The magnetic pull of Bollywood is legendary. Writer Sonia Golani is the latest to succumb to the gust of glamour. After writing books like “Corporate Divas” and “My Life, My Rules”, which looked into the lives of women who scaled the corporate ladder and personalities who veered from their chosen direction, this owner of a reputed recruitment consulting firm is now “Decoding Bollywood” (Westland). However, unlike many, she is not enamoured of the stars. Instead, she attempts to crack the code by navigating the compelling stories of 15 directors, the driving force of the industry, and makes a good fist of it.
“The usual Bollywood reporting doesn’t make a sense of how the industry works. I have given it a try as an outsider. Having lived in Mumbai for some time, I have seen these people in the locality, on the beaches….but I didn’t know any of them personally before writing the book. I sent them a proposal and they responded after going through my repertoire which has some substantial names like Mohan Parrikar and Naina Lal Kidwai,” relates Sonia.
From Mahesh Bhatt, Sudhir Mishra and Prakash Jha to Anurag Basu and Rohit Shetty, her selection is not easy to understand. “There is a method,” insists Sonia. “I have tried to limit it to contemporary names, directors who are still active. And I have tried to bring together filmmakers who came from different parts of the country to make a name in Hindi film industry.” She was pleasantly surprised when she found Ashutosh Gowarikar has a sense of humour and Farah Khan has a thinking head on her shoulders. “I expected Ashutosh to be serious and Farah to be playful and light-hearted. These are images generated by television but I found that Farah is pretty level-headed with sorted views.” Similarly, she adds, the struggle of Anurag Basu and Prakash Jha was humbling.
Without getting judgmental about their work or the technical aspects of filmmaking, Sonia has managed her subjects to open up making a smooth transition from the structured world of MBAs and CAs to the magicians of celluloid who can sell anything in three hours flat. For instance, the way Rohit Shetty defends his critic-proof works is refreshing or when Zoya Akhtar says that she doesn’t find someone lifting his shirt and shaking his belly funny any more, we get a sense of the diversity that we are seeing in our cinema halls.
The absence of names like Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee and Rajkumar Hirani baffles and the presence of one-film old Nandita Das makes the selection appear a little lopsided but Sonia defends her choices. “I wanted to feature Aditya Chopra, Karan Johar and Rajkumar Hirani in the book. As you know, Aditya is too reclusive and Hirani opted out at the last minute because of P.K. As for Nandita, she deserves space because directors like her and Nagesh Kukunoor tell the young and academically inclined that there is space for them in the film industry to work on their terms.”
