awards. Some of the more famous films he worked in are Aparna Sen's 36 Chowringhee Lane , Shekar Kapur's Bandit Queen, Subhash Ghai's Saudagar and Rajiv Rai's Gupt. And now, confident after making 800 ad films, he is now directing a film of his own, Moksh-The Salvation.
That is a strange name, but not quite as strange as the clean-shaven man clad in Western clothes who watches in unruffled silence as a stuntman messes up and tumbles into his precious camera. He doesn't even get up from his seat, Theek hai na? Shot ready karo, he tells his assistant.
And as the unfortunate stuntman gets up and begins babbling his apologies, From beneath his Stetson, Mehta looks the man up and down for injuries.
"Beta, tumko laga to nahin," he asks, with an edge of concern. Amazing, in a world where stuntmen are contemptible menials, whose lives and health mean nothing to the film. In the usual case, the man would have been cursed, even sacked. Even Rakesh Mehra, who directed Amitabh Bachchan in Aby Baby, is awed by Mehta's stoic calm. He has never seen anything like this.
But then, small beginnings often make a big man. Ashok started off as a canteen boy, worked as a hawker, a lightman and finally a camera attendant, before he finally became a cameraman. No FTII course for this award-winner. The long, unrelenting struggle has given him a better understanding of the world than his high-flying contemporaries have. And a humility they may never possess.
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A still from Bandit Queen. Click for bigger pic!
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By the by, we were interviewing him on the sets of another ad film he was filming, around the Indian cricket team. And the stuntman was supposed to make the cricketer look good with a spectacular leap across the artificial turf. That's when the mishap happened. No matter. Nothing damaged, no egos bruised and, more important, no tempers frayed.
The shot over, Ashok calls for lunch in his inimitable style. "We break for bhakri," he says and gets the bemused foreigner seated beside him to repeat the line. After attending to a couple of calls on his mobile, Mehta proceeds towards his rest room where he offers to share his bhakri with him.
Simple fare but delicious. Between munches of unleavened bread, the man begins discussing Moksh. "I am the producer, director and cameraman of the film... And the triple role is putting pressure on the man. "Yes, it's difficult, but I have to manage all three," he says. And when it comes to spending, will be the producer or the director who will rule? Ashok negotiates that one carefully.
"See, the producer in me will always be stingy, but then when it comes to making a shot better, the director will take over. I will want the best results. But there are certain instances where one has to compromise. Yet the compromise will not affect the quality of the film. No one will say that Ashok Mehta compromised with the quality of the film because he had less money."
While he is clear he wants a quality product, he won't slot Moksh as either an art film or a commercial one.
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With Arjun Rampal. Click for bigger pic!
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"There is nothing like an offbeat film or an inbeat film. We can only make good or bad films. A film like a Bandit Queen was a masterpiece. It is difficult to make a film like that. One has to make the audience understand what the film is about. You cannot make a film the audience cannot understand. You have to take care of the essentials of mainstream cinema," he says.
Sanjay Dutt was to have acted in the film three years ago but after his internment at government cost, the role went to Arjun Rampal.
"Manisha told me that she wanted to act in my film; that's why she is doing the heroine's role." He picked Arjun since he felt he would be a good actor. In fact, it was on Ashok's recommendation that Shantanu Sheorey picked Arjun for his Jadh.
"Arjun has done good job in both these films. He is a very talented actor. It should be premature to call him an Amitabh Bachchan or anything, but he will certainly become a Arjun," predicts Mehta.
Asked about the name, Mehta brushes off the question.
"See, it is just a name. It doesn't make much of a difference. Gulzar named his film as Maachis which just means a match box. The film still did well. It is ultimately the film that matters. A good film will always work: You can call your film anything -- the film shouldn't be cheap; it should make sense; it should have its own character.
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A still from Gupt. Click for bigger pic!
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"If you see Akira Kurosawa's film, you realise that it is his film. Similarly you have a Spielberg who makes a film like Jurassic Park and at the same time a Schindler's List. So it is important that your thoughts are diverse too. Spielberg has never allowed himself to be typecast. So we have to keep on making films that are different. But there should be some reasoning behind the film. If I am making a film there should be a bloody message behind it and I should handle my film with conviction."
Ashok looks up to a few Indian film-makers like Mehboob Khan and Raj Kapoor. "They knew what they were doing. They had their own distinctive style, like Spielberg. But the best thing was that they never repeated themselves, which was all to their advantage. Success comes later. First you have to start making good films."
The director feels messages are important in the medium but one must never forget to entertain.
"You look at American, and even some European films. They have matter that balances equally between the classes and the masses. Every film should have such a mix that appeals to every one. Only then, it has a chance at the box office.
"Look at Sholay. It had a lovely characterisation., Ramesh Sippy could make such a film because he believed in the subject and knew his characters well. Salim-Javed created great characters with excellent dialogues. Such things only happen once in a lifetime, but we can always try." But he has a low opinion of the average Bollwood film.
"I know. I work here. I have also shot some of these films. You realise that the stories are all the bloody same. So I've decided to do quality work alone. Oh, I don't mind working with new directors. I don't mind working in films where there is not much money if I get satisfaction. I have not changed in 24 years and I will not change either. I know what I have to do."
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Click for bigger pic!
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If it was money he was seeking, he says, he gets enough from the ad films he does. "I don't have to make a film like this where I have to put in so much effort and money. I am doing so, because the medium attracts me." But he prefers not to make a film that runs into losses.
"Why should you make such a film? I am not a very well read person, But people tell me that I am articulate. This is because I do what I believe in. I do not believe in fabricating dreams that make no sense."
So isn't Moksh a dream project?
The director says the subject -- on the need to be good -- and the treatment are fresh. And there's a love story woven in to try and keep the film afloat. It was written by his old friend Raj Marbros and Ashok had wanted to make the film as early as in 1981. It's only now that he's got the time for it, he says.
1981? That's a long time. Hasn't the subject, the story, become outdated? No, says Ashok, affirming his faith in Raj, who started work with him from his first film as an independent cameraman, Witness. Raj had directed Witness starring Shashi Kapoor, Rakhee and Utpal Dutt in 1974. The film never saw the light of the projector.
"...But the film brought me very close to Shashi... He even recommended my name to Aparna Sen when she was looking out for a cameraman for 36 Chowringhee Lane. He asked me for a a few reels of Witness to show to Aparna. She saw my work and took me on. Frankly, Shashi Kapoor has been my best PRO till date."
A good one for the runaway schoolboy from Delhi who was lured by the mirage of Bollywood.
"My acting bhoot (craze) went out the moment I realised how one had to fight for survival here. Yet I had to struggle on. There was no point going back empty-handed. "After I became a camera attendant, I re-established contact with home, writing a letter to my parents. I had become something at least." Quite something.
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